Egyptians speak a continuum of dialects. The Coptic language is used primarily by Egyptian Copts and it is the liturgical language of Coptic Christianity. Standard Arabic is the official language of Egypt. Egyptian Arabic is the commonly spoken language, based on the dialect of Cairo , and is occasionally written in Arabic script , or in Arabic chat alphabet mostly on new communication services.
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 and music industry throughout the Arabic-speaking world.
In southern Egypt, Saidi Arabic is the main spoken language for most people. Some , Dom speak the Domari language an Indo-Aryan language related to Romany and are concentrated north of Cairo. In the western desert Eastern Libyan Arabic is spoken. About 30, Egyptian Berbers living in the Siwa oasis and its surroundings speak Siwi Berber , [3] which is a variety of the Berber language of North Africa.
Siwi Berber is well mutually intelligible with Libyan Berber dialects [source? In ancient times, the population of western Egypt was probably made of Berber-speaking tribes[source? Immigrants and their descendants mainly speak Greek , Armenian , Italian [ clarification needed ] , or also more recently African languages like Amharic and Tigrigna. The only known sign language used in Egypt is Egyptian Sign Language.
It is known to be used in Alexandria and Cairo, and possibly other regions. Regional variation is reported anecdotally but not documented. Most educated people in Egypt study English at school. English is the most widely used language in tourism. Nowadays, the majority of the road signs in Egypt are written both in Arabic and English. In addition, many English words have started being used by Egyptians during the everyday life.
