Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Egyptian Arabic

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Requests for new languages (Wikipedia Egyptian Arabic)

Discussion verification final decision This language has been verified as eligible. Although the language is eligible for a project, the community still needs to meet some requirements described in the language proposal policy. In the meantime, you can discuss the creation of this language project on this page. (See an unofficial analysis of this request.)

Contents 1 Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia 1.1 Description of Egyptian Arabic from English wikipedia[1] 1.2 Arguments in favour 1.3 Arguments against 1.4 Other discussion 1.5 Clarification 1.6 Equivalents 1.7 Wikipedia Masry so far 1.8 Usage of Masry 1.9 Making this personal 1.10 Running around in circles 1.11 Suggested way forward 1.12 Style of writing 1.13 Running around in circles 2 1.13.1 Full stop 2 Questions 3 List 3.1 Terminology 4 Experimental method 5 Serious questions 5.1 Comments on Ghaly's instructions on how to write EA. 5.2 From Incubator 6 See also 7 References

Proposal summary
Language details: Egyptian Arabic (Egyptian Arabic, arz ISO 639-3)
Users interested in forming an editing community: Add N beside users that are native speakers, and P beside the original proposers' names. Ghaly (NP) MagedMahfouz (N) Mamduh (N) One_last_pharaoh (N) Zerida (N)
Relevant pages: development wiki project
External links: Description of Egyptian Arabic from UCLA's Language Materials Project
Please read Meta:Language proposal policy for help using this template correctly.

Egyptian Arabic (Masry) as a language is spoken by more than 70 million people in Egypt and other countries, it has ISO 639-2 and ISO 639-3 Codes which is arz , Wikipedia Egyptian Arabic would be providing the information to speakers of Egyptian Arabic in a way similar to what Wikipedia Simple English is doing currently in comparison to wikipedia English. This will maximise the benefit for speakers. It would be written in layperson terms and a mixture between Egyptian slang and simple Arabic also it will allow writing the names of places and persons in the manner Egyptian media and writers are using--Ghaly 11:57, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

Wikipedia Masry is not going to be wikipedia simple Arabic and I have never intended that , I used the example for demonstration purposes only, I recognise Egyptian Arabic as a language as many other people do , I have no intention to start a simple Arabic wikipedia as I think the Arabic wikipedia is developing really well and I edit on it a lot , I have started more than 300 articles myself there.

To clarify what I am suggesting I started a page on How to write on wikipedia masri and for anyone who can read Egyptian Arabic it gives some guidelines on how to write.--Ghaly 20:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Description of Egyptian Arabic from English wikipedia^[1]

Egyptian Arabic (Maṣrī مصري) is a variety of the Arabic language of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family . It originated in the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt around the capital Cairo . Descended from the spoken Arabic brought to Egypt during the AD seventh-century Muslim conquest , its development was influenced mainly by the indigenous Copto]-Egyptian language of Ancient Egypt,^[2][3][4] and later by other languages such as Turkish. Egyptian Arabic is spoken by more than 76 million people in Egypt,It is also understood across the Middle East due to the predominance of Egyptian media, making it the most widely spoken and one of the most widely studied varieties of Arabic.

[edit] Arguments in favour

• Support Egyptian (Masri) is different enough to be considered a language of its own, it has different vocabulary, different grammar, etc. There are people, though, who are moved by certain religious and ideological thoughts to reject this fact and thus refuse for Egyptian to be treated as a separate language. But, whether or not you are with or against the idea of Egyptian being treated as a "language" of its own, and having its own version of Wikipedia, there are still many Egyptians who don't have good enough literacy of Arabic to be able to fully understand Arabic articles on Wikipedia. I am very much in favor of this Egyptian Wikipedia. Good luck guys! --Mamduh 17:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Why it can't be the other way around, that is, there are people who are moved by certain religious and ideological thoughts to shear Egyptians from their roots, trying to prove that Egyptians speak a different language and thus have a different identity, claiming they are working for the benefit of Egyptians, while they aren't. --Khaled Hosny 02:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Now this is what people call trying to stigmatize others who differ with you. There's nothing shameful in religious or ideological thought, but people are born to differ. Those Egyptian nationalists like me have great love for their country that they hate seeing it being forgotten for the sake of some other fake identity (i.e. Arabism). There's nothing religious here though, or do you have to be Arab in order to be a Muslim? Do you have to fake speaking Arabic to be accepted as a Muslim? The Arabist propaganda is actually a secular one. But, anyway, i dont wanna get into religious or ideological debates here. It's really as simple as this: Egyptian has similarities with Arabic but also a lot of differences with it. I can give you examples, if you ask me for some. By the way, a good example of another "previously Arabic" language is Maltese (the language of Malta), go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltese_language to read about it. As for those who want to shear Egyptians from their roots, don't you think this is a very funny comment? What are Egyptian roots, dear? Are they Arab Peninsula roots or rather EGYPTIAN roots? Please rethink this sentence then you'll know who's trying to rip them off their "roots." --Mamduh 08:19, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

what I wrote above was just a counter argument not really expressing my ideas, read again your own words above "who are moved by certain religious and ideological thoughts". --Khaled Hosny 13:20, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

"...there are people who are moved by certain religious and ideological thoughts to shear Egyptians from their roots..."

We have nothing "religious" that does anything here, so this is a mere attack based on nothing, and it felt like it was your own ideas, but I'm sorry if I misunderstood. As for those who want to think they speak Arabic, they are moved by religious thoughts, which are themselves used by the secular Arabists to propagate for their Arabism. So that's something both "religious" and "ideological," I don't see where I might be contradicting myself if at all.--Mamduh 21:15, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

• Support Referring to what Alnokta has mentioned in his opinion, I have edited a lot on wikipedia Arabic and I realised that a lot of the expressions and words used in the articles can be very difficult for a lot of Egyptians to accept as standard language for themselves, there was also an argument to use the letters used in Egyptian Arabic on the wikipedia Arabic but this was not acceptable.

The wikipedia Arabic is developing but in a way it is becoming more a project involving correct gramme and terms in traditional Arabic , The Arabic used in the current Egyptian newspapers and literature is very different and there is noway two articles should exist about the same topic in the same language one for Egyptians were they can write using the terms used in their own literature, and the other would be on the same subject but written in pure classical traditional Arabic , that is why I think Wikipedia Egyptian Arabic would be providing the information to speakers of Egyptian Arabic in a way similar to what Wikipedia Simple English is doing currently in comparison to wikipedia English.

Egyptian Arabic is understood well by many non-Egyptians making the benefits of having Wikipedia Egyptian Arabic extend beyond the suggested number ,yet still benefit the readers, who use terms that relate to their day to day life , not to classical literature that is used by academics only as is the case with articles on medical subjects; e.g. the Arabic article on Pre-eclampsia --Ghaly 04:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC).

• Support Native speakers of Egyptian Arabic are willing to contribute to this project in the long-term, hence this project has the potential to flourish like the other related Wikipedia language editions such as Mazanderani, Gilaki, Kabyle etc. Therefore the Egyptian Arabic language ought to be given the opportunity and priviledge to have its own language edition of Wikipedia. --Jose77 05:43, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

• Referring to Slacker's comments , my proposal is to provide a source of information in a language understood by the Egyptians Layperson in Egypt , The Arabic wikipedia is developing very well and I have been sharing in editing of Arabic wikipedia for longer than a year now. I am supporting keeping the Arabic wikipedia continuing to be written in the classical Arabic as it is the way its users have decided , yet I am suggesting providing the information to speakers of Egyptian Arabic in a way similar to what Wikipedia Simple English is doing currently in comparison to wikipedia English.

My suggestion is writing in a language recognised by the ISO code and the Egyptians actually speak ,Illiteracy is a problem but it doesn't justify keeping the information being written in classical style hoping that one day it might be understood. Wikipedia simple English is aimed at simplifying the style the information is written in ,not the information itself , and this is what I am aiming at by my proposal.

• In response to the comments that this is like suggesting having the American English wikipedia , I have to note that it is nothing of this kind. The language used by the English wikipedia can easily be understood by any reader whose Mother tongue is English, while this is not the case in the Arabic wikipedia , this can easily be noticed from looking at the medical topics on both wikipedias if the reader is fluent in Arabic and English.

Egyptian Arabic is a language recognised and spoken by millions of people , it is written in personal letters between Egyptians, it is used in songs , advertisement and most importantly in day to day life, My suggestion is driven by a wish to provide information in the language that is used in day to day life , simply to make it understood by many more people, the interwiki will be providing a link to the Arabic wikipedia and will give the reader a chance to understand the topic in the language they speak then have a look at the version in Classical Arabic as used on Arabic wikipedia , this will only increase the people looking and benefiting from the writing of information in Classical Arabic on Arabic wikipediaand if any will increase the interest, Egyptian Arabic is a language recognised and different from Arabic , it can not be considered to be a mere dialect, however, the language used on Arabic wikipedia is as far as I know no one's Mother tongue as it is a Classical traditional style that ,with some doubt, have never been anyone's mother tongue. As an Egyptian ,who can speak more than one language ,I recognise the differences between the languages and that is my motivation , I am just trying to add to the idea of wikipedia as a multilingual project and using this idea to make the knowledge reach as many people as possible .--Ghaly 19:21, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• I Have to agree with Slacker I can see how a reasonable person would see an Egyptian dialectical version as a realistic substitute for a "Simple Arabic" Wiki.

And I agree with his suggestion of setting some rules for this proposed Egyptian Arabic wiki, and using more "local" vocabulary and syntax in favour of words and structures that are common to most Egyptian dialects, this will give editors chances to write on any subject with ease in their one familiar terms. --Ghaly 19:37, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Referring to which style is the one to be used I think it is appropriate to use the widely used Cairo style of the Egyptian Arabic ,As for recognition of the Egyptian Arabic it is not just recognised by the ISO 2 and 3 but also by the World Atlas of Language Structures: World Atlas of Language Structures--Egyptian Arabic entry. , I don't think that I will be defending that point about recognition of the language any more as it will just be repetition of what has been stated here and on English wikipedia.--Ghaly 21:52, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Having millions who can speak the language is a big factor, looking at some of the other wikipedias , I have to quote an argument made by Don Alessandro that We have wikis in Bislama (128,000 speakers), Võro (70,000), Scottish Gaelic (58,652), Upper Sorbian (55,000), Marshallese (44,000), Inupiaq (3,500), so why not Egyptian Arabic which is spoken by millions.--Ghaly 00:32, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Referring to DrFO.Jr.Tn , I have to thank him for clarifying my point regarding terms used in medical articles on wikipedia Arabic , the terms he mentioned has not been used in Egypt for many years , yet they are the classical Arabic terms, and I recognised that there is no way to change these terms to a more acceptable terms for Egyptians, which they can understand as they hear everyday during conversations regarding medical conditions.

• • As for the personal attack , which was expected , I will refrain from any discussion about it, hoping that the discussion will be directed towards the ball not the man.--Ghaly 22:11, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Illiteracy should not be a reason for limiting the usage of written language to one form ,specially a classical one,, may be it merits the opposite ,I find Egyptian Arabic sufficiently different to be considered an independent language, that deserves its own wikipedia --Ghaly 08:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC). --Ghaly 08:26, 10 April 2008 (UTC).

• • Many thanks for the comments regarding the articles on the wikipedia Masri project, I have made some edits to clarify matters regarding the guidelines that are meant to help the first time user have a place to start from , I have rephrase the point that was found to be confusing and gave an example of what I meant. I have never said that these rules are rigid , any user can edit, suggest and add to them, one of the points notes that the users can edit in any dialect of Masri as long as it will be understood by the Egyptians.

I am also very grateful for these comments as they have proven that Masri (Egyptian Arabic) is both a written and a spoken language , otherwise how did these users understood the articles? I believe one of the users is Egyptian , another is from Saudi Arabia yet both understood what was written in Masri using Arabic Alphabet , how else did they find it funny and provided an analytical assessment of it?

The other thing I am very grateful for is confirming that I write the letters the way the Egyptians do. In a way their comments added to the credibility of my edits on the project

• • As for the personal attack , which was once again expected , I have to reiterate that I am refraining from discussing it , more importantly this is not the place or time to discuss my medical knowledge , my qualifications or what level of professional knowledge I enjoy, please lets try to focus on the ball at hand --Ghaly 19:26, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

No, this wasn't a personal attack, but innocent questions, and I'm insisting that there is no major difference between Egyptian medical jarhon and classical Arabic, otherwise you have to prove the reverse. Your other comment is actually funny, I can read Romanized classic Arabic, does this mean Latin is a natural script for writing it?. You are yet to prove that what you call "Egyptian Arabic" is a language that is used for written literature, especially scientific and encyclopedic one, a handful of novels and poems doesn't count here. Also, you didn't prove that Egyptian recognize their slang as a language that has its own literature, all what I've seen so fare is an ISO code and articles written by outsiders with suspicious intents. --Khaled Hosny 20:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• • When a physician, surgeon , dentist or a pharmacist speaks to a patient in Egypt they use terms developed by the teachers of these professionals through years of communication with patients, which is not jargon but simple Masri expressions, part of the communication skills teaching in any medical school is about explaining the illness to patients in terms they understand, Wikipedia Masri is aimed at this ,it is not meant to weaken any other wikipedia , it is meant to add strength to the multilingual aspect.

I have already said my point of view regarding Masri as a language giving references, and I am not into running around in circles.

The advantages of using Masri in medical topics were just an example , I can add to them the topics of computer, politics, history, geography and the list goes on.

As for my experience , believe me I know how doctors communicate with patients and how people communicate in Egypt and I can not recall that my friends and family members were communicating in between them or writing notes and letters to each other in anything but Masri. --Ghaly 21:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Once again I am very grateful for the comments made against wikipedia Masri as this time confirming what I said thet it will be understood and there will be people willing to contribute in it.

I have never mentioned that Wikipedia Masri was meant to solve the Illiteracy problem and I don't have any idea where this came from , my openion is Illiteracy should not be a reason for limiting the usage of a language.

This is becoming very repetitive , the users against the project can understand the articles written in Masri, can do a detailed analysis of them and yet saying that it will not be understood because of differences in writing styles, they are meant to be in the terms used in day to day life , they are aimed at any Egyptian who knows the alphabet , there is nothing wrong in understanding my own mother tongue and wishing to write using it, why am I supposed to be apologetic about that, the topic is wikipedia Masri and I have explained my point of view many times, the arguments against it so far are giving my comments a lot of credibility and not the other way around. Please give me a reason why this is not a feasible idea, a reason that is not related to protecting another wikipedia , a reason that is related to the subject , a reason that is coming from a neutral point of view or maybe just a reason that will make the Masri language cease to be used from now on in my Country Egypt.

If arguments against the wikipedia Masri are continuing to be providing support to my point of view yet ending with the openion that the user is against it , so what are we doing here then except running around in circles until the decision is made

In case any user feels that the articles can be written in a better Masri style , please feel free to edit them , I have no problem with that. My motivations have been explained many times yet there is a lot that has been said about them by other users, Please lets focus on the topic and lets have a serious discussion how and where to move on from here --Ghaly 22:42, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Lets look at this , so far no one said that Masri is a limited language in aspects of expressions , in adopting new words, in development or in usage in day to day life in Egypt. No one denies that it exists just arguing if it is a language or a dialect , no one denies its usage both in writing and speaking yet the same users argue against wikipedia Masri. That is somewhat strange or is it not?

Why a proposed project in a language that is alive , present, used and developing in every day's life is opposed and for the sake of what?--Ghaly 22:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

You have to ask yourself why it is only you who supports the idea, and every one else, including other egyptians, is against it? I will not repeat my self again, you can see the reasons yourself. --Khaled Hosny 23:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• • I am replying to the arguments as the suggesting user not because I am the only supporter. Regarding everyone else, , I have to ask for clarification about what is meant by everyone else because this discussion has only been going on for a few days and between very few people, the opposing users are users from another wikipedia , trying to defend their wikipedia , although it is not by any means involved in this and using its name was just for demonstration purposes, there are many other people who have not decided which way to go when it comes to wikipedia Masri and that includes users from that wikipedia and, most importantly, there are many more users who did not even share in this discussion yet.

Again I am still waiting for a valid reason and repeating that I will not reply to any personal attacks no matter how provocative they are, yet I am still willing to reply to arguments that are not personal. Please lets focus on the issue at hand--Ghaly 00:18, 11 April 2008 (UTC).

• Support I'm a native Egyptian brought up talking Arabic. I HATE Arabic!

There are two main reasons why i dont want to contribute to the Arabic Wikipedia:

1. As i said before, i hate Arabic so i would certainly wont contribute using the Arabic language.
2. I dont write Arabic as fast as i write English on the keyboard, actually i write with the speed of a snail!

However, if this Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia is started, i WILL contribute because introducing the information Wikipedia presents in an EASY way rather than the whole "ايها الوغد! لقد قتلت والدى" stupid way is a strong move and i think that will attract many Egyptians to start contributing! And as for the whole speed thing, many softwares are aviable right now to automatically write what i want in Arabic when i write in 'Arabic-English' like "dy 7aga gamda gedan" which translates to "دى حاجة جامدة جدا" meaning "This is great!"

Plus, this will not only provide new and easy information to Egyptians and Arabic speakers, but it will also attract new information which people like me could translate and send over to the English Wikipedia.

I would to like to say that i read some of the opposing arguments and i can see your point! But once this starts and works well, the pros will cover the 'cons'! :)

P.S. I wont check this account often so if i replied late, it totally because i'm not free at the moments (damn those exams :S) So if you please, do send me a notification over at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:MagedMahfouz and i will reply ASAP! MagedMahfouz 15:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

As you're too slow to type in Arabic letters, maybe you should revive this request. Санта Клаус 00:06, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

• Support why egyptian is a language?, it's composed of many languages that passed on the egyptian community through out ages. some words used in egyptian has nothing to do with arabic ex. [raye7 translates to going, while in arabic it's thaheb], even they way to speak in egyptian is different from that in arabic, and many other significant differences it's not like english american, and so on, because english american use the same words, and ways of speech as the british english, and maybe some words are deferent, but at the end all words come from the same language, unlike the case of differences between arabic, and egyptian were many egyptian words come from ancient languages, or languages that were used in the past, another reason is the huge deference between arabic, and egyptian masry in many aspects that an egyptian has to study arabic as a language in order to speak it, unlike americans who grow up speaking english. other places that were referred to by the opposition, is India, with has it's own language Hindi, and that is recognized in wikipedia as a language; so arabic is only one of many inputs into the modern egyptian language, and it's true that it's the official language used in egypt to demonstrate governmental publication and so on, but it's also true that India which uses english as an official language, has it's language Hindi used in wikipedia as an independent language. so egypt also has the right to get it's language recognized as an independent language in wikipedia. 41.234.200.173 11:35, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

• • i am One last pharaoh by the way -just created the account after editing.One last pharaoh 11:38, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Just for your knowledge, the example you choosed is a valid classical Arabic word, راح يروح من الرواح, check your dictionary. Other "Huge differences" that you mentioned doesn't even deserve to be discussed. --Khaled Hosny 15:21, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

if it 'donot deserve to be discussed, why did u discuss it ?!. can u give me an example of a single traditional arabic text were the verb have the same use as in egyptian?? why are u arabs so angery because of that the egyptians want their own identity?. by the way, try to post ur comments in the against sub-article because this one is only for true egyptians, and other who support them. One last pharaoh 17:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

can u give me an example of a single traditional arabic text were the verb have the same use as in egyptian?? are you serious about this! are you sure you really know Arabic? may be messed it with another language. For the record: العب اضرب احسب اكتب اشرب يشرب يلعب ينام all are verbs, could you tell me if those are Classic Arabic or Egyptian Arabic? you seriously need to do your homework and know the language(s) you are talking about. And please no lame comments like "true egyptians" and "arabs vs. egyptians". If it is about "egyptians want their own identity", wikipedia isn't for extreme nationalists who want thei own identity. --Khaled Hosny 02:30, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I am proud to be egyptian, proud to be an extremist for the egyptian identity. now, can u answer the question instead of giving me other unrelated examples, by the way i studied arabic for about 12 years if ur interested. One last pharaoh 17:06, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I already answered you above, may be you don't know how to read Arabic? --Khaled Hosny 18:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

• Support This is a long overdue support of this proposal. I think Wikipedia Masry is an excellent idea, and thanks go out to Ghaly for making the initiative. But first, I must register my shock at some of the bad faith comments and partisan views expressed by the Arabic Wikipedia members who, based on the link provided by Ghaly, were apparently solicited to oppose this initiative. Unfortunately, many of these views are symptomatic of the type of reactionary, particularly Arab-nationalist, opposition that the Arabic Wikipedia on the whole seems to suffer from.

Egyptian Arabic is not only the Arabic variety with the largest number of native speakers, but is also the one most widely taught in the world and is understood and spoken by millions of non-Egyptians due to the leading cultural position Egypt enjoys in the Middle East. While it's understandable that this might be perceived as a threat to the Arabic Wikipedia, it should rather be seen as an advantage that will make Wikipedia accessible to an even wider audience, and will ensure that Wikipedia's core policy regarding NPOV will be more faithfully adhered to. I have never been tempted to contribute to the Arabic Wikipedia not only because my command of Classical Arabic is not sufficiently advanced to write in it, but also because of the political culture fostered by the Arabic Wikipedia which appears to encourage censorship and openly promotes intolerance of varying but perfectly valid and reliably sourced information.

While some skeptics and opposers of this project raise valid arguments (wrt standardization and the such), much of the opposition IMO is based on a combination of irrational and politically-motivated beliefs about Egyptian Arabic, as well as a misunderstanding of some basic linguistic facts. This and the perceived threat of an Egyptian Wikipedia is evidenced by the fact that a similar proposal for a Morrocan Arabic Wikipedia received no reaction for months until the Egyptian proposal was made, and still hasn't garnered the same kind of reaction that this has.

Egyptian Arabic literature in fact can be traced to the Mamluk period, and since the 19th century a standard in writing can be said to have developed. Indeed the first piece of modern Egyptian literature was written in Masri. There is one study by a German linguist on the work of Saad Eddin Wahab and the orthography he used to write the spoken language. The bulk of Egyptian Arabic writing today is based on this "standard"--here is an example from a recent issue of the local newspaper Soat el-Omma. The question of standardization by itself, therefore, is not a sufficient reason not to have a Wikipedia in the language, nor is the language's official status. After all, the vast majority of the world's languages are not official standards of any country.

In a nutshell, the language meets the requirements needed to have its own Wikipedia: a standard ISO, a body of literature, audiovisual media, is distinct from any other language used on other Wikipedias, millions of native speakers, and a group of enthusiastic editors with quality contributions on the English Wikipedia who are willing to volunteer their time to this project. It's especially à propos now that Egypt is hosting the upcoming Wikimania, so I have no doubt that it will be become a success if created. — Zerida 00:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Zerida, you accuse others of bad faith citing AGF? And they are nationalists? What about you? Can you present more than a fragment as a source? --C2 07:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Not particularly interested in having a discussion with an obvious sockpuppet. Besides I'd only be repeating myself. — Zerida 18:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

agf at its best. A single lie destroys a whole reputation for integrity. The novel you refer to (first couple lines quoted above) is NOT in Egyptian Arabic. The colloquial language is too limited to accommodate such a novel - this is why the project will fail. Get your facts right. Only when certain persons talk (not more than 10% of it) you find colloquial Arabic. Let's see if your project will have more than 10% of non Standard Arabic words. When you copy articles from ar wp only change easy words. What a waste! Санта Клаус 15:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Egyptian vernacular literature knows that it is the dialogue which is fully in Egyptian Arabic, Youssef Idris, Ihsan Abdel Quddous, etc. So much for "integrity"... Instead of repeatedly trolling the discussion with irrelevant nonsense as you did from the beginning with your harassment of Ghaly, learn a bit of decorum and a bit about the topic itself. — Zerida 18:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I guess your opponents are socks, trolls or Arabneonazis. Maybe I don't know Arabic. Maybe we're not talking about the same novel. Maybe you've seen it not. Maybe you can comment on my quote of it above. Maybe I can hear Ghaly, whom I trust wouldn't lie on purpose. Maybe you can see the ball and answer the many requests to give the name of one medical article or educational book written in the supposed language. Maybe at the end it's better just to have an uncyclopedia (jokes, novels, songs as suggested by a sock). 23:51, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Or maybe it's best not to feed a troll. That always works for me, particularly when all else fails, the troll's strategy is to demonize an interlocutor or to divert the discussion by putting words like "Arabneonazis" in her mouth even though she never said them. Grow up. — Zerida 05:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

• Divert the discussion without attacks. What the big deal about my neologism? Your project will be a sandbox of them. Name one scientific source written in your "language". I hear there are 60 million speakers. Don't they have one educational book or are they still in the wood age? Санта Клаус 10:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Arguments against

• While I find the proposal interesting, I do not support it, and these are the reasons why. I'm speaking here not as an Arab, but I did take Modern Standard Arabic in school for 4 semesters.
  • While I believe that Egyptian Arabic is certainly a unique dialect or dialectal group, I do not see that it is sufficiently different to require a Wikipedia. I do believe that there are Arabic varieties that may require their own Wikipedia, for example Darja, but I do not believe that Egyptian is one of them. --Node ue 09:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
• First of all Egyptian Arabic as a stand alone language is disputable, only few Egyptian nationalists insist that it is a language of its own, others (the majority) see it as a spoken dialect of Arabic, that is limited for spoken day to day usage. Not to mention that there is nothing as "Egyptian Arabic", Egypt has many diverse dialects through out the country, most notably the difference between language spoken in delta and that in upper Egypt, which has major differences to the degree that one from Cairo might find great difficulty in understanding a conversation between tow persons from Aswan, for example. There is also major differences between dialects spoken in Sinai, Alex, Damietta, etc... almost every region in Egypt has its more or less characteristic dialect. So, which one of those will be the "Egyptian Arabic" that will be used here? Some one might say, the one used in Cairo, but then we lost the point since people from upper Egypt will complain with the very same reason used in this proposal and ask for their own "Upper Egyptian Arabic" wikipedia. There is no language called "Egyptian Arabic" that has any official recognition in Egypt, Arabic is the only official language, the fact that you can't write the spoken dialect on a document that has any kind of officiality as this will void it, shows us how it is recognized . ISO recognition of it as a separate language is nonsense, if it isn't officially recognized as a language by its own speakers, it isn't a language then. I'm affriad that such kind of proposals is driven merely by nationalism and political reasons than any thing else. --Khaled Hosny 12:08, 8 April 2008 (UTC) (Egyptian Arabic wikipedian)

• Though I am not Egyptian, but I think the core of the matter in creating Wikipedia is creating better communication and better information at global level, freely created by anybody and every body. That is partly why the "Interwiki" was created. Creating an additional language might seem reasonable, why not there are some 250 languages already, what harm could adding another language do. This will certainly harm the Arabic Wikipedia, because it will only pull out of its resources; mainly the Arabic speaking writers that contentedly contribute there. I also want to metaphorically add a question: "Would you accept to have an American English Wikipedia, an Australian English Wikipedia, a British English Wikipedia, a New zealand English Wikipedia a Hindi English Wikipedia?" If the reasons are not strong enough, and would not add value then I do not think so, because all the English litriture in the world is written in one standard language with some differences depending on who the writer is, his or her style of writing and the topic he or she is writing about. The Simple English Wikipedia is created for a totally different set of reasons, yet it applies to the English Speaking People any where in the world. I also happen to agree with Khaled Hosny that this kind of proposal is nationalistically and politically motivated.--Nasib Bitar 13:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• With all due respect to Ghaly's comment regarding the Medical articles. I think for a none specialist, medical articles are as difficult to understand as in any language. In English they use Latin terminology quite often, in Arabic they use Arabic medical terms that are not necessarily addressing the average person. I think that the moment you do not use the proper terminology for the purposes of educating the average person, these articles use softer terms. It all depends who the target reader is.--Nasib Bitar 23:54, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• First of all, let me say the reasons that led Ghaly to create this Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia:

1. He was warned many times on Arabic Wikipedia, because of his non-sense articles. E.g.: he creates articles about European towns with a different name as written in Arabic (the right name article already exists). Let me explain : It is as if you would say in English Milano instead of Milan or Venezia instead of Venice, and when we say to him: "you should write Venice", he says: "I was there in Italy, and the Italians pronounce it Venezia, so it is Venezia also in English"!!!
2. He also was warned because he creates articles about personnalities, and he writes the title of the articles with non-encyclopedic words, such as: His Highness The pope Pius IX or The prophet Muhammad, may God bless him. We said to him, You ought to intitle the articles: Pius IX (pope), Muhammad ibn Abdallah...
3. He also writes Arabic words as he likes... Let me explain with these examples in English (as a comparison of his mistakes in writing the Arabic 'hamza' and 'ya'): He would write sinema instead of cinema, or kountry (kountri, kauntry or kauntri...) instad of country... Do words in simple English can be witten as you want?
4. He also creates Medical articles with no scientific basis. For example, he created an article about ذات الرئة (pneumonia in English) and intitled the article التهاب الرئة (pneumonitis in English). So, I and another user (me as a doctor and the other user as a medical student, and we are contributors to the Medicine Wiki Project on Arabic Wikipedia) that he has done a mistake (because, they are two different medical terms), and that the content of the article has no scientific medical basis... We gave him our references and bibliography (and that we use the WHO Medical English-Arabic dictionary for our translations), but he ignored us...

So, this reasons (and because Ghaly does not want to accept the Arabic Wikipedia rules) led him to create a substitute to the Arabic Wikipedia where he can write as he wants...

So, finally:

1. Does the purpose of Wikipedia is to sow knowledge or confusion?
2. Does its purpose is to tranform the realities and to give the writer's point of view?
3. Does we want to have 22 other Arabic wikipedias (Tunisian Arabic wikipedia, Algerian Arabic Wikipedia, Saudi Arabic Wikipedia, Emirati Arabic Wikipedia...), or even more (Tunisian Arabic of Tunis Wikipedia, Tunisian Arabic of Nabeul Wikipedia, Tunisian Arabic of Djerba Wikipedia, Tunisian Arabic of Sfax Wikipedia...), and even (American English Wikipedia, British English Wikipedia, South African English Wikipedia, Australian English Wikipedia, New Zealand English Wikipedia... or better Franglais Wikipedia (like writing: Ze Bird is on ze tree for the bird in on the tree, like how it is pronounced in France)) ? --DrFO.Jr.Tn 21:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry! That's seeming funny. I haven't seen any encyclopedias in "Egyptian Arabic" or any sub-languages of Arabic. When I saw this page for first time, I was thinking this is a joke, just like Uncyclopedia's policies! Egyptian Arabic is less spoken and used than American English (Which has no Wikipedia). You must know that over than half of Egyptians are literates (Or 25% at least as per official statistic!). Even the Egyptian government does not issue resolutions in Egyptian Arabic. For that, I'm really oppressing the idea.--OsamaK 07:12, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• Reading what Mr. Ghaly wrote above in response to other's comments, I see clearly that he wants a wikipedia where he can use his own rules claiming that those are what Egyptians want. He is talking about medical terms, good, but since when Egyptians has their own medical jargon that differs from what he calls "classic Arabic"? I've completely no idea, being a medical student (and Egyptian) I know that there is no such distinction at any level, I'd like to see such Egyptian medical book, magazine or any written paper that uses this imaginary "Egyptian medical jargon", unless he is referring to the local slang which is unscientific based on no rule but local myths and sometimes descriptive names, and is generally avoided among literate people. There is no single Egyptian newspaper, book, school book, etc... that use the proposed "Egyptian Arabic" (except a handful of novels, that is a very special case due to its nature), do I assume that Ghaly thinks Egyptian don't understand their own news papers and publications?. As for language recognition, nobody here in Egypt call it a لغة (language) but rather عامية (slang) or لهة مصرية (Egyptian dialect), And no, many people use the formal language even in private letters or any other form of written communication.

The rules page referred to above, contains either ambiguous or contradiction rules. I'm specially interested in the 2nd rule, from what I understand it suggests that we type ركبت as ركبة which is a really funny rule that I didn't hear about before. The 3rd rule is another example of misconception, actually the notation of writing final yaa' without dots is the old rule that egyptians are sticking to (most old manuscripts have undotted final yaa'), while the modern convection is to but dots under final yaa', so he is proposing a "classical" rule here, However, this is a mere typographical rather than spelling preference.

There is no single convection for writing Egyptian slang, this is very natural since it isn't a written language, and every one attempts to write it has to invent his own rules, and this what I see Ghaly is doing here. --Khaled Hosny 10:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• Hallo, I am Egyptian. I contribute to the Arabic version of wikipedia. I won't contribute to what so called Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia. Because Egyptian Arabic is not a language, in Arabic لغة. It is a dialect لهجة. I have never heard anyone saying Egyptain Arabic Language, in Arabic لغة عربية مصرية. The Egyptian Media and also the arabic media in each arab country, they are all referring to

en:wikipedia:Egyptian Arabic, Khaliji Arabic , en:wikipedia:Maghrebi Arabic as dialects لهجات، and Slangs عاميات. The form of Arabic used in the Arabic Wikipedia is exactly the same used in educational materials, school subjects, academic work, and every official paper.

• • The arabic Wikipedia is offering information for Arabic speakers world wide. It is for all people who understand the Arabic language. Creating versions of Wikipedia in Arabic Varieties, which are officially Considered dialects in every Arab country; as they are not used in government documents, will surely have it's effect on this versions. We can expect a very very law number of articles in each Arabic dialect of Wikipedia.

• • We Egyptians speak Egyptian Arabic in day to day life. Some times, not all times, We use it in Family letters. It is used in many TV shows on Egyptian channels. But the same Channels introduce their news broadcast In Standard Arabic عربية فصحى like what is used in Al-Jazeera for example.

If such Wikipedia is to exist I will never ever contribute in it. I think that this version of Wikipedia will be like a humorous blog for people who understand Egyptian Arabic.

• • Illiteracy problem, ah, People who are illiterate will not be able to read what is written in that Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia, people who are learned will read the text of the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia, but they will also read the text of the Arabic Wikipedia that exists now. It will be a waste of time for contributers who will contribute in any of the two. Do you see my point? What I want to sat is that only learned people will read the text in the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia, They will contribute to it, because they Know the Arabic alphabet. The illiterate won't contribute nor read it because they don't know the Arabic alphabet.--Mohammed Ahmed 22:02, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• • • This is totally informal way to be educated. People are searching the encyclopedia to gain information about serious things that we can learn from. If they think that the need to use any kind of informal language for any use.. I believe that they can use the uncyclopedia named [يضيبيديا ] in arabic "writen beidipedia in english" which is a sister of wikipedia. ADDING to that.. arabic speakers are not just Egyptians, GCC countries speak a different language, those from lebanon and syria speaks diffrent also. Though Egyptian is understandable.. but yet it is difficult and informal..

• Opposse I don't know a whole lot about Arabic, but I don't think there is a big enough difference to require an entire new section as said above.

• Hi, I have commented here before. But I want to make something clear. I am Egyptian. I am proud to be Egyptian, and I some how I see that being an Egyptian is a gift form Allah. I oppose this Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia because Egyptian Arabic is a dialect, a variety of Arabic. In Egypt, or in any other arab country, people speak their local dialect. There is so many dialects in Arabic. This is a fact. Arabic varieties differ from each other, they differ from Arabic العربية الفصحى. But we in the Arab world study in Arabic العربية الفصحى, not in any dialect. Dialects are for day to day life. Languages for everything, writing, speaking. People who argue that Eyptian Arabic is a language, do so for reasons related for nationality. I am Egyptian, and I oppose this project. I am a Patriot. But facts are facts. Egyptian Arabic is not used in my school books. When I read the sample articles I laugh. There is no clear grammar rules for Egyptian Arabic, nor for who to write words. Because it is not to write with, It is just to speak in.--Mohammed Ahmed 14:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

• unfortunately i don't have time to read all discussion , i want only to write an objection on this topic , what are my reasons ? -maybe some people said these reasons before-
  • there is only one language called Arabic spoken by over 300,000,000 human there is no separated language for Egyptians , Syrians or any other Arabs (it's only one language)
  • Egyptian arabic has to grammar rules no write or pronounce
  • i think there is no Egyptian person that can't read or understand Literary Arabic

Mahmoud Farahat 21:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

• oppose Arabic masry is only a variety of arabic as even u notice that from its name, and the masry never used in any educational or encyclopedical books in Egypt, plus theirs is no known standard basics for its writing, please see the discussion here about the correct writing of a word in it [2] , so which language is this!! --Mmustafa 22:24, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Huge problem. This Wikipedia hasn't started yet, but the problems about writing it started. Shut down the idea.--OsamaK 02:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. See #Serious questions. --C2 07:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Other discussion

Please take a look at my opinion--Alnokta 21:58, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

• This is not necessarily a comment against the project, but is rather a comment against the reasons advanced by user:Ghaly above, which in my opinion are unpersuasive. Ghaly feels that the style of written Arabic predominant on ArWP is different from the style and conventioins used in written Arabic in Egypt. If that is the case, though, then how would an encyclopedia in spoken Egyptian solve the problem? The Egyptian newspapers and publications are not written in this dialect, but rather in a variation of Standard Arabic. It boils down to this: Arabic WP uses language "A", Egyptian newspapers and publications write in a slightly different variant of "A" (call it "B"), yet Ghaly is proposing as a solution language "C".

The notion that Egyptian readers find it difficult to read Standard Arabic is unconvincing, since in Egypt itself, virtually all publications are in Standard Arabic, as well as most of the schooling curriculum. If the issue is literacy, then it won't matter what language the encyclopedia is written in, as an illiterate person will find a technical article just as difficult in both forms of Arabic (since most technical terms will be shared between Egyptian and Standard Arabic anyway), and will have just as many problems with comprehending the written text. In fact the problem will be worse because there is no widely-accepted standard way of writing the Egyptian dialect in Arabic letters. With Standard Arabic, at least the reader will be able to find resources that aid in proper reading of the text. Some may suggest that the dialect be written in Latin characters, but will add to the illiteracy problem rather than mitigate it, since only a self-selected group of interested individuals are aware of how to render Arabic dialects in Latin characters.

The idea that Egyptians perfer certain conventions in written Arabic that are not shared by other Arabic countries (like certain spelling convetions and certain word usages) doesn't seem like a good enough ground for a seperate encyclopedia. Otherwise, we would have an ENWP for British English and another for Arabic English. In any case, as I mentioned above, these differences are unrelated to spoken Egyptian Arabic and cannot be used to justify this project. -- Slacker 22:49, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Again in response to Ghaly, if the purpose is some sort of analogue to the Simple English Wikipedia, than I think that's very understandable. Of course, the Simple English Wiki is not written in a different dialect of English, but simply restricts itself to a smaller vocabulary set and shorter sentences. In my personal opinion, the Arabic Wiki already uses a very limited subset of Classical Arabic vocabulary and syntax, but I can see how a reasonable person would see an Egyptian dialectical version as a realistic substitute for a "Simple Arabic" Wiki. However, if that is indeed the motivation, then I suggest setting some rules for this proposed wiki, such as eschewing more "local" vocabulary and syntax in favor of words and structures that are common to most Egyptian dialects. -- Slacker 17:40, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• You cant use "Bislama (128,000 speakers), Võro (70,000), Scottish Gaelic (58,652), Upper Sorbian (55,000), Marshallese (44,000), Inupiaq (3,500)" as a comparison; primarily because there are no set rules to how Egyptian Arabic is written, plus there's no one Egyptian Arabic dialect, its a mixture of multiple Egyptian-dialects. There's no standard to compare to. I am slightly against it (because there's no clear protocol on how we should proceed), but at the same time, I think that the idea is not bad if controls were in place.--Lord Anubis 10:51, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

• Wanting to research the matter more, I asked a Lebanese friend of mine who used to work for Disney, and was responsible to dub the Walt Disney Cartoon Movies into Arabic. In contrast to the usual classical Arabic used for dubbing, he chose the Egyptian dialect. I wanted to know how successful his project was? He said: "That was a great success!" Well, I am not yet thoroughly convinced, because audiovisual material is easier to accept especially that the 'Egyptian Film Industry' managed throughout the years to somehow make Egyptian Arabic more commonly accepted. What I would not mind is a three to six months probation period, where things are tested, of course in the light of Slacker's suggestion of setting some rules for a "Simple Arabic" Wiki.--Nasib Bitar 16:27, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

• The notion of a "simple" Arabic Wikipedia will not be accepted. Neither will an Egyptian Arab Wikipedia masquerading as one such. GerardM 20:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia Egyptian Arabic is not going to be wikipedia simple Arabic and I have never intended that , I used the example for demonstration purposes only, I recognise Egyptian Arabic as a language as many other people do , I have no intention to start a simlpe Arabic wikipedia as I think the Arabic wikipedia is developing really well and I edit on it a lot , I have started more than 300 articles myself there.

To clarify what I am suggesting I started a page on How to write on wikipedia masri and for anyone who can read Egyptian Arabic it gives some guidelines on how to write.

If my suggestion is accepted I have no plans to use Egyptian wikipedia except via the medium of Egyptian Arabic as spoken by Egyptian s and as written by them in their letters to their friends and family, I am asking to follow these guidelines to make the editing on wikipedia Egyptian Arabic standardised, if this style is followed there will be some problems for non-Egyptians to understand some of the articles

May I suggest reading some of the articles I started on the project and noticing the differences , by all means I think Egyptian Arabic is more than good enough to stand on its own.

If Classic Arabic is Language A , Simple Arabic is Language B and Egyptian Arabic is Language C , Then Yes , I am suggesting to solve the problem between Language A and Language B by starting wikipedia in Language C. My argument for Egyptian Arabic choice is based on my wish to spread the knowledge in a language that is acceptable in day to day life, it is the language that a doctor will use to describe an illness to a patient, a teacher will use to explain an equation, a manager will use to guide his co-workers in day to day life; That is what Egyptian Arabic is used for day to day life.

• Unfortunately, this does not make sense to me. There are no statistics to substantiate what Ghaly is claiming. First of all you need to be Computer literate to reach articles in Wikipedia. To be that you need to be good enough in both journalistic Classical Arabic, and a knowledge base of English to at least understand some computer terminology. So by all means all computer users are of a good level of understanding Classical Arabic. So far the Arabic Wikipedia has been able to attract contributors from all over the Arab Countries, and certainly the dialect difference between Morocco and Syria might make you think they are speaking two entirely different languages, yet here through Wikipedia, they are communicating efficiently. Arabic Wikipedia in the sense that Ghaly is addressing potentially reaches to some 320 million readers. So why split or fragment what is successfully growing.--Nasib Bitar 22:15, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Even more, any literate person understands Arabic quite well, for illiterate person what is the difference if he can't read either of both? --Khaled Hosny 11:03, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• • A requirement for a new Wikipedia is a localisation in that language. This negates a need to know classic Arab in order to read a MediaWiki project in Egyptian Arab. I have heard the argument in a different context that the reason for the high illiteracy in Arab countries is also due to the disconnect between the written and the spoken language. This argument can be seen reflected in the fact that Arab is now made a macro language consisting of many languages. Thanks, GerardM 08:10, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The illiteracy has nothing to do with the claimed disconnect, a 6 years child can read in write in formal Arabic after one school year, there is no real disconnect and even illeterate people doesn't have any problem listening to classic Arabic in media and news. The illiteracy is a caused mainly by complicated socioeconomic problems. --Khaled Hosny 11:03, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• I'm reading the example articles, and I actually got sick from reading the language! I can't really tolerate it. I asked some friends about their opinions and the immediate response was laughing, the idea of written "Egyptian Arabic" literature isn't even remotely acceptable. --Khaled Hosny 11:08, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

so u donot get sick of traditional arabic?. whoa! if ur an egyptian, which langauge do u speak with other peaple?. i am sure that as an iegyptian, i would be sick of ur langauge with is any thing else but egyptian, or do u speak traditional arabic with peaple in egypt?. One last pharaoh 18:00, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

The language (language in its wide meaning) I speak has nothing to do with the language I write with, they don't write serious books in the "street language" in America, do they? the same goes here. And yes, I love classical Arabic and fined it rich and beautiful language in many ways, unlike the poor egyptian slang, though this is a personal opinion. --Khaled Hosny 02:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

dude, they do publish books in american english, the american embassador in egypt knows masry, and the future one knows arabic, but is learning masry. now tell me that those 2 persons learn streat language, that the official spokesmen of the egyptian government are speaking streat langauge, and that traditional arabic wasnot a streat language before some 100 years or so. One last pharaoh 17:13, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

---

• Moderately skeptical -- The purely linguistic differences between Egyptian Arabic and standardized written Arabic are certainly great enough to merit a separate Wikipedia, if all the other factors were in place. (Note that the differences between spoken Egyptian colloquial and Classical Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic are far far greater than the differences between standard American English and standard British English). However, there are other potential problems -- most especially that there's no real accepted or widely-used standardized written norm for Egyptian Arabic (separate from the written norm of Modern Standard Arabic), as far as I'm aware. Attempting to use the standard Classical Arabic script in an ad-hoc on-the-fly way to write Egyptian Arabic means that many of the most distinctive features of spoken Egyptian Arabic will not be adequately written down -- and that the end result will resemble a misspelled poor attempt to write Standard Arabic by an ignorant semi-literate person, and so will be viewed contemptuously by those who know Standard Arabic.

It seems to me that it might be best to postpone an Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia until Egyptian Arabic has a strong distinct identity as a written language apart from Modern Standard Arabic (which I'm not sure it does today...). AnonMoos 14:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

if the only problem is letters, remember that turkish did use arabic letters at the begining, and yet it was officially another langauge, also the persian language uses the same letters as arabic. One last pharaoh 18:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

This is completely unrelated, Turkish, Persian, Urdu, etc... has their own letters (and are completely independent languages) though are/was using Arabic script. --Khaled Hosny 02:18, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

can u explain that to me?? how can the persian, and turkish use, or have used their own letters but are using arabic script? face it Mr, Arab, the egyptians are not under ur wing, neither should be.

Persian/Farsi has its own special letters for the "p", "g", and "ch" sounds, while Urdu has special letters for retroflex sounds (among others) -- and when words not borrowed from Arabic are written in these languages, they're written using Farsi and Urdu spelling conventions (not using Classical Arabic spelling conventions). A standardized orthography for Egyptian colloquial Arabic could still be based on Arabic script, but to be effective, it would have to be independent in some way from Classical Arabic spelling conventions. Look at Nizar Habash's "Palestinian Arabic Spelling Standardization Project" for one example of an attempted standardized dialect orthography which goes beyond Classical Arabic spelling conventions. AnonMoos 11:49, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

You need to learn the difference between writing systems and languages, I've no interest in giving you درس خصوصي. --Khaled Hosny 18:52, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

i have to confess, that's one of the nicest retreats from a discussion i have ever seen, it seams ur an expert of doing so arenot u?. answer my questions, u donot have to give me a dars khosousy, but u have to give the world some answers. just in case u still oppose the initiative. damn it ama bad bad man...Muhahahahahha. sorry, just having a nice day. One last pharaoh 11:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I think this was to harsh, any way, simply script (writing system) is just a visual representation of the language, you can write Arabic with many scripts: the Arabic script, Latin, Cyrillic or even CJK, but it is still Arabic and it doesn't necessarily share any linguistic properties with other languages written with those scripts, The same goes for Farsi and Urdu being written with Arabic script. So your original point is meaningless since the mentioned languages use the Arabic script, while Egyptian Arabic is a variety of Arabic (I see is a slang, others see it a sub language) but still it has much in common with classical Arabic. --Khaled Hosny 13:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

i am not the one who argued about the meaningless point from the beginning, but u keep impressing me by the ways to try to retreat from a discussion. this time can i be the one who point to a point here -hoping it wouldn't be meaningless- can u prove that an egyptian can speak arabic without learning it at school for example?. if so, masry is a sub-language from arabic, if isn't, u would be very sorry, wouldn't u?.. One last pharaoh 14:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification

• • I am very grateful for all the comments so far as they have opened many topics and showed the way to progress from a start to an up and running project,I am writing not to defend what has already been explained but to clarify matters;

1. The more I edit on Wikipedia Masry the more I realise how much confusion is there about the Grammar of Masry , Masry has a different Grammar to the one used in Arabic and this leads to some confusion to readers of Classical Arabic but no such thing should happen to an Egyptian who is aware of how Masry is spoken once it is clear that Masry has its own rules, and when this is clear writing in Masry becomes very easy.
2. Setting rules of how to write on wikipedia Masry is and will always be open for discussion , Masry is a language that has not stopped developing to accommodate the linguistic needs of its speakers and that is a strong point in its favour yet it can be taken against Masry by some critics.
3. Grammar disputes will always take place on any wikipedia , I am sure it happens everyday , differences in points of view are always welcome as it will only lead to strengthening the project.
4. No one denies that there are a lot of words in Masry derived from Arabic , but there are a lot of words in Spanish and Italian derived from Latin, also there is a lot of words in Spanish derived from Arabic , there is a lot of words in English derived from Anglo-Saxon, About 25% of the Swahili vocabulary derives from the Arabic language^[5] and not many people are denying that Spanish, English , Italian and Swahili are languages.
5. There was no intention to offend anyone by this request for a wikipedia Masry, yet I noticed that some exchange of opinions against the proposal have been very sharp ,feeling passionate about a certain matter is understandable but expression of opinions this way will not lead to anyone's benefit.
6. I Realise the context of the following but I find myself having to quote from wikipedia English rules Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy Wikipedia is not a moot court, and rules are not the purpose of the community. Instruction creep should be avoided. A perceived procedural error made in posting anything, such as an idea or nomination, is not grounds for invalidating that post. Follow the spirit, not the letter, of any rules, policies and guidelines if you feel they conflict. If the rules prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, you should ignore them. Disagreements should be resolved through consensus-based discussion, rather than through tightly sticking to rules and procedures.
7. I have noticed that the same word is used on wikipedia Arabic for the definition of Dialect ^[6] and definition of Accent ^[7] . This is happening although there is another article on the same wikipedia explains the definition of Accent but this has no interwiki on it , using the same word for the two terms might explain some of the differences in opinion , however, I would like to note that Masry is anything but an accent.

Many thanks to all of you .Ghaly 11:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

• Egyptian Arabic is a variety of Arabic, Khligi Arabic is a variety of Arabic. Maghribi is a variety of Arabic. If this project proceeds. People from Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Tunis, Libya, Syria, will request wikipedia in the slang or the variety or Arabic they speak. So Each Arab country has it's own slang or accent of Arabic, they speak it, but rarely they write with it (Only in Advertisement, some magazines, very few literature works) . Every Arab write documents, articles, news (Like Al Jazeera) in Arabic which is understood throughout the Arab World and for every one who studied Arabic.

• One who is illiterate, don't know the Arabic Alphabet will not be able to read any form of Arabic. If one knows the Arabic Alphabet, but illiterate (didn't complete study) will read Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia, But it is too hard to think that someone in this condition will have access to a computer, nevertheless using the Internet requires some knowledge of English. So the typical user of the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia will be someone who is able to understand Arabic, that language used in Arabic Wikipedia. There is some choices for this Someone:
  • Conribute to the Arabic Wikipedia which have 50.000 article, and many contributors.
  • Contribute to a localized Arabic Wikipedia which have less articles and small number of contributors. Note that If this project goes live, you can expect proposals for more localized Arabic Wikipedia in the future if not in the near one.

Wikipedia's mission is to give access for free knowledge. There is 300 Arab or more in the world they speak many different accent, but they write in one standard form used in the Arabic Wikipedia. Offering localized version of Arabic that use slang instead of the REAl Arabic will surely decrease the benefit for Arabic readers. The situation is like this: I am Egyptian, trying to find information about chemistry, I will search the so called Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia, and I found an article about my topic, but It happens that the Shami Arabic Wikipedia have a longer article with detailed information, the Khaligi Arabic Wikipedia have an article about my topic with some other information not written in other localized versions of Arabic. It will be harder for me to collect information from all this localized versions. But in the Arabic Wikipedia there is more contributors from each Arab country contributing their knowledge in a language that is understood by any arab who can read and write.--Mohammed Ahmed 13:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

• To make things more clear. I would like to say that Ghaly wrote some 22 article in the proposed Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia. He puts reference in an article about نمر tiger in English. The reference is a link to an internet forum written in Arabic not in Egyptian Arabic. I know as many people in Wikipedia know that forums are not good as sources for information, academic work I say. Perhaps he did so because there is no respected or well known resource for information (Like a book, or an article in a news site) there in nothing like that written in Egyptian Arabic or in Other variety (slang عامية) of Arabic, Because every news source,academic research, etc is written in Arabic not varieties of Arabic.--Mohammed Ahmed 16:35, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Equivalents

• From the argument above , I understand that if wikipedia was present in the Medieval Ages then wikipedia Arabic would be the equivalent to wikipedia Latin while wkipedia Masry , wikipedia Moroccan and wikipedia Lebanese would be the equivalent to wikipedia Spanish , wikipedia Portuguese and wikipedia Italian , Am I correct in what I understood? Ghaly 14:49, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

 :: There is no comparison, Medieval Latin was a mean for the church to control education and literature, with the majority of people not understanding it. This isn't the case with Arabic, Almost all Arabs do understand Classical Arabic in varying degrees, they do read it, write it and listen to it, if you know an Egyptian (or any other Arab) who don't understand this article http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/مصر, it will be very interesting indeed. Arabic is a clear example of diglossa, since early beginnings there were two different varieties of the language; Classical Arabic used for official and more formal conversations, and an informal variety for most day to day usage. This didn't affect literacy and education in any way, but rather helped it by maintaining the pan Arabic culture and literature. --Khaled Hosny 15:34, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

• No equivalents, Arabic is used in 22 Arab country, One of the Languages in the UN. Establishing an Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia will have it's deep negative effect on the Arabic user. Because it will be fallowed by other localized incomplete versions of Wikipedia, it will not serve people how use Arabic.--Mohammed Ahmed 15:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

• From what is written , I can only deduct that wikipedia Arabic would be the equivalent to wikipedia Latin , otherwise why would speakers of Masry, Moroccan and Lebanese be willing to abandon it and start their own wikipedias once the chance was given to one wikipedia in Masry to start.

This only implies that Classical Arabic is enforced on these people and it is a form of suppression to control them and this strikes me as a very similar situation to the control of knowledge by usage of Latin in Medieval ages. From the arguments presented I gather that Wikipedia Arabic users are worried about giving the freedom to its readers and editors to have a source in their own language because this will make them abandon the Arabic wikipedia , I would have never imagined that wikipedia Arabic was meant to have a monopoly on information and access to it, and that was not in anyone's mind when this proposal was put forward.

• I contribute a lot on wikipedia Arabic and I hope I will not stop that as it is developing in a good pace, but this proposal is aimed at reaching more people and giving them the information in their language. Ghaly 10:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for mentioning the reference to diglossa as it confirms that I understood correctly what you wrote , reading the part about English also the section about Catalan was very enlightening.I am just wondering why are you not proposing closure of wikipedia English in favour of the German and French ? Ghaly 10:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You are just understanding what you want to understand, my point was very clear, Arabs usually speak to varieties of their language a classical high prestige Arabic, and a low prestige, for day to day usage, local slang. This has been happening for hundreds of years and every one is happy, but now you are claiming that a "masri" wikipedia will bring the information to people to whom Arabic isn't understandable -- an imaginary Egyptians that I don't know where they live, do you?

If you read the article, you will find the English-French part os talking about the historical period of "Norman invasion", but I already forgot, you are just spreading FUD. --Khaled Hosny 12:42, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Coming back to the issue at hand , you did not answer my question, would your next steps be putting proposals for closure of wikipedia Mandarin in favour of wikipedia Classical Chinese , closure of wikipedia Spanish , Portuguese and Italian in favour of a wikipedia Latin, closure of wikipedia English in favour of Latin , French or German and Closure of wikipedia Maltese in favour of Arabic and English. If that is the case wikipedia then will be unrecognisable. If your answer is no , please give explanation to that answer and at that moment you might recognise that what is going on here is nothing personal , it is only for spread of knowledge. And ,I have to repeat it again ,Please try to make your case without insulting anyone.Ghaly 10:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Masry so far

• Wikipedia Masry project started on 2 April 2008 and after 24 days Currently wikipedia Masry project has;
• 59 articles, categories, templates, and talk pages;
• 5 redirects;
• 7 editors (including any with at least one edit);
• 301 revisions (including 30 minor edits).

Important to note that the Majority (more than 95%) of these edits are done by myself , these are meant to give a start to anyone interested to have a place to start from.

Before using the point that more than 95% of the edits are done by one user against the project , please notice that this is not uncommon to happen in the first stages of any project as I feel it is my duty to provide clues for starters.Ghaly 07:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

You forget to mention that at least 2 of the 7 editors were just opposing your idea. --Khaled Hosny 12:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Thanks for mentioning that , today there are 310 revisions (including 30 minor edits), 8 editors including the two you mentioned , I believe you meant User:Alnokta and User:OsamaK, who shared in the discussion page of the main page commenting on the name of the project i.e. should it be wikipedia Masry or wikipedia Masreya. Any editor is welcome to share in writing on wikipedia Masry and they are always going to be mentioned as editors wether they are pro or against the project.Ghaly 09:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Update 11 May 2008 on  ;According to the analysis , after 39 days from the beginning of wikipedia Masry there are;

• 92 articles, categories, templates, and talk pages;
• 10 redirects;
• 14 editors (including any with at least one edit);
• 633 revisions (including 51 minor edits).

That is a large expansion of the new wikipedia project , I am especially very pleased to note that my contributions percentage is around 55% now , proving what was expected that wikipedia Masry is attracting editors and encouraging them to continue editing.

The suggested rules for writing are currently under review to agree on the best way to go forward quicker , hopefully this review will reach the best way to edit on the wp/arz without putting restrictions on editors creativity or limit access to information and editing yet continue to be compliant with standardised wikipedia guidelines.

Many thanks for all the contributors both here and on the incubator , you have all added to the progress of this project by sharing your ideas, please try to add to the discussion pages on the incubator pages, so your opinions will benefit any future editors of these articles. Ghaly 09:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

• You haven't yet agreed on who to write what you call masry language. Ghaly suggested writing masry using Arabic Alphabet, this is normal and expected. But, User Mamdouh have an other Idea, his Idea is to write the Egyptian Arabic slang using Latin Alphabet. This really proves that Egyptian Arabic is not a language. User Mamdouh and Ghaly are both Egyptians as their pages show. They have not decided on how to write what they call language of Egypt, if it was a language it must have clear alphabet and defined writing method. Mamdouh wants to write it from left to right, while Ghaly writes it from right to left as we all write Arabic from right to left. Are you trying to use wikipedia to make a new language? Though in my opinion it will never be a language.--Mohammed Ahmed 16:09, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Usage of Masry

• • I am happy that the article on Tiger has attracted the attention of some users and will definitely try to improve it as soon as possible, usage of that reference mentioned was meant to show that the usage of the Masry word for Tiger is more accepted than the classical term used on wikipedia Arabic. As for a respected reference for the usage of the Masry term ,here is one ^[8] , I hope BBC Arabic would be considered to be worthy of respect by the users, if not I don't know what else can I provide, and yes , I know it is written in Arabic not Masry but if there is no Arabic or Masry reference The editor can use a reference from any other language to support the information in the article.

• • It was not mentioned that I also used a reference in the article about wikipedia on wikipedia Masry from the blog of User:Alnokta to prove the point that Masry is used even by wikipedia Arabic editors when they would like to make their point clear.

• • It would be much appreciated if the Egyptian users who are against the project stop insulting Masry as this is the language that the majority of Egyptians understand and use every day , and it is the same language that these users themselves use in their day to day life.
  • The article on Egypt on wikipedia Masy is still in its beginnings and contributions from any user are most welcomed. Ghaly 07:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

• • I am very grateful for the repeated confirmation by the opposing users that Masry is used in writing as well as speaking but ,as I am in the middle of providing references, I would like to provide a reference that Masry is taught as a language and software for it is available on line ^[9], and yes I know, this reference is in English yet I would appreciate feedback about it. Ghaly 07:47, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Again, please stop spreading FUD. There is no single scientific or any kind of respectable paper written in your claimed "Masry language", do you know why? because Egyptian __do__ understand Classical Arabic (or what is so called modern standard Arabic) very well, it is __the language__ for literature, education and formal communication. This is a very fundamental concept that every Egyptian knows, yet you are trying to fool the others claiming that a "masri" wikipedia will bring the knowledge to Egyptians, as if they don't understand Arabic -- their own language.

You didn't answer any of my questions above -- the question about the مصر article in Arabic wikipedia, but rather spreading FUD and misinformation. Now I'm asking you one question: Do Egyptians understand Arabic natively or not, if yes what your wikipedia will bring to them then? --Khaled Hosny 12:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The tiger issue you rising is a clear example of the FUD you are spreading, you know that this issue raised in Arabic wikipedia with many people claiming it should be named نمر (as yours) not ببر (what in Arabic wikipedia now), but it appears that ordinary people (non specialists) mix between leopard, tiger and jaguar calling all نمر while specialized books an dictionaries make the distinction, now how would you make a distinction between both? this has nothing to do with your "masri" wikipedia, and the issue raised above wasn't about the naming but the worth-nothing reference you used. Again, you are just spreading FUD. --Khaled Hosny 12:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Making this personal

• • Asking for this not to become personal is both overdue and late as I have noticed that it has become a very personal issue for at least two users already. I understand fully how it can be to feel very passionate about a certain subject , but claiming to know everyone else's opinion and not accepting the freedom of others to write in the language they choose should not be standard practice. Ghaly 07:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Personal attacks against me both here and on Wkipedia Arabic ^{[10] [11] [12]} were expected and I have to remind User:Mohammed Ahmed that I can understand , write and speak Masry, Arabic, and English fluently including the implied meanings of his words, and that he actually used Masry to write his personal remark about me, obviously he feels more comfortable writing in Masry when he wants to write something personal. If that is the case may I take the chance to invite him to be a contributor to wikipedia Masry , I am sure the project will benefit a lot from his efforts.

• Yet once again I am reiterating that I will not respond to these personal remarks. Ghaly 08:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Please stop the FUD, no one attacked you here, yet every one has the every right to express his feelings, if you don't like it we don't care, and __you__ is the one who is making it personal by bringing this here to distract us from the main discussion. --Khaled Hosny 12:09, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

• I meant no harm to Ghaly. I apologize for any thing wrong I did. It is not about being comfortable when talking in Egyptian Arabic accent, I did so for humours purposes only. I will not contribute to the so called Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia, because in my opinion it will never be a real encyclopaedia. But Arabic Wikipedia is certainly a promising encyclopaedia, because:
• All Arabs contribute to this project.
• A community for all Arabic Users.
• I learn using the Arabic language, not in any slang. Egyptian Arabic is a slang. Yes, It is a slang. Do you know the American English Slang that appear in Some American films. Why is not there a Wikipedia that uses gonna to instead of going to, and wanna go to, instead of want to go to?. You will have to admit that Egyptian Arabic is not used in any academic research or any respected information source.
• The creation of a Wikipedia in the Egyptian slang (You know that most Egyptians say العامية المصرية) وليس اللغة المصرية. This will encourage other Arabs to call for Wikipedia in the slang they use, And you might end up with 7 or 5 Versions of localized Arabic Wikipedia. It will be so much harder for an Arab to search for information in different versions of Arabic slangs عاميات. This is what you have to argue about, Ghaly. Again I apologize for any bad.--Mohammed Ahmed 12:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

• • Dear Mohammed; Many thanks for being telerant to others and apologising for what I mentioned. There is nothing personal about this proposal and exchange of opinions is only going to enrich the project, on the other hand I feel sad that you are not going to share in wikipedia Masry as I really belive you got a lot to add to it and the project will benefit from your efforts, who knows what will happen next but for me writing in Masry is very enjoyable and it feels so easy. Ghaly 09:21, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Running around in circles

• Unfortunately , and that is my personal opinion, the discussion have been very repetitive and the argument against the project is not coming up with much that has not been answered already,e.g. ISO recognition, Wikipedia Arabic, Recognition and usage of Masry in writing...............

I personally don't think I will be adding much to the discussion any more unless a valid new argument came to light. Ghaly 11:35, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested way forward

• • The way I see it is the project is still in its fetal status in the incubator , the way the other editors and I are writing is not much different from the example^[13] here from a recent issue of the local newspaper Soat el-Omma , and for anyperson who want to comment on the articles please put your opinion on the related discussion page at the incubator , put it in any language you prefer , I prefer Masry but write in Masry ,Arabic, English whatever language you fancy and I will try to answer them. In case you think your level in writing in Masry will enable you to do a better job , please go ahead improve what you want.

Try not to write in Classical Arabic on Wikipedia Masry and remember the grammar is different and the flow of reading will be disrupted by change in style in the same article. Improve what I have written , edit it and write what you think are the correct words but in Masry and the example is there.

• • Giving the project time , it will develop and will settle all the arguments about the grammar and how to write , these things are normal in any wikipedia and help to enrich the project.

In case there is a misunderstanding of the rules of discussion in English here is the link to rules of discussion in Classical Arabic as it might clarify matters better. Some of these rules are included in how to write on wikipedia Masry

Please express your opinions without insulting or ridiculing anyone.Ghaly 20:09, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

• Ghaly has to admit that a very very very high percentage of the written press in Egypt is written in Arabic. Education material is in Arabic. It is a slang answer my question, Ghaly. How can you say computer in What you call Masry language? Tell me. I have already predicted your answer. You would say كمبيوتر Computer just with Arabic words. Or حاسب آلي a pure Arabic Word. The only Vocabulary that distinguish the Egyptian Arabic slang are the words used in day to day talks.
  • answer my question tough guy, what is the arabic naming for photon? another, was not every single language in mother earth a spoken language, or a day-by-day talks?, maybe excepting for some languages made for use in religion, or administrative work beside the spoken languages in ancient egypt. One last pharaoh 15:33, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
• I call the language subcommittee to have members who have good knowledge and information about the Arabic language, This will surely help you the subcommittee to make a clear decision.--Mohammed Ahmed 22:09, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

• Now to some good evidence, Ghaly wrote the how to write in Masry page. In his own word he said عاميه" مصريه" English: Egyptian Slang.^[14]
  • it seams u still do not get it...ok here it is in a simpler form; if this was a match, it's a one u cannot win by using ghaly's mistakes. One last pharaoh 15:33, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Style of writing

• Apart from the difference in opinion between myself and User:Alnokta about naming the project ,as far as I am aware there has not been any arguments between myself and any other editor on wikipedia Masry about style or rules of writing on wikipedia Masry and if this happened in the future it will be solved like in any other wikipedia.

Noting the differences and analysing the articles has been done by the opposers who claimed at one stage that Masry is not a written language ,yet they came back with analysis of articles and even one of them noted the percentage of words in Masry in one article.An important point to make is that I am very impressed with that the percentage analysis was done by a Syrian user, meaning that Masry words can be easily recognised even by non Egyptians.

The writing example is mentioned above twice, and it is not written by me, my answer to this point which has been repeated is , the difference in opinions will never spoil a project it will only enrich it, no one has a monopoly on being correct , and when a real argument between the editors on wikipedia Masry arises I am sure the opposing users will be the first to mention it on this page. Ghaly 03:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

• A Syrian user was able to understand the Egyptian Arabic slang because of the effect of Egyptian movies, he didn't learn it in school or college.--Mohammed Ahmed 21:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  • some one who is learning a language was able to understand some parts by the affect of using media in cultural centers were he study. only recently, the arabians started to make their own movies. that can give an idea of the domination of egyptian media over arab TVs for decades. One last pharaoh 15:40, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

• Yes it gives as an indication to the dominance of Egyptian media, but this is not the point here. Egyptian Arabic is a slang, not written. That is all about it.--Mohammed Ahmed 16:55, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Running around in circles 2

• • I hope this repetition and attempt to go back to what was discussed already stops, this time I hope no one gets upset but I am intending not to reply to any other repeated comments and please if I did not reply take as a sign that I am satisfied that I have already answered that point, it is time to focus on going forward. I will continue to reply to comments on the discussion pages on the articles on wikipedia Masry as I have done before , and any further analysis of the articles if it was on the related page Ghaly 18:52, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

• Why did you wrote with your own hands on the page that you tried in it to but rules for writing the Egyptian Arabic slang, you wrote it yourself عاميه مصريه Egyptian slang, you did not write لغة مصرية Egyptian language. So I think you are not here to make a decent argument. When you started