Languages of the Ottoman Empire
The Ottomans had three influential languages: Turkish, spoken by the majority of the people in Anatolia and by the majority of Muslims of the Balkans except in Albania, Bosnia, and various Aegean Sea islands; Persian, initially used by the educated in northern portions of the Ottoman Empire before being displaced by Ottoman Turkish; and Arabic, used in southern portions of the Ottoman Empire; Arabic was spoken mainly in Arabia, North Africa, Mesopotamia and the Levant. Throughout the vast Ottoman bureaucracy Ottoman Turkish language was the official language, a version of Turkish, albeit with a vast mixture of both Arabic and Persian grammar and vocabulary.
Francophile
The French Revolution and its ideals of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" inspired many secular and progressive movements in Ottoman Turkey, including the Young Turk movement that would go on to create the Republic of Turkey. Napoleon's breaking of the age-old Franco-Ottoman alliance by conquering Ottoman-controlled Egypt also had an effect. Muhammad Ali the Great, who became the Ottoman "vali" (governor) of Egypt in 1805 and ruled as a "de facto" independent ruler until his death in 1848 had been strongly impressed with the Napoleon's "Armée d'Orient", and imported French veterans of the Napoleonic wars to train his army. Egypt was very much in the French sphere of influence politically, economically and culturally in the 19th century, and French was the preferred language of Egypt's elites right up to the 1952 revolution. At the court of the Khedive Isma'il Pasha of Egypt, better known as Isma'il the Magnificent the languages used were French and Turkish. Reflecting his Francophilia, the French-educated Isma'il emulated Baron Haussmann by tearing down much of Cairo to rebuild it in the style of Paris. Even today, the architecture of Downtown Cairo closely resembles that of downtown Paris.