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 nationalism
Both the Arabic language spoken in modern Egypt and the ancient Egyptian language are Afroasiatic languages. The rule of Muhammad Ali of Egypt led Egypt into an advanced level of socioeconomic development in comparison with Egypt's neighbours, which along with the discoveries of relics of ancient Egyptian civilization, helped to foster Egyptian identity and Egyptian nationalism. The Urabi movement in the 1870s and 1880s was the first major Egyptian nationalist movement that demanded an end to the alleged despotism of the Muhammad Ali family and demanded curbing the growth of European influence in Egypt, it campaigned under the nationalist slogan of "Egypt for Egyptians".