The official language of the Arab Republic of Egypt is MSA (Modern Standard Arabic). It is the official language in almost all Arab countries. Like in all Arab countries it is not spoken in everyday life. Egyptians speak in their dialects.

Arabic Newspaper

Most of the media comes out (broadcast) in MSA. All the laws of the country are written in MSA. All official statements of the authorities come out only in MSA. About 70% of Egyptians read and understand MSA fluently. However many speak and write it rather poorly, they simply don’t need to.

MSA is part of the school curriculum in Egypt. Local dialects are not taught in schools.

Two dialects in Egypt

There are two main dialects of Arabic common in everyday life – Egyptian Arabic and Upper Egyptian Arabic. They are so different from the MSA that they should have been recognized as separate languages. However, they have no official status.

Egyptian Arabic is the most widely spoken dialect of Arabic in the world, since the Egyptians are the largest Arab nation. It is also called “Masri,” which translates to “Egyptian.” Egyptian is spoken by about 65 million people.

The Masri dialect is distinguished by the fact that it not only has a spoken form, but also has its own writing. Recall that most dialects of Arabic have only a spoken form. There is even a separate version of Wikipedia in Masri – arz.wikipedia.org

Most movies and some newspapers and magazines are published in Egyptian. It can be said that all entertainment media in Egypt work in the Egyptian dialect.

The Upper Egyptian dialect, aka saeidi. This dialect is spoken in Upper Egypt (in the southern part of the country, along the Nile) by about 19 million people.

These two dialects over the centuries have become very distant from each other. Their speakers do not always understand each other. Usually they understand the phrases only in general terms. Not only the words are different, but also some sounds and grammar.