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.
Egyptian Arabic
The total number of Egyptian Arabic users in all countries is over 64.5 million, 62.3 million of which are native speakers in Egypt, including several regional dialects. In addition, there are immigrant Egyptian communities in the Middle East, Europe, North America, Latin America, Australia and South East Asia. Among the spoken varieties of Arabic, standard Egyptian Arabic (based on the dialect of the Egyptian capital) is the only one to have become a lingua franca in other parts of the Arabic-speaking world for two main 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 the education systems of various countries in the Arabian Peninsula and also taught there and in other countries such as Algeria and Libya; although this is changing as Damascus Arabic is taking its rule in the media. Also, many Lebanese artists choose to sing in Egyptian and Lebanese. Standard Egyptian Arabic when used in documents, broadcast media, prepared speeches, and sometimes in liturgical purpose, is Cairene Arabic with loanwords from Modern Standard Arabic origin or code-switching between Cairene Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic.