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
The Egyptians slowly adopted the Arabic as a written language following the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the seventh century. Until then, they had spoken either Koine Greek or Egyptian in its Coptic form. A period of Coptic-Arabic bilingualism in Lower Egypt lasted for more than three centuries. The period would last much longer in the south. Arabic may have been already familiar to Egyptians through pre-Islamic trade with Bedouins in the Sinai Peninsula and the easternmost part of the Nile Delta. Egyptian Arabic seems to have begun taking shape in Fustat, the first Islamic capital of Egypt, now part of Cairo.