Languages of Egypt
Arabic came to Egypt in the 7th century, and Egyptian Arabic has become the modern spoken language of the Egyptians, is understood by almost all Egyptians and is based on Egyptian Coptic grammar. In southern Egypt, Saidi Arabic is the main spoken language for most non-urbanized people. 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.
Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic has no official status and is not officially recognized as a language. Modern Standard Arabic, a modernized form of Classical Arabic (also called Qur'anic Arabic), is the official language of Egypt (see diglossia). Interest in the local vernacular began in the 1800s, 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 the simplification of syntactical and morphological rules and the introduction of colloquialisms to even complete "Egyptianization" ("tamṣīr") by abandoning the so-called Modern Standard Arabic in favor of Masri or Egyptian Arabic.