Culture of Egypt
Arabic is Egypt's official language, it came to Egypt in the 7th century, and the Egyptian Arabic dialect today has become the modern speech of the country. Of the many varieties of Arabic, it is the most widely spoken second dialect, due to the influence of Egyptian cinema and media throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Egypt's position in the heart of the Arab world has also had reversed influence, adopting many words, phrases, and proverbs from neighboring Arabic speaking areas such as the Maghreb area and the Mashriq. Today the daily Egyptian Arabic adopted several French, Italian, Greek, Turkish, Armenian and English words to its dictionary, as well as keeping several other words from its own ancient languages such as Coptic and Demotic.
Languages in censuses
The official language of Algeria is Modern Standard Arabic (literary Arabic), as specified in its constitution since 1963. In addition to this, Berber has been recognized as a "national language" by constitutional amendment since May 8, 2002. Algerian Arabic and Berber are the native languages of over 99% of Algerians, with Algerian Arabic spoken by about 72% and Berber by 27.4%. French, though it has no official status, is widely used in government, culture, media (newspapers) and education (from primary school), due to Algeria's colonial history and can be regarded as being a "de facto" co-official language of Algeria. Kabyle, the most spoken Berber language in the country, is taught and partially co-official (with a few restrictions) in parts of Kabylie.