[10][11][12][13][14] 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.

[24] However, Nile Valley Egyptians slowly adopted Arabic as a written language following the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the seventh century.

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[25](دفع الإصر عن كلام أهل مصر, "The Removal of 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".

Local chroniclers mention the continued use of Coptic as a spoken language until the 17th century by peasant women in Upper Egypt.

[28][29] Standard Arabic is the official language of the state as per constitutional law with the name اللغة العربية al-luġa al-ʿarabiyyah, lit.

[30] Interest in the local vernacular began in the 1800s (in opposition to the language of the ruling class, Turkish) [citation needed], 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.

It was only in 1966 that Mustafa Musharafa's Kantara Who Disbelieved was released, the first novel to be written entirely in Egyptian Arabic.

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.

Though 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.

Conversely, Modern Standard Arabic was the norm for state news outlets, including newspapers, magazines, television, and radio.

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 the Bird'; 1994),[43] 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 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').

[44][45] The epistolary novel Jawabat Haraji il-Gutt (Sa'idi Arabic: جوابات حراجى القط, romanized: Jawābāt Ḥarājī il-Guṭṭ, lit.

(عايزه أتجوز, ʻĀyzah atgawwiz, 2008) by Ghada Abdel Aal and She Must Have Travelled (شكلها سافرت, Shaklahā sāfarit, 2016) by Soha Elfeqy.

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.

Such features include reduction of long vowels in open and unstressed syllables, the postposition of demonstratives and interrogatives, the modal meaning of the imperfect and the integration of the participle.

As all nouns take their pausal forms, singular words and broken plurals simply lose their case endings.

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 the French; bamba "pink" from Turkish pembe.

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-).

The negative circumfix often surrounds the entire verbal composite including direct and indirect object pronouns: However, verbs in the future tense can instead use the prefix /miʃ/: Interrogative sentences can be formed by adding the negation clitic "(miʃ)" before the verb: Addition of the circumfix can cause complex changes to the verbal cluster, due to the application of the rules of vowel syncope, shortening, lengthening, insertion and elision described above: In addition, certain other morphological changes occur: In contrast with Classical Arabic, but much like the other varieties of Arabic, Egyptian Arabic prefers subject–verb–object (SVO) word order; CA and to a lesser extent MSA prefer verb–subject–object (VSO).

For example, in MSA "Adel read the book" would be قرأَ عادل الكتاب Qaraʾa ʿĀdilu l-kitāb IPA: [ˈqɑɾɑʔɑ ˈʕæːdel ol keˈtæːb] whereas EA would say عادل قرا الكتاب ʕādil ʔara l-kitāb IPA: [ˈʕæːdel ˈʔɑɾɑ lkeˈtæːb].

Thus "These two Syrian professors are walking to the university" in MSA (in an SVO sentence for ease of comparison) would be "هذان الأستاذان السوريان يمشيان إلى الجامعة" Haḏān al-ʾustāḏān as-Sūriyyān yamšiyān ʾilā l-ǧāmiʿah IPA: [hæːˈzæːn æl ʔostæːˈzæːn as suːrejˈjæːn jæmʃeˈjæːn ˈʔelæ lɡæːˈmeʕæ], which becomes in EA "الأستاذين السوريين دول بيمشو للجامعة" il-ʔustazēn il-Suriyyīn dōl biyimʃu lil-gamʕa, IPA: [el ʔostæˈzeːn el soɾejˈjiːn ˈdoːl beˈjemʃo lelˈɡæmʕæ].

(see consonants) Behnstedt argues that the phenomenon of merging of interdentals with plosives has also occurred in areas without a substratum lacking interdentals, e.g. in Mecca, Aden and Bahrain, and can be caused by drift rather than the influence of a substratum concluding that "[o]n the phonological level, there is no evidence for Coptic substratal influence.

[95] Enlightened Colloquial (ʿĀmmiyyat al-Mutanawwirīn) is the language of those who have had some schooling and are relatively affluent; loanwords tend to refer to items of popular culture, consumer products, and fashions.

Egyptian Arabic has been a subject of study by scholars and laypersons in the past and the present for many reasons, including personal interest, egyptomania, business, news reporting, and diplomatic and political interactions.

Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA) is now a field of study in both graduate and undergraduate levels in many higher education institutions and universities in the world.

When added to academic instruction, Arabic-language schools and university programs provide Egyptian Arabic courses in a classroom fashion, and others facilitate classes for online study.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Egyptian/Masri (Arabic script; spelling not standardised): الاعلان العالمى لحقوق الانسان, البند الاولانى