1. Family: Afro-Asiatic
  2. Genus: Semitic

Arabic (Egyptian)

WALS coordinates: 30° N, 31° E

spoken in Egypt

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Arabic (Eastern)
Routledge:
    Other:
    • Arabic (Colloquial Egyptian),
    • Arabic (Cairene),
    • Egyptian Arabic,
    • Arabic (Cairene Egyptian Colloquial),
    • Egyptian Colloquial Arabic
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Average
    Vowel Quality Inventories Average (5-6)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Moderately high
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In both plosives and fricatives
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems Missing /p/
    Uvular Consonants Uvular stops and continuants
    Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
    Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
    The Velar Nasal No velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Complex
    Tone No tones
    Fixed Stress Locations No fixed stress
    Weight-Sensitive Stress Right-oriented: One of the last three
    Weight Factors in Weight-Sensitive Stress Systems Combined
    Rhythm Types Trochaic
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants Pharyngeals
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Ablaut/concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives No case
    Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 6-7 categories per word
    Locus of Marking in the Clause No marking
    Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases No marking
    Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Inconsistent or other
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Weakly suffixing
    Reduplication Productive full and partial reduplication
    Case Syncretism No case marking
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking Syncretic
    Nominal Categories
    Number of Genders Two
    Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems Sex-based
    Systems of Gender Assignment Semantic and formal
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Mixed morphological plural
    Occurrence of Nominal Plurality All nouns, always obligatory
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Person-number stem
    The Associative Plural No associative plural
    Definite Articles Definite affix
    Indefinite Articles No indefinite, but definite article
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns No inclusive/exclusive
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No inclusive/exclusive
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
    Pronominal and Adnominal Demonstratives Identical
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Related by gender markers
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns In 3rd person + 1st and/or 2nd person
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns No politeness distinction
    Indefinite Pronouns Generic-noun-based
    Person Marking on Adpositions Pronouns only
    Number of Cases No morphological case-marking
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking No case-marking
    Position of Case Affixes No case affixes or adpositional clitics
    Comitatives and Instrumentals Differentiation
    Ordinal Numerals First, two-th, three-th
    Distributive Numerals No distributive numerals
    Numeral Classifiers Absent
    Position of Pronominal Possessive Affixes Possessive suffixes
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Action Nominal Constructions Mixed
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' different from 'with'
    Nominal and Verbal Conjunction Identity
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect Grammatical marking
    The Past Tense Present, no remoteness distinctions
    The Future Tense Inflectional future exists
    The Perfect No perfect
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Mixed type
    The Morphological Imperative Second singular and second plural
    The Prohibitive Special imperative + normal negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    Situational Possibility Verbal constructions
    Epistemic Possibility Verbal constructions
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for both possibility and necessity
    Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
    Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
    Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
    Verbal Number and Suppletion None
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb SVO
    Order of Subject and Verb SV
    Order of Object and Verb VO
    Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb VOX
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Prepositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Noun-Genitive
    Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Noun-Demonstrative
    Order of Numeral and Noun No dominant order
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Noun-Relative clause
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Adjective-Degree word
    Position of Polar Question Particles Initial
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
    Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Initial subordinator word
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase VO and Prepositions
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun VO and NRel
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun VO and NAdj
    Simple Clauses
    Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Neutral
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Neutral
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Accusative
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Subject affixes on verb
    Verbal Person Marking Both the A and P arguments
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking Zero in all 3sg forms
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb A precedes P
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Mixed
    Reciprocal Constructions Distinct from reflexive
    Passive Constructions Present
    Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
    Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
    Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Morphological but no compound
    Negative Morphemes Double negation
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Symmetric
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation Non-assignable
    Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
    Polar Questions Question particle
    Predicative Possession Locational
    Predicative Adjectives Nonverbal encoding
    Nominal and Locational Predication Identical
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Relativization on Obliques Pronoun-retention
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is expressed overtly
    Lexicon
    Numeral Bases Decimal
    M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
    N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
    Tea Words derived from Sinitic cha