<p>I want to study abroad in Cairo but I am not certain if I need to know Egyptian.
I truly know only English and have a moderate grasp on Spanish, can anyone inform me on their experiences or what i should do?</p>
<p>I don’t know about Egyptian but I’ve heard Arabic to be useful…</p>
<p>You will need to learn at least some decent Arabic to get through everyday life. The American University offers courses in English though. </p>
<p>Also remember that egyptian dialect of Arabic differs a lot from standard arabic which you will be most likely to learn in almost any language-school</p>
<p>…questions like this are why the rest of the world thinks Americans are so dumb.</p>
<p>this thread made my night!!!</p>
<p>Yeah, but the hieroglyphics are pretty hard to get down. Watch out, people on the street periodically shout out questions about the Book of the Dead.</p>
<p>Haha, just kidding with you. Depends, some programs want you to know Arabic beforehand, others teach it on site, others just do everything in English (like a dig, not a culture study). Check out requirements on certain programs, see if you see “conversational Arabic” or something.</p>
<p>All posters but the OP and tobiz.int in this thread are smug idiots, and wrong to boot.</p>
<p>If you think there is one language called ‘Arabic’ which is spokenly mutually intelligible across the Arab world, you are ignorant.</p>
<p>OP: Yes, learning modern Egyptian Arabic could help you very much. But remember that as an American study abroader, you won’t really be interacting with any locals except barmen and bus drivers – you will spend all your time with other American study abroaders.</p>
<p>I don’t think they’re being smug, and they’re not wrong. Yes the Arabic spoken in Egypt is quite different from the Arabic spoken in the gulf, but it is still Arabic. You wouldn’t call the variant of English spoken in the Caribbean, Caribbean would you? Egyptian, apart from being an extinct language is not even in the same language family as Arabic.</p>
<p>Chill-ax dudes and dudettes, no need for acrimony. :-)</p>
<p>The exact wording of the original question was just a bit unfortunate. The fact that</p>
<p>Egyptian = dead hieroglyphic language</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>Egyptian NOT = Egyptian Arabic</p>
<p>is a fairly basic nugget of information that an aspiring study abroad student would be expected to know. And, of course, non-Americans will often jump on the chance to bash an American for poor knowledge of the outside world…</p>
<p>One of my colleagues in an Egyptian born, raised and educated PhD graduate. He insists he speaks Egyptian, not Arabic.</p>
<p>And I went to a seminar by a linguist about the language - Israeli.</p>
<p>The only way he could possibly claim to speak ‘Egyptian’ and not Arabic would be if he were one the few remaining speakers of Coptic (the descendant of the ancient Egyptian language). That however is unlikely, given that there are only a few hundred Coptic speakers left.</p>
<p>If you do not know even the name of the country you want to be studying in I question whether you deserve to be studying at all. You sir, are an Idiot.</p>
<p>Regarding the debate concerning what is this ‘Egyptian’ of which the OP talks I have this to say: as all reasonably well educated people know (clearly the OP is excluded) the language of Egypt is Arabic. I suppose one might be able to suggest that the Arabic spoken in Egpyt is a dialect of Arabic, but dialects are still the same language: take Ancient Greek: within the single language there are, to name but a few, Attic, Aeolic and Ionic dialects. Yet one can understand them all.</p>
<p>OP i implore you - don’t study abroad - judging by this post I doubt you would be capable of picking up even a basic amount of Arabic, let alone have the ability to invent, and then teach the whole population of Egypt ‘Egyptian’.</p>
<p>I understand that the OP said ‘Egyptian’ out of (harmless) ignorance. Ignorance is not the same as stupidity, and the condescending insults directed at him/her are rude and unnecessary.</p>
<p>There is a serious movement in linguistics to redefine the ‘Arabic’ spoken in modern Egypt as ‘Egyptian’ (<a href=“http://xeper.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2008/09/20/what-language-do-modern-egyptians-speak/[/url]”>Why “Xeper”??… Why not “Alice”, for instance? | XEPER: The Journey of a Modern Ancient Egyptian), and even a (separate) movement to redefine modern Hebrew as ‘Israeli’.</p>
<p>So I assume my colleague has well-founded reasons to reject your sweeping opinion that:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Nice 6+ month old bump.
Anyways it is a great time to study in Egypt…
Who needs partying when you have mandatory curfews at 3pm?</p>
<p>You assume wrongly, there is no such movement. I’m not sure why you’re referring to my previous post as ‘opinion’ either, it’s a fact - do some research.</p>
<p>Hah hah, very emphatic. I think I will defer to my colleague, a native Egyptian with a PhD, and such websites as the one I linked above, rather than to your strong opinion.</p>
<p>I have also attended a seminar by an Israeli linguist putting forward a case for ‘Israeli’ rather than ‘Hebrew’.</p>
<p>Logically, what you say is not “the only way he could possibly claim”, because the real facts are 1) he does claim it, and b) he does not speak Coptic.</p>
<p>There’s no point continuing this if you’re not willing to do any research. If you want to debate this further I suggest you find some proof to support your claim (anecdotal opinions from personal blogs does not count). What I said was a fact, you don’t have to like it, but the fact is 99.9% of Egyptians speak Arabic.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Thus, some people now prefer to state that they speak Egyptian, rather than state that they speak Arabic. A minority, sure, but not an irrational or ignorant group.</p>
<p>It strikes me that there are two reasons that the OP made this thread </p>
<p>First - that they are and idiot, and are, having been caught out, clutching at straws and failing to understand the concept of Dialect.</p>
<p>The other alternative is that he is a ■■■■■ making a deliberate error to have this sort of discussion.</p>
<p>Whichever of the two is the case neither shows th OP in a good light</p>