Misplaced Pages

#640359

112-620: The modern geographic area is known as Naga el-Gherira ( Egyptian Arabic : الغريرة ‎ ). Gebelein is known for its cemetery, where archeological finds stretching from the Predynastic Period to the Middle Kingdom have been made. Archaeological interest in the town started in the early 18th century AD and was included in Benoît de Maillet 's Description de l'Egypte . As well as official excavations, many artifacts from

224-583: A lingua franca (e.g., Turkey , Iran , Cyprus , Chad , Nigeria and Eritrea )– are particularly divergent in some respects, especially in their vocabularies, since they are less influenced by classical Arabic. However, historically they fall within the same dialect classifications as the varieties that are spoken in countries where Arabic is the dominant language. Because most of these peripheral dialects are located in Muslim majority countries, they are now influenced by Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic,

336-523: A Latin-based alphabet. It is the only Semitic language among the official languages of the European Union . Arabic-based pidgins (which have a limited vocabulary consisting mostly of Arabic words, but lack most Arabic morphological features) are in widespread use along the southern edge of the Sahara, and have been for a long time. In the eleventh century, the medieval geographer al-Bakri records

448-425: A W or Y as the last root consonant, which is often reflected in paradigms with an extra final vowel in the stem (e.g. ráma/yírmi "throw" from R-M-Y); meanwhile, hollow verbs have a W or Y as the middle root consonant, and the stems of such verbs appear to have only two consonants (e.g. gá:b/yigí:b "bring" from G-Y-B). Strong verbs are those that have no "weakness" (e.g. W or Y) in the root consonants. Each verb has

560-495: A certain dialect may be associated with backwardness and does not carry mainstream prestige—yet it will continue to be used as it carries a kind of covert prestige and serves to differentiate one group from another when necessary. A basic distinction that cuts across the entire geography of the Arabic-speaking world is between sedentary and nomadic varieties (often misleadingly called Bedouin ). The distinction stems from

672-507: A colloquial variety to add a spontaneous comment or respond to a question. The ratio of MSA to colloquial varieties depends on the speaker, the topic, and the situation—amongst other factors. Today even the least educated citizens are exposed to MSA through public education and exposure to mass media, and so tend to use elements of it in speaking to others. This is an example of what linguistics researchers call diglossia . See Linguistic register . Egyptian linguist Al-Said Badawi proposed

784-414: A common ancestry, and incipient immigrant pidgins. Arabic is characterized by a wide number of varieties; however, Arabic speakers are often able to manipulate the way they speak based on the circumstances. There can be a number of motives for changing one's speech: the formality of a situation, the need to communicate with people with different dialects, to get social approval, to differentiate oneself from

896-466: A dialect relatively different from formal Arabic may carry more prestige than a dialect closer to the formal language—this is the case in Bahrain, for example. Language mixes and changes in different ways. Arabic speakers often use more than one variety of Arabic within a conversation or even a sentence. This process is referred to as code-switching . For example, a woman on a TV program could appeal to

1008-521: A distinct literary genre. Amongst certain groups within Egypt's elite, Egyptian Arabic enjoyed a brief period of rich literary output. That dwindled with the rise of Pan-Arabism , which had gained popularity in Egypt by the second half of the twentieth century, as demonstrated by Egypt's involvement in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War under King Farouk of Egypt . The Egyptian revolution of 1952 , led by Mohammed Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser , further enhanced

1120-408: A given vowel pattern for Past (a or i) and Present (a or i or u). Combinations of each exist. Form I verbs have a given vowel pattern for past ( a or i ) and present ( a , i or u ). Combinations of each exist: Example: kátab/yíktib "write" Note that, in general, the present indicative is formed from the subjunctive by the addition of bi- ( bi-a- is elided to ba- ). Similarly, the future

1232-406: A high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. Egyptian Arabic is one of the most widely understood Arabic dialects due to a thriving Egyptian television and movie industry, and Egypt's highly influential role in the region for much of

SECTION 10

#1732772652641

1344-404: A highly divergent Siculo-Arabic language descended from Maghrebi Arabic is also provided. True pronunciations differ; transliterations used approach an approximate demonstration. Also, the pronunciation of Modern Standard Arabic differs significantly from region to region. "Peripheral" varieties of Arabic – that is, varieties spoken in countries where Arabic is not a dominant language and

1456-429: A major distinction exists between the formal standardized language, found mostly in writing or in prepared speech, and the widely diverging vernaculars , used for everyday speaking situations. The latter vary from country to country, from speaker to speaker (according to personal preferences, education and culture), and depending on the topic and situation. In other words, Arabic in its natural environment usually occurs in

1568-742: A modernist, secular approach and disagreed with the assumption that Arabic was an immutable language because of its association with the Qur'an . The first modern Egyptian novel in which the dialogue was written in the vernacular was Muhammad Husayn Haykal 's Zaynab in 1913. It was only in 1966 that Mustafa Musharafa 's Kantara Who Disbelieved was released, the first novel to be written entirely in Egyptian Arabic. Other notable novelists, such as Ihsan Abdel Quddous and Yusuf Idris , and poets, such as Salah Jahin , Abdel Rahman el-Abnudi and Ahmed Fouad Negm , helped solidify vernacular literature as

1680-472: A more detailed classification for modern variants of the language, which is divided into five major groups: Peninsular , Mesopotamian , Levantine , Egypto-Sudanic or Nile Valley (including Egyptian and Sudanese ), and Maghrebi . These large regional groups do not correspond to borders of modern states. In the western parts of the Arab world , varieties are referred to as الدارجة ad-dārija , and in

1792-562: A number of common innovations from CA. This has led to the suggestion, first articulated by Charles Ferguson , that a simplified koiné language developed in the army staging camps in Iraq, whence the remaining parts of the modern Arab world were conquered. In general, the rural varieties are more conservative than the sedentary varieties and the rural varieties within the Arabian peninsula are even more conservative than those elsewhere. Within

1904-619: A phonology that differs significantly from that of other varieties of Arabic, and has its own inventory of consonants and vowels. In contrast to CA and MSA, but like all modern colloquial varieties of Arabic , Egyptian Arabic nouns are not inflected for case and lack nunation (with the exception of certain fixed phrases in the accusative case, such as شكراً [ˈʃokɾɑn] , "thank you"). As all nouns take their pausal forms, singular words and broken plurals simply lose their case endings. In sound plurals and dual forms, where, in MSA, difference in case

2016-420: A preference for using Modern Standard Arabic in his public speeches, his successor, Gamal Abdel Nasser was renowned for using the vernacular and for punctuating his speeches with traditional Egyptian words and expressions. Conversely, Modern Standard Arabic was the norm for state news outlets, including newspapers, magazines, television, and radio. That was especially true of Egypt's national broadcasting company,

2128-461: A royal stela from the Second to Third Dynasties. The temple is located on the east hill of the site. Items of several Second Intermediate Period rulers include a stele of Dedumose II , a block of Djedankhre Montemsaf , and a stela of a ruler named Sekhemtawy. Hyksos rulers mentioned are Apophis (on a lintel) and Khyan (on a black granite block). Later period finds include a brick naming

2240-571: A situation of diglossia , which means that its native speakers often learn and use two linguistic forms substantially different from each other, the Modern Standard Arabic (often called MSA in English) as the official language and a local colloquial variety (called العامية , al-ʿāmmiyya in many Arab countries, meaning " slang " or "colloquial"; or called الدارجة , ad-dārija , meaning "common or everyday language" in

2352-665: A special inflectional pattern, as shown in the table. Only a small number of common colors inflect this way: ʔaḥmaṛ "red"; ʔazraʔ "blue"; ʔaxḍaṛ "green"; ʔaṣfaṛ "yellow"; ʔabyaḍ "white"; ʔiswid "black"; ʔasmaṛ "brown-skinned, brunette"; ʔaʃʔaṛ "blond(e)". The remaining colors are invariable, and mostly so-called nisba adjectives derived from colored objects: bunni "brown" (< bunn "coffee powder"); ṛamaadi "gray" (< ṛamaad "ashes"); banafsigi "purple" (< banafsig "violet"); burtuʔaani "orange" (< burtuʔaan "oranges"); zibiibi "maroon" (< zibiib "raisins"); etc., or of foreign origin: beeع "beige" from

SECTION 20

#1732772652641

2464-730: A spoken language until the 17th century by peasant women in Upper Egypt . Coptic is still the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and the Coptic Catholic Church . Egyptian Arabic has no official status and is not officially recognized as a language. Standard Arabic is the official language of the state as per constitutional law with the name اللغة العربية al-luġa al-ʿarabiyyah , lit. "the Arabic language". Interest in

2576-573: A step further and provided for his Standard Arabic plays versions in colloquial Arabic for the performances. Mahmud Taymur has published some of his plays in two versions, one in Standard, one in colloquial Arabic, among them: Kidb fi Kidb ( Arabic : كذب في كذب , lit.   'All lies', 1951 or ca. 1952) and Al-Muzayyifun ( Arabic : المزيفون , romanized :  Al-Muzayyifūn , lit.   'The Forgers', ca. 1953). The writers of stage plays in Egyptian Arabic after

2688-503: A study of three Egyptian newspapers ( Al-Ahram , Al-Masry Al-Youm , and Al-Dustour ) Zeinab Ibrahim concluded that the total number of headlines in Egyptian Arabic in each newspaper varied. Al-Ahram did not include any. Al-Masry Al-Youm had an average of 5% of headlines in Egyptian, while Al-Dustour averaged 11%. As the status of Egyptian Arabic as opposed to Classical Arabic can have such political and religious implications in Egypt,

2800-504: A text in an Arabic-based pidgin, probably one that was spoken in the region corresponding to modern Mauritania . In some regions, particularly around South Sudan , the pidgins have creolized (see the list below). Immigrant speakers of Arabic often incorporate a significant amount of vocabulary from the host-country language in their speech, in a situation analogous to Spanglish in the United States. Even within countries where

2912-468: A very weak grasp of the formal language. In another example, groups of educated speakers from different regions will often use dialectical forms that represent a middle ground between their dialects rather than trying to use the formal language, to make communication easier and more comprehensible. For example, to express the existential "there is" (as in, "there is a place where..."), Arabic speakers have access to many different words: In this case, /fiː/

3024-594: Is a standardized language based on the language of the Qur'an , i.e. Classical Arabic . The Egyptian vernacular is almost universally written in the Arabic alphabet for local consumption, although it is commonly transcribed into Latin letters or in the International Phonetic Alphabet in linguistics text and textbooks aimed at teaching non-native learners. Egyptian Arabic's phonetics, grammatical structure, and vocabulary are influenced by

3136-442: Is formed from the subjunctive by the addition of ḥa- ( ḥa-a- is elided to ḥa- ). The i in bi- or in the following prefix will be deleted according to the regular rules of vowel syncope: Example: kátab/yíktib "write": non-finite forms Example: fíhim/yífham "understand" Boldfaced forms fíhm-it and fíhm-u differ from the corresponding forms of katab ( kátab-it and kátab-u due to vowel syncope). Note also

3248-487: Is learned as the speaker's first language whilst the formal language is subsequently learned in school. While vernacular varieties differ substantially, Fus'ha ( فصحى ), the formal register , is standardized and universally understood by those literate in Arabic. Western scholars make a distinction between Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic while speakers of Arabic generally do not consider CA and MSA to be different varieties. The largest differences between

3360-458: Is most likely to be used as it is not associated with a particular region and is the closest to a dialectical middle ground for this group of speakers. Moreover, given the prevalence of movies and TV shows in Egyptian Arabic, the speakers are all likely to be familiar with it. Iraqi/Kuwaiti aku , Levantine fīh and North African kayn all evolve from Classical Arabic forms ( yakūn , fīhi , kā'in respectively), but now sound different. Sometimes

3472-435: Is moulded by this religious framework, reflecting the collective identity and adjusting to the intricate balance of belief systems. Religion in this context functions as a sociopolitical construct, inextricably linked to the authority of the state and its historical evolution. It speaks for the individual, often before they can express themselves, and thus, the interplay between faith and politics must be fully understood to grasp

Gebelein - Misplaced Pages Continue

3584-676: Is not really possible to keep this classification, partly because the modern dialects, especially urban variants, typically amalgamate features from both norms. Geographically, modern Arabic varieties are classified into five groups: Maghrebi , Egyptian (including Egyptian and Sudanese ), Mesopotamian , Levantine and Peninsular Arabic . Speakers from distant areas, across national borders, within countries and even between cities and villages, can struggle to understand each other's dialects. The greatest variations between kinds of Arabic are those between regional language groups. Arabic dialectologists formerly distinguished between just two groups:

3696-410: Is present even in pausal forms, the genitive/accusative form is the one preserved. Fixed expressions in the construct state beginning in abu , often geographic names, retain their -u in all cases. Nouns take either a sound plural or broken plural . The sound plural is formed by adding endings, and can be considered part of the declension. For the broken plural, however, a different pattern for

3808-689: Is pronounced as a voiced /ɡ/ in the urban varieties of the Arabian Peninsula (e.g. the Hejazi dialect in the ancient cities of Mecca and Medina ) as well as in the Bedouin dialects across all Arabic-speaking countries, but is voiceless mainly in post- Arabized urban centers as either /q/ (with [ɡ] being an allophone in a few words mostly in North African cities) or /ʔ/ (merging ⟨ ق ⟩ with ⟨ ء ⟩ ) in

3920-486: Is the case with Parisian French , Cairene Arabic is by far the most prevalent dialect in the country. Egyptian Arabic has become widely understood in the Arabic-speaking world primarily for two reasons: The proliferation and popularity of Egyptian films and other media in the region since the early 20th century as well as the great number of Egyptian teachers and professors who were instrumental in setting up

4032-721: Is the most widely spoken vernacular Arabic variety in Egypt . It is part of the Afro-Asiatic language family , and originated in the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt . The estimated 100 million Egyptians speak a continuum of dialects , among which Cairene is the most prominent. It is also understood across most of the Arabic-speaking countries due to broad Egyptian influence in the region, including through Egyptian cinema and Egyptian music . These factors help to make it

4144-462: Is the study of how language usage is affected by societal factors, e.g., cultural norms and contexts (see also pragmatics ). The following sections examine some of the ways that modern Arab societies influence how Arabic is spoken. In the Arab world, religion transcends the boundaries of personal belief, functioning as a pervasive and influential force in every facet of life. It is deeply embedded within

4256-570: Is used by Arabic speakers over the Internet or for sending messages via cellular phones when the Arabic alphabet is unavailable or difficult to use for technical reasons; this is also used in Modern Standard Arabic when Arabic speakers of different dialects communicate each other. Three scientific papers concluded, using various natural language processing techniques, that Levantine dialects (and especially Palestinian) were

4368-424: Is used to specify grammatical concepts such as causative , intensive , passive , or reflexive , and involves varying the stem form. For example, from the root K-T-B "write" is derived form I kátab/yíktib "write", form II káttib/yikáttib "cause to write", form III ká:tib/yiká:tib "correspond", etc. The other axis is determined by the particular consonants making up the root. For example, defective verbs have

4480-532: The Arab Radio and Television Union , which was established with the intent of providing content for the entire Arab world , not merely Egypt, hence the need to broadcast in the standard, rather than the vernacular, language. The Voice of the Arabs radio station, in particular, had an audience from across the region, and the use of anything other than Modern Standard Arabic was viewed as eminently incongruous. In

4592-643: The Arabic alphabet . Vernacular Arabic was first recognized as a written language distinct from Classical Arabic in 17th century Ottoman Egypt , when the Cairo elite began to trend towards colloquial writing. A record of the Cairo vernacular of the time is found in the dictionary compiled by Yusuf al-Maghribi . More recently, many plays and poems, as well as a few other works exist in Lebanese Arabic and Egyptian Arabic ; books of poetry, at least, exist for most varieties. In Algeria , colloquial Maghrebi Arabic

Gebelein - Misplaced Pages Continue

4704-546: The Coptic language ; its rich vocabulary is also influenced by Turkish and by European languages such as French , Italian , Greek , and English . Speakers of Egyptian Arabic generally call their vernacular 'Arabic ' ( عربى , [ˈʕɑrɑbi] ) when juxtaposed with non-Arabic languages; " Colloquial Egyptian " ( العاميه المصريه , [el.ʕæmˈmejjæ l.mɑsˤˈɾejjɑ] ) or simply " Aamiyya " ( عاميه , colloquial ) when juxtaposed with Modern Standard Arabic and

4816-807: The Egyptian Revolution of 1952 include No'man Ashour , Alfred Farag , Saad Eddin Wahba  [ ar ] , Rashad Roushdy , and Yusuf Idris . Thereafter the use of colloquial Egyptian Arabic in theater is stable and common. Later writers of plays in colloquial Egyptian include Ali Salem , and Naguib Surur . Novels in Egyptian Arabic after the 1940s and before the 1990s are rare. There are by Mustafa Musharrafah  [ ar ] Qantarah Alladhi Kafar ([قنطرة الذي كفر ] Error: {{Langx}}: invalid parameter: |lable= ( help ) , Cairo, 1965) and Uthman Sabri's ( Arabic : عثمان صبري , romanized :  ʻUthmān Ṣabrī ; 1896–1986) Journey on

4928-488: The Egyptian dialect ( اللهجه المصريه , [elˈlæhɡæ l.mɑsˤˈɾejjɑ] ) or simply Masri ( مَصرى , [ˈmɑsˤɾi] , Egyptian ) when juxtaposed with other vernacular Arabic dialects . The term Egyptian Arabic is usually used synonymously with Cairene Arabic , which is technically a dialect of Egyptian Arabic. The country's native name, مصر Maṣr , is often used locally to refer to Cairo itself. As

5040-543: The Hebrew and Aramaic languages. Though they have features similar to each other, they are not a homogeneous unit and still belong philologically to the same family groupings as their non-Judeo counterpart varieties. There have been a number of Arabic-based pidgins and creoles throughout history, including a number of new ones emerging today. These may be broadly divided into the Sudanic pidgins and creoles, which share

5152-654: The High Priest of Amun Menkheperre and his wife Isetemkheb. The brick likely came from the Fort that enclosed the temple. From the Ptolemaic period came fragments of a statue of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II Limestone fragments from the shrine that would have held the statue were also found. During the reign of Ptolemy VI Philometor , a military camp was established at Gebelein after the Theban rebellion of 186 B.C. The camp

5264-647: The Maghreb ), in different aspects of their lives. This situation is often compared in Western literature to the Latin language, which maintained a cultured variant and several vernacular versions for centuries, until it disappeared as a spoken language, while derived Romance languages became new languages, such as Italian , Catalan , Aragonese , Occitan , French , Arpitan , Spanish , Portuguese , Asturleonese , Romanian and more. The regionally prevalent variety

5376-481: The Maghrebi Arabic group, first-person singular verbs begin with a n- ( ن ). Further substantial differences exist between Bedouin and sedentary speech, the countryside and major cities, ethnic groups, religious groups, social classes, men and women, and the young and the old. These differences are to some degree bridgeable. Often, Arabic speakers can adjust their speech in a variety of ways according to

5488-618: The Mashriqi (eastern) dialects, east of Libya which includes the dialects of Arabian Peninsula , Mesopotamia , Levant , Egypt , Sudan , and the Maghrebi (western) dialects which includes the dialects of North Africa ( Maghreb ) west of Egypt . The mutual intelligibility is high within each of those two groups, while the intelligibility between the two groups is asymmetric : Maghrebi speakers are more likely to understand Mashriqi than vice versa. Arab dialectologists have now adopted

5600-1376: The Nile Mission Press . By 1932 the whole New Testament and some books of the Old Testament had been published in Egyptian Arabic in Arabic script. The dialogs in the following novels are partly in Egyptian Arabic, partly in Standard Arabic: Mahmud Tahir Haqqi 's Adhra' Dinshuway ( Arabic : عذراء دنشواي ; 1906), Yaqub Sarruf 's Fatat Misr ( Arabic : فتاة مصر , romanized :  Fatāt Miṣr ; first published in Al-Muqtataf 1905–1906), and Mohammed Hussein Heikal 's Zaynab (1914). Early stage plays written in Egyptian Arabic were translated from or influenced by European playwrights. Muhammad 'Uthman Jalal translated plays by Molière , Jean Racine and Carlo Goldoni to Egyptian Arabic and adapted them as well as ten fables by Jean de La Fontaine . Yaqub Sanu translated to and wrote plays on himself in Egyptian Arabic. Many plays were written in Standard Arabic, but performed in colloquial Arabic. Tawfiq al-Hakim took this

5712-734: The Nubian languages . Egyptian varieties are influenced by the Coptic language . Mesopotamian varieties are influenced by the Mesopotamian languages ( Sumerian , Akkadian , Mandaic , Eastern Aramaic ), Turkish language , and Iranian languages . Levantine varieties (ISO 639–3: apc ) are influenced Western Aramaic languages , and to a lesser extent, the Turkish language and Greek and Persian and Ancient Egyptian language : Some peninsular varieties are influenced by South Arabian Languages . Jewish varieties are influenced by

SECTION 50

#1732772652641

5824-455: The 20th century. Another way that varieties of Arabic differ is that some are formal and others are colloquial (that is, vernacular). There are two formal varieties, or اللغة الفصحى al-lugha(t) al-fuṣḥá , One of these, known in English as Modern Standard Arabic ( MSA ), is used in contexts such as writing, broadcasting, interviewing, and speechmaking. The other, Classical Arabic, is

5936-499: The 21st century the number of books published in Egyptian Arabic has increased a lot. Many of them are by female authors, for example I Want to Get Married! ( عايزه أتجوز , ʻĀyzah atgawwiz , 2008) by Ghada Abdel Aal and She Must Have Travelled ( شكلها سافرت , Shaklahā sāfarit , 2016) by Soha Elfeqy. Sa'īdi Arabic is a different variety than Egyptian Arabic in Ethnologue.com and ISO 639-3 and in other sources, and

6048-499: The Arab world, both communities in Baghdad share Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) as the prestigious form of the language. However, the Muslim colloquial dialect is more closely associated with power and economic dominance, reflecting the greater influence of the Muslim community in the city. Consequently, Christians often adopt the Muslim dialect in formal or public contexts—such as a Christian school teacher addressing students—demonstrating

6160-564: The Arabic varieties of the Qur'an and their Arabic-speaking neighbours, respectively. Probably the most divergent non-creole Arabic variety is Cypriot Maronite Arabic , a nearly extinct variety that has been heavily influenced by Greek , and written in Greek and Latin alphabets. Maltese is descended from Siculo-Arabic . Its vocabulary has acquired a large number of loanwords from Sicilian , Italian and more recently English , and it uses only

6272-622: The Bird';; 1994), Baha' Awwad's ( Arabic : بهاء عواد , romanized :  Bahāʾ ʿAwwād ) Shams il-Asil ( شمس الاصيل , Shams il-ʿAṣīl , 'Late Afternoon Sun'; 1998), Safa Abdel Al Moneim 's Min Halawit il-Ruh ( من حلاوة الروح , Min Ḥalāwit il-Rōḥ , 'Zest for Life', 1998), Samih Faraj's ( Arabic : سامح فرج , romanized :  Sāmiḥ Faraj ) Banhuf Ishtirasa ( بانهوف اشتراسا , Bānhūf Ishtirāsā , 'Bahnhof Strasse', 1999); autobiographies include

6384-723: The Burden from the Language of the People of Cairo") by the traveler and lexicographer Yusuf al-Maghribi ( يوسف المغربي ), with Misr here meaning "Cairo". It contains key information on early Cairene Arabic and the language situation in Egypt in the Middle Ages . The main purpose of the document was to show that while the Cairenes' vernacular contained many critical "errors" vis-à-vis Classical Arabic, according to al-Maghribi, it

6496-534: The Cat';, 2001) by Abdel Rahman el-Abnudi is exceptional in its use of Saʽidi Arabic . 21st-century journals publishing in Egyptian Arabic include Bārti (from at least 2002), the weekly magazine Idhak lil-Dunya ( اضحك للدنيا , Iḍḥak lil-Dunyā , 'Smile for the World';, from 2005), and the monthly magazine Ihna    [ ar ] ( احنا , Iḥna , 'We', from 2005). In

6608-505: The French; bamba "pink" from Turkish pembe . Verbal nouns of form I are not regular. The following table lists common patterns. Egyptian Arabic object pronouns are clitics , in that they attach to the end of a noun, verb, or preposition, with the result forming a single phonological word rather than separate words. Clitics can be attached to the following types of words: With verbs, indirect object clitic pronouns can be formed using

6720-524: The Iraq War and the mass emigration of Iraqi Christians in the early 21st century. In Baghdad , notable differences exist between the Arabic spoken by Christian and Muslim residents. The Christian community in Baghdad is longstanding, and their dialect traces its roots to the sedentary vernacular of urban medieval Iraq. By contrast, the typical Muslim dialect of the city is a more recent development, originating from Bedouin speech patterns. As in other parts of

6832-468: The Nile ( Egyptian Arabic : رحلة في النيل , romanized:  Riḥlah fī il-Nīl , 1965) (and his Bet Sirri ( بيت سري , Bēt Sirri , 'A Brothel', 1981) that apparently uses a mix of Standard Arabic and Egyptian Arabic ). Prose published in Egyptian Arabic since the 1990s include the following novels: Yusuf al-Qa'id 's Laban il-Asfur ( لبن العصفور , Laban il-ʿAṣfūr , 'The Milk of

SECTION 60

#1732772652641

6944-696: The Nile Valley such as Qift in Upper Egypt through pre-Islamic trade with Nabateans in the Sinai Peninsula and the easternmost part of the Nile Delta . Egyptian Arabic seems to have begun taking shape in Fustat , the first Islamic capital of Egypt, now part of Cairo . One of the earliest linguistic sketches of Cairene Arabic is a 16th-century document entitled Dafʿ al-ʾiṣr ʿan kalām ahl Miṣr ( دفع الإصر عن كلام أهل مصر , "The Removal of

7056-522: The Sunni Arabs. This socio-political dynamic exerts a profound influence on the evolution of language in Bahrain, steering its development in line with the interests and cultural practices of the Sunni minority. The case of Iraq further exemplifies how religious affiliation can significantly influence linguistic variation within the Arab world. This observation is drawn from a study conducted prior to

7168-446: The Sunni population, which began migrating to the island in the 18th century. Despite being a minority, the Sunni population holds a dominant position, with the ruling family of Bahrain being Sunni. This dominance is reflected in the public sphere, where the colloquial language presented on television and in media is almost exclusively that of the Sunni community. As a result, power, prestige, and economic control are closely associated with

7280-547: The ancient Arabic dialects in the peninsula. Likewise, many of the features that characterize (or distinguish) the various modern variants can be attributed to the original settler dialects as well as local native languages and dialects. Some organizations, such as SIL International , consider these approximately 30 different varieties to be separate languages, while others, such as the Library of Congress , consider them all to be dialects of Arabic. In terms of sociolinguistics ,

7392-514: The authority of the formal language by using elements of it in her speech in order to prevent other speakers from cutting her off. Another process at work is "leveling", the "elimination of very localised dialectical features in favour of more regionally general ones." This can affect all linguistic levels—semantic, syntactic, phonological, etc. The change can be temporary, as when a group of speakers with substantially different Arabics communicate, or it can be permanent, as often happens when people from

7504-601: The classical/standard and the colloquial Arabic are the loss of grammatical case ; a different and strict word order; the loss of the previous system of grammatical mood , along with the evolution of a new system; the loss of the inflected passive voice , except in a few relic varieties; restriction in the use of the dual number and (for most varieties) the loss of the distinctive conjugation and agreement for feminine plurals . Many Arabic dialects, Maghrebi Arabic in particular, also have significant vowel shifts and unusual consonant clusters . Unlike other dialect groups, in

7616-418: The closest colloquial varieties, in terms of lexical similarity , to Modern Standard Arabic: Harrat et al. (2015, comparing MSA to two Algerian dialects, Tunisian, Palestinian, and Syrian), El-Haj et al. (2018, comparing MSA to Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf, and North African Arabic), and Abu Kwaik et al. (2018, comparing MSA to Algerian, Tunisian, Palestinian, Syrian, Jordanian, and Egyptian). Sociolinguistics

7728-461: The complexities of the language and culture of the Arab world. Religion and politics here are intertwined to such a degree that they cannot be separated. Bahrain offers a clear example of the intricate relationship between religion, identity, and societal structures in the Arab world. A significant distinction exists between the Shiite population, Bahrain's oldest and most established community, and

7840-433: The consonants, along with prefixes and/or suffixes, specify grammatical functions such as tense, person, and number, in addition to changes in the meaning of the verb that embody grammatical concepts such as causative , intensive , passive or reflexive . Each particular lexical verb is specified by two stems, one used for the past tense and one used for non-past tenses along with subjunctive and imperative moods. To

7952-451: The context and to their intentions—for example, to speak with people from different regions, to demonstrate their level of education or to draw on the authority of the spoken language. In terms of typological classification, Arabic dialectologists distinguish between two basic norms: Bedouin and Sedentary. This is based on a set of phonological, morphological, and syntactic characteristics that distinguish between these two norms. However, it

8064-400: The context. This is not the only source of prestige, though. Many studies have shown that for most speakers, there is a prestige variety of vernacular Arabic. In Egypt, for non-Cairenes, the prestige dialect is Cairo Arabic. For Jordanian women from Bedouin or rural background, it may be the urban dialects of the big cities, especially including the capital Amman. Moreover, in certain contexts,

8176-561: The country. The dialect of the Fellah in Northern Egypt is noted for a distinct accent, replacing the urban pronunciations of / ɡ / (spelled ج gīm ) and / q / ( ق qāf ) with [ ʒ ] and [ ɡ ] respectively, but that is not true of all rural dialects, a lot of them do not have such replacement. The dialect also has many grammatical differences when contrasted to urban dialects. Egyptian Arabic has

8288-415: The countryside move to the city and adopt the more prestigious urban dialect, possibly over a couple of generations. This process of accommodation sometimes appeals to the formal language, but often does not. For example, villagers in central Palestine may try to use the dialect of Jerusalem rather than their own when speaking with people with substantially different dialects, particularly since they may have

8400-399: The eastern parts, as العامية al-ʿāmmiyya . Nearby varieties of Arabic are mostly mutually intelligible , but faraway varieties tend not to be. Varieties west of Egypt are particularly disparate, with Egyptian Arabic speakers claiming difficulty in understanding North African Arabic speakers, while North African Arabic speakers' ability to understand other Arabic speakers is mostly due to

8512-606: The education systems of various countries in the Arabian Peninsula and also taught there and in other countries such as Algeria and Libya . Also, many Lebanese artists choose to sing in Egyptian. Arabic was spoken in parts of Egypt such as the Eastern Desert and Sinai before Islam. However, Nile Valley Egyptians slowly adopted Arabic as a written language following the Muslim conquest of Egypt in

8624-481: The extent to which language in Baghdad, and the wider Arab world, is shaped by the prevailing sociopolitical landscape. When it comes to phonetics the Arabic dialects differ in the pronunciation of the short vowels ( / a / , / u / and / i / ) and a number of selected consonants, mainly ⟨ق⟩ /q/ , ⟨ج⟩ /d͡ʒ/ and the interdental consonants ⟨ث⟩ /θ/ , ⟨ذ⟩ /ð/ and ⟨ظ⟩ /ðˤ/ , in addition to

8736-464: The following distinctions between the different "levels of speech" involved when speakers of Egyptian Arabic switch between vernacular and formal Arabic varieties: Almost everyone in Egypt is able to use more than one of these levels of speech, and people often switch between them, sometimes within the same sentence. This is generally true in other Arabic-speaking countries as well. The spoken dialects of Arabic have occasionally been written, usually in

8848-417: The former stem, suffixes are added to mark the verb for person, number, and gender, while to the latter stem, a combination of prefixes and suffixes are added. (Very approximately, the prefixes specify the person and the suffixes indicate number and gender.) Since Arabic lacks an infinitive , the third person masculine singular past tense form serves as the "dictionary form" used to identify a verb. For example,

8960-542: The language of the Qur'an . It is rarely used except in reciting the Qur'an or quoting older classical texts. (Arabic speakers typically do not make an explicit distinction between MSA and Classical Arabic.) Modern Standard Arabic was deliberately developed in the early part of the 19th century as a modernized version of Classical Arabic. People often use a mixture of both colloquial and formal Arabic. For example, interviewers or speechmakers generally use MSA in asking prepared questions or making prepared remarks, then switch to

9072-504: The linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. Arabic is a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family that originated in the Arabian Peninsula . There are considerable variations from region to region, with degrees of mutual intelligibility that are often related to geographical distance and some that are mutually unintelligible . Many aspects of the variability attested to in these modern variants can be found in

9184-465: The listener, when citing a written text to differentiate between personal and professional or general matters, to clarify a point, and to shift to a new topic. An important factor in the mixing or changing of Arabic is the concept of a prestige dialect . This refers to the level of respect accorded to a language or dialect within a speech community. The formal Arabic language carries a considerable prestige in most Arabic-speaking communities, depending on

9296-428: The local vernacular began in the 1800s (in opposition to the language of the ruling class, Turkish) , as the Egyptian national movement for self-determination was taking shape. For many decades to follow, questions about the reform and the modernization of Arabic were hotly debated in Egyptian intellectual circles. Proposals ranged from developing neologisms to replace archaic terminology in Modern Standard Arabic to

9408-408: The most widely spoken and by far the most widely studied variety of Arabic . While it is primarily a spoken language, the written form is used in novels, plays and poems ( vernacular literature ), as well as in comics, advertising, some newspapers and transcriptions of popular songs. In most other written media and in radio and television news reporting, literary Arabic is used. Literary Arabic

9520-547: The nineteenth century by Wallis Budge, the British Museum Keeper for Egyptology, from shallow sand graves near Gebelein (modern name Naga el-Gherira) in the Egyptian desert. A Pre-dynastic mummified body dated to 3400 BC, excavated from this site, has been on display in the British Museum since 1901. The site includes the remains from a temple to Hathor with a number of cartouches on mud bricks and

9632-799: The official language is Arabic, different varieties of Arabic are spoken. For example, within Syria, the Arabic spoken in Homs is recognized as different from the Arabic spoken in Damascus, but both are considered to be varieties of "Levantine" Arabic. And within Morocco, the Arabic of the city of Fes is considered different from the Arabic spoken elsewhere in the country. Geographically distant colloquial varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research by Trentman & Shiri indicates

9744-447: The one by Ahmed Fouad Negm , by Mohammed Naser Ali  [ ar ] Ula Awwil ( اولى أول , Ūlá Awwil , 'First Class Primary School'), and Fathia al-Assal 's Hudn il-Umr ( حضن العمر , Ḥuḍn il-ʿUmr , 'The Embrace of a Lifetime'). The epistolary novel Jawabat Haraji il-Gutt ( Sa'idi Arabic : جوابات حراجى القط , romanized:  Jawābāt Ḥarājī il-Guṭṭ , lit.   'Letters of Haraji

9856-424: The perfect with / i / , for example for فهم this is faham instead of fihim . Other examples for this are لَبَس , labas , 'to wear', نَزَل , nazal , 'to descend', شَرَب , sharab , 'to drink', نَسَى , nasá , 'to forget', رَجَع, طَلَع, رَكَب. Port Said 's dialect (East Delta) is noted for a "heavier", more guttural sound, compared to other regions of

9968-488: The postposition of demonstratives and interrogatives, the modal meaning of the imperfect and the integration of the participle. The Western Egyptian Bedawi Arabic variety of the western desert differs from all other Arabic varieties in Egypt in that it linguistically is part of Maghrebi Arabic . Northwest Arabian Arabic is also distinct from Egyptian Arabic. Egyptian Arabic varies regionally across its sprachraum , with certain characteristics being noted as typical of

10080-417: The preposition li- plus a clitic. Both direct and indirect object clitic pronouns can be attached to a single verb: agíib "I bring", agíb-hu "I bring it", agib-húu-lik "I bring it to you", m-agib-hu-lkíi-ʃ "I do not bring it to you". Verbs in Arabic are based on a stem made up of three or four consonants. The set of consonants communicates the basic meaning of a verb. Changes to the vowels in between

10192-464: The pronunciation of the origin of the term, the British guinea ). The speech of the older Alexandrians is also noted for use of the same pre-syllable (ne-) in the singular and plural of the first person present and future tenses, which is also a common feature of Tunisian Arabic and also of Maghrebi Arabic in general. The dialects of the western Delta tend to use the perfect with / a / instead of

10304-509: The question of whether Egyptian Arabic should be considered a "dialect" or "language" can be a source of debate. In sociolinguistics , Egyptian Arabic can be seen as one of many distinct varieties that, despite arguably being languages on abstand grounds, are united by a common Dachsprache in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). During the early 1900s many portions of the Bible were published in Egyptian Arabic. These were published by

10416-410: The revolutionary government heavily sponsored the use of the Egyptian vernacular in films, plays, television programmes, and music, the prerevolutionary use of Modern Standard Arabic in official publications was retained. Linguistic commentators have noted the multi-faceted approach of the Egyptian revolutionaries towards the Arabic language. Whereas Egypt's first president , Mohammed Naguib exhibited

10528-399: The sedentary varieties, the western varieties (particularly, Moroccan Arabic ) are less conservative than the eastern varieties. A number of cities in the Arabic world speak a "Bedouin" variety, which acquires prestige in that context. The following example illustrates similarities and differences between the literary, standardized varieties, and major urban dialects of Arabic. Maltese ,

10640-430: The settlement patterns in the wake of the Arab conquests. As regions were conquered, army camps were set up that eventually grew into cities, and settlement of the rural areas by nomadic Arabs gradually followed thereafter. In some areas, sedentary dialects are divided further into urban and rural variants. The most obvious phonetic difference between the two groups is the pronunciation of the letter ق qaf , which

10752-433: The seventh century. Until then, they had spoken either Koine Greek or Egyptian in its Coptic form. A period of Coptic-Arabic bilingualism in Lower Egypt lasted for more than three centuries. The period would last much longer in the south. Arabic had been already familiar to Valley Egyptians since Arabic had been spoken throughout the Eastern Desert and Sinai . Arabic was also a minority language of some residents of

10864-446: The significance of Pan-Arabism, making it a central element of Egyptian state policy. The importance of Modern Standard Arabic was reemphasised in the public sphere by the revolutionary government, and efforts to accord any formal language status to the Egyptian vernacular were ignored. Egyptian Arabic was identified as a mere dialect, one that was not spoken even in all of Egypt, as almost all of Upper Egypt speaks Sa'idi Arabic . Though

10976-427: The simple division. The language shifts from the eastern to the western parts of the Nile Delta , and the varieties spoken from Giza to Minya are further grouped into a Middle Egypt cluster. Despite the differences, there are features distinguishing all the Egyptian Arabic varieties of the Nile Valley from any other varieties of Arabic. Such features include reduction of long vowels in open and unstressed syllables,

11088-560: The simplification of syntactical and morphological rules and the introduction of colloquialisms to even complete "Egyptianization" ( تمصير , tamṣīr ) by abandoning the so-called Modern Standard Arabic in favor of Masri or Egyptian Arabic. Proponents of language reform in Egypt included Qasim Amin , who also wrote the first Egyptian feminist treatise, former President of the Egyptian University , Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed , and noted intellectual Salama Moussa . They adopted

11200-533: The site were traded on the antiquities market and can be found in the museums of Turin, Cairo, Berlin, Lyons, and the British Museum . The Gebelein predynastic mummies are six naturally mummified bodies, dating to approximately 3400 BC from the Late Predynastic period of Egypt, and were the first complete pre-dynastic bodies to be discovered. The well-preserved bodies were excavated at the end of

11312-440: The social fabric, permeating language, politics, and cultural identity. From birth, individuals are not only given a name but are also ascribed a place within a specific religious order: whether as Muslims, divided into Sunni or Shia , or as Christians , Druze , or Jews . These religious identities are not fluid or optional; rather, they are firmly entrenched, shaping and defining the individual’s experience. Even language itself

11424-488: The speech of certain regions. The dialect of Alexandria (West Delta) is noted for certain shibboleths separating its speech from that of Cairo (South Delta). The ones that are most frequently noted in popular discourse are the use of the word falafel as opposed to طعميّة taʿmiyya for the fava-bean fritters common across the country and the pronunciation of the word for the Egyptian pound ( جنيه ginēh [ɡeˈneː] ), as [ˈɡeni] , closer to

11536-469: The stem is used. The sound plural with the suffix ـِين , -īn is used for nouns referring to male persons that are participles or follow the pattern CaCCaaC. It takes the form ـيِين , -yīn for nouns of the form CaCCa and the form ـيِّين , -yyīn for nisba adjectives. A common set of nouns referring to colors, as well as a number of nouns referring to physical defects of various sorts ( ʔaṣlaʕ "bald"; ʔaṭṛaʃ "deaf"; ʔaxṛas "dumb"), take

11648-461: The syncope in ána fhím-t "I understood". Example: dárris/yidárris "teach" Boldfaced forms indicate the primary differences from the corresponding forms of katab : Example: sá:fir/yisá:fir "travel" The primary differences from the corresponding forms of darris (shown in boldface) are: Defective verbs have a W or Y as the last root consonant. Varieties of Arabic Varieties of Arabic (or dialects or vernacular languages) are

11760-538: The two varieties have limited mutual intelligibility . It carries little prestige nationally but continues to be widely spoken, with 19,000,000 speakers. The traditional division between Upper and Lower Egypt and their respective differences go back to ancient times. Egyptians today commonly call the people of the north بَحَارْوَه , baḥārwah ( [bɑˈħɑɾwɑ] ) and those of the south صَعَايْدَه , ṣaʿāydah ( [sˤɑˈʕɑjdɑ] ). The differences throughout Egypt, however, are more wide-ranging and do not neatly correspond to

11872-718: The urban centers of Egypt and the Levant . The latter were mostly Arabized after the Islamic Conquests . The other major phonetic difference is that the rural varieties preserve the Classical Arabic (CA) interdentals /θ/ ث and /ð/ ذ, and merge the CA emphatic sounds /ɮˤ/ ض and /ðˤ/ ظ into /ðˤ/ rather than sedentary /dˤ/ . The most significant differences between rural Arabic and non-rural Arabic are in syntax. The sedentary varieties in particular share

11984-432: The verb meaning "write" is often specified as kátab , which actually means "he wrote". In the paradigms below, a verb will be specified as kátab/yíktib (where kátab means "he wrote" and yíktib means "he writes"), indicating the past stem ( katab- ) and non-past stem ( -ktib- , obtained by removing the prefix yi- ). The verb classes in Arabic are formed along two axes. One axis (described as "form I", "form II", etc.)

12096-518: The widespread popularity of Egyptian and Levantine popular media (for example Syrian or Lebanese TV shows). This phenomenon is called asymmetric intelligibility . One factor in the differentiation of the varieties is the influence from other languages previously spoken or still presently spoken in the regions, such as Western varieties are influenced by the Berber languages , Punic and by Romance languages . Sudanese varieties are influenced by

12208-612: Was advocated for Lebanese Arabic by Said Aql , whose supporters published several books in his transcription. In 1944, Abdelaziz Pasha Fahmi, a member of the Academy of the Arabic Language in Egypt proposed the replacement of the Arabic alphabet with the Latin alphabet. His proposal was discussed in two sessions in the communion but was rejected, and faced strong opposition in cultural circles. The Latin alphabet (as " Arabizi ")

12320-480: Was also related to Arabic in other respects. With few waves of immigration from the Arabian peninsula such as the Banu Hilal exodus, who later left Egypt and were settled in Morocco and Tunisia, together with the ongoing Islamization and Arabization of the country, multiple Arabic varieties, one of which is Egyptian Arabic, slowly supplanted spoken Coptic. Local chroniclers mention the continued use of Coptic as

12432-749: Was destroyed by rebel forces 88 BC and the site was never again inhabited on a larger scale. Several hundred Demotic and Greek papyri and ostraca pertaining to the soldiers and the local temple were found at the ruins between 1890 and 1930. These including the archive of the mercenary Horos son of Nechoutes and the Dryton and Apollonia Archive . 25°29′N 32°29′E  /  25.483°N 32.483°E  / 25.483; 32.483 Egyptian Arabic Egyptian Arabic , locally known as Colloquial Egyptian ( Arabic : العاميه المصريه ) [el.ʕæmˈmejjæ l.mɑsˤˈɾejjɑ] ), or simply Masri (also Masry , lit.   ' Egyptian ' ) ( مَصري ),

12544-459: Was taught as a separate subject under French colonization, and some textbooks exist. Mizrahi Jews throughout the Arab world who spoke Judeo-Arabic dialects rendered newspapers, letters, accounts, stories, and translations of some parts of their liturgy in the Hebrew alphabet , adding diacritics and other conventions for letters that exist in Judeo-Arabic but not Hebrew. The Latin alphabet

#640359