The Arabic Language

Qurʾān
or 
ḥadīṯ
s, not unlike the way vernacular languages are used 
for religious instruction in non-Arabic-speaking parts of the Islamic world (see 
Chapter 5, p. 81). Nonetheless, traditional sheikhs, even in Egypt, tend to use a 
higher variety of the language, for instance, when they are delivering a sermon. 
The use of Classical Arabic then comes to mark the boundary of the sacred, as 
Haeri (2003: 1) calls it.
The Islamic revival in Egypt in the 1990s has changed the language choice in the 
religious domain. Popular preachers like Sheikh Kishk (1933–96) started to attract 
crowds with their simple language, even though they still used Classical Arabic to 
create a solemn atmosphere. A new phenomenon is that of the media preachers. 
Wise (2003) has depicted the difference in setting and even in clothing (modern 
clothes instead of the traditional garb) of these preachers. In this connection 
she has also drawn attention to their different language choice. Soliman’s (2008) 
study of language use in the sermons of the media phenomenon Amr Khaled (b. 
1967), has shown that his use of Classical Arabic remains restricted to recitation of 
the 
Qurʾān, 
quotations from the 
Ḥadīṯ
, or formal prayers at the beginning and the 
end of a sermon. In the rest of the sermon, Amr Khaled uses Egyptian Arabic, even 
when he speaks abroad to non-Egyptians. Soliman connects this pattern with 

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The Arabic Language
the change in targeted audience, middle-class affluent Muslims, and explains the 
use of the colloquial language as motivated by a wish to connect with younger 
generations. But even middle-aged people in the audience regard this form of 
religious instruction as 
riwiš 
‘cool, hip’. In this pattern it is entirely appropriate 
that the preacher from time to time even inserts English loanwords in his speech.
The example of religion once again shows that it would be too simple to regard 
the dialect as a purely negative variety. We have seen above that dialects stands 
for familiarity and, on a political level, for loyalty towards one’s country rather 
than to the distanced ideal of the Arab nation. Egypt is a prime example of this 
attitude towards one’s own dialect. The relatively favourable attitude towards the 
dialect in Egypt is visible in all social contexts. In interviews on television, even in 
speeches in parliament, colloquial elements are freely used. There is a lot of public 
interest in the colloquial language, somewhat comparable to the way in which 
Schwyzertüütsch is cultivated in German-speaking Switzerland. Literary works 
regularly contain colloquial elements, especially in the dialogues; and theatre 
plays, even when they were written originally in Standard Arabic, are often 
staged in dialect. People proudly commented on the publication of Badawī’s and 
Hinds’ (1986) dictionary of the Egyptian 
ʿāmmiyya
. Many language schools offer 
courses in Egyptian dialect for foreigners. Debates about the language question 
did take place in Egypt (cf. above, Chapter 11), but the point is that in Egypt such 
debates did not create a scandal, whereas elsewhere in the Arab world experi
-
ments involving the use of dialect were regarded with much more suspicion. The 
initiative of the Egyptian version of Wikipedia, which was established in 2008 (see 
Chapter 9, p. 169), raised a few eyebrows, to be sure, but Panović (2010) shows 
that in spite of its rather radical ideas about Egyptian as an independent African 
language, and in spite of its association with Christian authors, some Egyptian 
Muslims feel positive about this initiative and are willing to act as contributors.
The Egyptian attitude towards the use of dialect is also very much in evidence 
in international pan-Arab conferences, where Egyptian delegates unhesitatingly 
use colloquialisms in their speech while delegates from other Arab countries 
do their best to avoid such colloquialisms at all costs. Private interviews with 
Egyptian politicians and even with religious authorities, after a start in obligatory 
standard formulae, often switch to colloquial Egyptian.
This attractive force of Egyptian Arabic is also at work outside the Egyptian 
borders. One of the explanations for the use of colloquialisms by Egyptians in a 
pan-Arabic context may be that their dialect is universally known in the Arabo-
phone world on account of the numerous Egyptian movies and soap operas 
that are exported to all Arab countries. This has led to a situation where most 
people can understand the Egyptian dialect at least partly, but not the other 
way round. A second reason is the large number of Egyptian teachers working 
abroad: thousands of Egyptian teachers were invited to come to the North African 
countries after independence because of the shortage of people who could teach 

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Diglossia 
253
in Arabic (see below, Chapter 14, p. 263). A large number of Egyptian teachers 
worked in Yemen during and after the Nasser period, so much so that nowadays 
any Arabic-speaking foreigner in Yemen is automatically regarded as an Egyptian 
teacher. In the Yemenite dialect, Egyptian colloquialisms have gained a position 
as prestige variants (cf. above, p. 183). In recent times, many Egyptians have been 
working temporarily in the Gulf states and in Saudi Arabia.