Languages of Egypt
Encyclopedia
There are a number of languages spoken in Egypt
, but Egyptian Arabic
is by far the most widely spoken in the country.
and is used in most written media. Egyptian Arabic
is the commonly spoken language, and is occasionally written in Arabic script or Latin script
. English
, French
, and German
are also widely spoken and used in business and educated circles.
in the 7th century, and Egyptian Arabic
has become the modern spoken language of the Egyptians
. Of the many varieties of Arabic
, Egyptian Arabic is the most widely understood first dialect in the Middle East-North Africa, probably due to the influence of Egyptian cinema throughout the Arabic-speaking world.
A Bedouin Arab
minority speaks a variety of Bedouin Arabic
mostly in the Sinai Peninsula
. Sudanese Arabic
is also spoken by the Sudanese minority.
and Aswan
, there are about 300,000 speakers of Nubian languages
, mainly Nobiin
, but also Kenuzi-Dongola.
and Coptic
, and form a separate branch among the family of Afro-Asiatic languages
. The Egyptian language is among the first written languages, and is known from hieroglyphic
inscriptions preserved on monuments and sheets of papyrus
. The Coptic language
, the only extant descendant of Egyptian, is today the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
The "Koiné" dialect of the Greek language
was important in Hellenistic Alexandria, and was used in the philosophy
and science
of that culture, and was also studied by later Arabic scholars.
in Alexandria
, and a comparable number of Armenian
speakers, mostly in Cairo, and there are also around 7,500 speakers of Italian
between Alexandria and Cairo
live in the Eastern Desert and along the coast of the Red Sea
.
Some 234,000 (2004) Dom
speak the Domari language
(an Indo-Aryan language
related to Romany) and are concentrated north of Cairo
and in Luxor
.
The Berber languages
are represented by Siwi, spoken by about 5,000 in the Siwa Oasis
.
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, but Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic is the language spoken by contemporary Egyptians.It is more commonly known locally as the Egyptian colloquial language or Egyptian dialect ....
is by far the most widely spoken in the country.
Official language
The official language of Egypt is the literary ArabicLiterary Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic , Standard Arabic, or Literary Arabic is the standard and literary variety of Arabic used in writing and in most formal speech....
and is used in most written media. Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic is the language spoken by contemporary Egyptians.It is more commonly known locally as the Egyptian colloquial language or Egyptian dialect ....
is the commonly spoken language, and is occasionally written in Arabic script or Latin script
Arabic Chat Alphabet
The Arabic chat alphabet, Arabizi, Arabish or Araby, , is an alphabet used to communicate in the Arabic language over the Internet or for sending messages via cellular phones when the actual Arabic alphabet is unavailable for technical reasons...
. English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
are also widely spoken and used in business and educated circles.
Arabic languages
Arabic came to EgyptEgypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
in the 7th century, and Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic is the language spoken by contemporary Egyptians.It is more commonly known locally as the Egyptian colloquial language or Egyptian dialect ....
has become the modern spoken language of the Egyptians
Egyptians
Egyptians are nation an ethnic group made up of Mediterranean North Africans, the indigenous people of Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to...
. Of the many varieties of Arabic
Varieties of Arabic
The Arabic language is a Semitic language characterized by a wide number of linguistic varieties within its five regional forms. The largest divisions occur between the spoken languages of different regions. The Arabic of North Africa, for example, is often incomprehensible to an Arabic speaker...
, Egyptian Arabic is the most widely understood first dialect in the Middle East-North Africa, probably due to the influence of Egyptian cinema throughout the Arabic-speaking world.
A Bedouin Arab
Bedouin
The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...
minority speaks a variety of Bedouin Arabic
Bedouin Arabic
Bedouin Arabic may be:*Saharan Arabic *Hassaniya Arabic *Libyan Arabic *Eastern Egyptian Bedawi *Najdi Arabic...
mostly in the Sinai Peninsula
Sinai Peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai is a triangular peninsula in Egypt about in area. It is situated between the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Red Sea to the south, and is the only part of Egyptian territory located in Asia as opposed to Africa, effectively serving as a land bridge between two...
. Sudanese Arabic
Sudanese Arabic
Sudanese Arabic is the variety of Arabic spoken throughout northern Sudan. It has much borrowed vocabulary from the local languages . This has resulted in a variety of Arabic that is unique to Sudan, reflecting the way in which the country has been influenced by both African and Arab cultures...
is also spoken by the Sudanese minority.
Nubian languages
In the Upper Nile Valley, around Kom OmboKom Ombo
Kom Ombo or Ombos or Latin: Ambo and Ombi – is an agricultural town in Egypt famous for the Temple of Kom Ombo...
and Aswan
Aswan
Aswan , formerly spelled Assuan, is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate.It stands on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract and is a busy market and tourist centre...
, there are about 300,000 speakers of Nubian languages
Nubian languages
The Nubian language group, according to the most recent research by Bechhaus-Gerst comprises the following varieties:# Nobiin ....
, mainly Nobiin
Nobiin language
Nobiin is a Northern Nubian language of the Nilo-Saharan phylum. ‘Nobiin’ is the genitive form of Nòòbíí ‘Nubian" and literally means ‘ of the Nubians"...
, but also Kenuzi-Dongola.
Historical languages
The Egyptian languages (also known as Copto-Egyptian) consist of ancient EgyptianEgyptian language
Egyptian is the oldest known indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 17th century AD in the...
and Coptic
Coptic language
Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...
, and form a separate branch among the family of Afro-Asiatic languages
Afro-Asiatic languages
The Afroasiatic languages , also known as Hamito-Semitic, constitute one of the world's largest language families, with about 375 living languages...
. The Egyptian language is among the first written languages, and is known from hieroglyphic
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...
inscriptions preserved on monuments and sheets of papyrus
Papyrus
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material produced from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that was once abundant in the Nile Delta of Egypt....
. The Coptic language
Coptic language
Coptic or Coptic Egyptian is the current stage of the Egyptian language, a northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century. Egyptian began to be written using the Greek alphabet in the 1st century...
, the only extant descendant of Egyptian, is today the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
The "Koiné" dialect of the Greek language
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
was important in Hellenistic Alexandria, and was used in the philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
of that culture, and was also studied by later Arabic scholars.
Immigrant languages
There are also about 42,000 (2004) speakers of Modern GreekModern Greek
Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...
in Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, and a comparable number of Armenian
Armenian language
The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...
speakers, mostly in Cairo, and there are also around 7,500 speakers of Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
between Alexandria and Cairo
Other languages
Approximately 77,000 speakers of BejaBeja language
Beja or North Cushitic is an Afro-Asiatic language of the southern coast of the Red Sea, spoken by about two million nomads, the Beja, in parts of Egypt, Sudan, and Eritrea.-Classification:...
live in the Eastern Desert and along the coast of the Red Sea
Red Sea
The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...
.
Some 234,000 (2004) Dom
Dom people
The Dom of the Middle East are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group. Some authors relate them to the Domba people of India.- Culture :...
speak the Domari language
Domari language
Domari is an Indo-Aryan language, spoken by the Dom people across the Middle East, mainly in Iran and Egypt, but significant numbers of speakers are also found in India where they are known as Domba....
(an Indo-Aryan language
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
related to Romany) and are concentrated north of Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
and in Luxor
Luxor
Luxor is a city in Upper Egypt and the capital of Luxor Governorate. The population numbers 487,896 , with an area of approximately . As the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open air museum", as the ruins of the temple...
.
The Berber languages
Berber languages
The Berber languages are a family of languages indigenous to North Africa, spoken from Siwa Oasis in Egypt to Morocco , and south to the countries of the Sahara Desert...
are represented by Siwi, spoken by about 5,000 in the Siwa Oasis
Siwa Oasis
The Siwa Oasis is an oasis in Egypt, located between the Qattara Depression and the Egyptian Sand Sea in the Libyan Desert, nearly 50 km east of the Libyan border, and 560 km from Cairo....
.