Egypt's Language Revolution

I didn't mean to make the title of this entry as catchy as it might seem, but after reading a very interesting article on Gaberism.net, I was astounded to see the launching of the Egyptian Arabic (Masry) Wikipedia. Immediately, this reminded me of Ataturk's language revolution of Turkey, whereby there was a sudden transformation from Ottoman (Osmanli) to Turkish in an effort to modernize Turkey. This saw the change of Turkish from Arabic script to the Latin alphabet. Although many in the Arab world look down upon this Westernized deviation of Turkish, it wasn't totally unjustified considering that only 10% was literate, where as now the literacy rate is 90%.

Now I wouldn't say that the establishment of Wikipedia in Egyptian Arabic signals a lingual revolution, but it definitely signals the spark that might ignite one. Today, Wikipedia is one of the most prevalent tools for the dissemination of information. Considering that almost half of Egypt's population is illiterate, largely due to the fact the public's inability to grasp standardized Arabic due to the dualistic chasm that arises between spoken and written Arabic. To some extent, Masry is hardwired into the Egyptian mentality as it is the resulting culmintaion of Arabic, Coptic, Turkish, and even French and English. The illiterate masses have only access to Masry, as it constitues the lingua franca for everything from television shows to the music they hear. So would an language revolution provide a solution to the widespread illiteracy that Egypt suffers, as was the case in Turkey?

Although this topic has widely been debated in Egypt, I see it more pertinent than ever in the Information Age. There has been a push by intellectuals, such as Qasim Amin and Ahmed Lutfi el Sayed for Egyptianization of Arabic. This was a very secular and liberal movement in reaction to British colonization of Egypt and a push to define and Egyptian identity. So if transforming Egypt's official language from Arabic to Masry was the solution to find our national identity and erradicate illeteracy, what was the obstacle?

Arabic is the language of the Quran, which provides the only link for Egyptians with their religion. Moreover, by letting go of Arabic, Egypt loses its only link with the Arab world. This would lead to isolation that could be irreversible. Countries like Morroco suffer this isolation from the rest of the Arab world due to the distinctness of their dialect. Moroever, standardized Arabic is what holds Egypt united and prevents the fragmentation of Masry into various other regional dialects, such as Nubian, Sa'idi, etc...

Or... the initiation of Masry could lead to a modernization revolution throughout the whole Arab world whereby Masry could be adopted as the modern lingua franca between the Arabs due to its simplicity, which could in turn solve the illiteracy problem in other Arab countries. This is very possible due to the prevalence of Masry in many other parts of the Arab world due to the widespread and popular dissemination of Egyptian media.

Reading the article on Gaberism in Masry, I was able to read the text twice as fast as I would be able to read any classical Arabic text because it is written in the language I speak. I think that the transformation from from Arabic to Masry could immediately make any Egyptian fluent because it would expose him to what he is most familiar with, his language. Although, I find classical Arabic to be much more stylistically beautiful, I would advocate the transformation to Masry as the only pragmatic solution to eradicating illiteracy in Egypt. Wikipedia in Masry could indeed be the first step of a collaborative effort for Egyptians to post, edit, and convey information to the masses of Egypt. I think that if the Egyptians want to really bring about this lingual revolution to educate themselves, they will have to take the initiative to read, write, and modify this new collaborative platform with a voluntary spirit that defines any revolution. I personally will endeavor to refer to Wikipedia in Masry from now on as a way to profess my support and strengthen my connection with the Masry movement.