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Broadly speaking, there are two sources of interference in Arabic, one extraneous and one indigenous, affecting both the spoken and written forms of the language. Extraneous interferences come from the foreign languages with which speakers of Arabic come into contact. Indigenous interferences come from local spoken varieties of Arabic and the written form of the language itself. Contact interference is not uncommon in other languages. In the case of Arabic, however, the matter is more complex, owing to factors peculiar to the language and region itself. Arabic has been in contact…

1. General linguistic situation 1.1 Languages spoken in Egypt Apart from Arabic, some Afro-Asiatic languages are spoken in Egypt, viz. Berber in the oasis of Siwa, Bedja (Bišāri) in the Eastern Desert to the south of the Aswān – Berenike line, as well as in Darāw and in the išŠēx Harūn quarter of Aswān. Reliable numbers of speakers of these languages are difficult to obtain. Bišāri speakers are estimated at about 15,000 (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=SD) in Egypt and Sudan; and Sīwi ( tasiwīt) at between 6,000 (Bliss 1998:37), 10,000 (Miller 1996:420), and…