Egypt Arabic

By Alexa Boyce There is usually a local dialect associated with each country or region, but that of Egypt is understood universally in the Arabic world. This is due to the large number of movies and television shows that are filmed in Cairo. In fact, Cairo boasts the third largest film industry aside from Hollywood here in the United States and Bollywood in India. Some countries caught on more quickly than others to the advent of cinema in the early twentieth century. Egypt was one of those countries. By 1917 there were 80 movie theaters in the country. "Laila" by Stephen Rosti, widely considered to be the first 'Egyptian' film, was released in 1927. When sound was introduced in the 1930s, this new media really took off. Today, there is an ongoing struggle between conservative Muslim censorship and the liberal media. This website has some really good articles on both the history and modern state of Egyptian cinema.