Communicating Egyptian Style 239Many tapes for learning Arabic phrases use Egyptian
Arabic because it is a widely understood dialect. Since
Egyptian cinema and recordings are popular throughout the
Arabic-speaking world, most people who speak the language
understand the normalised Egyptian Spoken Arabic (based
on Cairo speech) established through the media.
Coptic, one very important language you will not hear
spoken, reportedly comes from Ancient Egypt. This extinct
language lives on through the liturgical language of the
Coptic Christian Church. No fi rst language speakers of Coptic
exist, since the language went extinct apparently in the
16th century.
The large numbers of foreign tourists throughout Egypt
introduce an interesting effect on communication styles.
Anywhere that you fi nd a signifi cant tourist penetration, you
will also fi nd people able to communicate at least minimally
in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese and
probably several other languages. In tourist areas, people
constantly approach the unwary stranger in a language
Egyptians guess, based on the foreigner’s appearance, will
be understood. If you don’t respond to entreaties in one
language, tourism entrepreneurs simply switch languages
until they fi nd one you understand. However, in the more
traditional parts of cities or in the rural areas, few people
speak any language other than their native tongue.
SIMPLIFIED ARABIC PRONUNCIATION
AND ALPHABET
The Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters. Some additional
letters are used in Arabic when writing placenames or
foreign words containing sounds which do not occur in
Standard Arabic, such as /p/ or /g/.
Words are written in horizontal lines from right to left,
numerals are written from left to right
Most letters change form depending on whether they
appear at the beginning, middle or end of a word, or on
their own (see tables).
Letters that can be joined are always joined in both
handwritten and printed Arabic. The only exceptions to