Egyptian Arabic doesn't have an alphabet of its own. A shop sign in Cairo uses the same 28 letters as a newspaper in Amman, so any Arabic script you've seen before still applies.
The surprises come when you read it aloud. Cairo gives a few letters a different sound from the one a textbook teaches, and it runs some of them together in ways the spelling never shows. This guide goes through those changes and lines our Latin spelling up against the script, so you can read the two side by side.
What's the same as any Arabic
The script runs right to left. Most letters join to the next one, so each has a slightly different shape at the start, middle and end of a word. That part takes practice, and no dialect changes it.
Short vowels usually go unwritten. Signs, menus and phone messages show the consonants and the long vowels and leave you to supply the rest. In our course every word carries its vowel marks, so جِبْنَة shows you the i and the a in (cheese). Out on the street you'll see جبنة and need to know the word already. That's one good reason to learn by ear first.
A small mark called shadda doubles a letter. You'll see it in شُبّاك, (window), where the b is held twice as long. We write a doubled letter twice, so the bb in our spelling is the shadda in the script.
What Cairo does when it reads aloud
ج is a g. Most of the Arab world says the j of "jam". Cairo says the g of "go". (new) is جديد, and every ج in the course sounds the same way.
ق is usually a glottal stop. That's the catch in "uh-oh". قهوة is , coffee. A short list of bookish words keeps a real q, and our A1 has two of them: (dictionary) and musiqa (music). The Egyptian q and g covers both sounds in detail.
ذ often comes out as z. Ticket is تذكرة, and you say . He studies is بيذاكر, . A taxi driver calls you ("Where to, sir?"), and that 'ostaaz is أستاذ. The ذ stays in the spelling every time. Only the sound moves.
ث shows up rarely, and as s or t. The one ث in our A1 is in actor, مُمَثِّل, said ("He's a famous actor."). More often the sound has gone all the way to t, and our course spells the word with ت to match. Formal Arabic writes three as ثلاثة. Our course writes تلاتة and says . Eight is تمانية, , and two is اتنين, .
ظ becomes a heavy z. (exactly) has it in the middle, and (at noon) opens on it. We write it as a capital Z.
el- and the letters that swallow it
el- means "the", and in the script it's always ال. Before about half the alphabet, though, the l disappears and the next consonant doubles. These are the sounds made at the front of the mouth: t, d, r, z, s, sh, S, D, T, Z, n and l. Grammar books call them the sun letters.
So the pharmacy is , "The pharmacy is over there." Tea is , "This tea is hot." Compare a letter from the other half, where el- stays put: , "The book is new."
One sentence has both kinds side by side. means "The fire station is over there, on the left." el-maTaafi keeps its l. sh-shimaal loses it.
Cairo often treats g the same way, even though ج isn't on the classic list. Next is , where el + gayy has become eg-gayy.
With vowel marks, the doubling shows as a shadda: الشَّاي. Without them you see ال and have to know. Our spelling writes es-, esh- or eT- so you don't have to guess.
Reading our spelling next to the script
Every word in Bel Masri shows the Arabic and our Latin spelling together. Long vowels are written double (aa, ee, oo), doubled consonants are written twice, and the letters English has no match for get a number, a capital or a mark. Here are the ones you'll meet first, each voiced in Cairene Egyptian and checked by a speaker.
| Letter | Our spelling | Word | Arabic | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ء | ' | أَنَا | I | |
| ع | 3 | عِيش | bread | |
| ح | 7 | حِلْو | nice, sweet | |
| خ | kh | خَمْسَة | five | |
| غ | gh | غَالِي | expensive | |
| ش | sh | شَاي | tea | |
| ص | S | رِخِيص | cheap | |
| ط | T | طَبَق | plate | |
| ض | D | فَاضِي | free, not busy | |
| ظ | Z | مَظْبُوط | exactly | |
| ق | ' (q in a few words) | قَهْوَة | coffee | |
| ج | g | جِدِيد | new | |
| ذ | z | تَذْكَرَة | ticket | |
| ث | s | مُمَثِّل | actor |
Notice that 'ana and 'ahwa both start with an apostrophe. One is a hamza and the other a ق, and in Cairo they sound the same. The apostrophe tells you what to say, and the Arabic beside it tells you how it's spelled.
If you're only starting out, Egyptian Arabic for beginners has a first week that leaves the script for later on purpose.
Common questions
Does Egyptian Arabic have its own alphabet? No. It's written with the same 28 letters as any other Arabic, right to left. What changes is how some letters sound when a Cairene reads them aloud, and a few spellings follow the speech, like تلاتة for three.
Do I have to learn the alphabet before I start speaking? You don't. You can learn to talk from audio and a Latin spelling, then pick up the script once the words are already in your ear. Reading goes much faster when you know how the word should sound before you see it.
How do Egyptians pronounce ذ and ث? In our A1 words ذ comes out as z: tazkara (ticket), beyzakir (he studies), 'ostaaz (sir). ث turns up once, in mumassil (actor), and it's said with an s. Three and eight are spelled with ت in our course, تلاتة and تمانية, because that's how they're said.
What do the 3 and 7 mean in Egyptian Arabic spelling? 3 stands for ع and 7 for ح, two sounds English doesn't have. Capital S, T, D and Z mark the heavy letters ص ط ض ظ, and an apostrophe marks a glottal stop, which in Cairo covers both hamza and most ق.