Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/436

 develop his projects during the past twenty years free from the danger of interference from foreign states.

In accepting their religion from the Arabs the Egyptians have also, notwithstanding their great numerical superiority, adopted the language of their conquerors.

Arabic is spoken with purity in Egypt, and the University of El-Azhar at Cairo is even one of the places where are discussed and regulated the most delicate questions of Arabic grammar and literature. The only differences between the local idiom and that current in Hejaz are the use of a few Coptic and Turkish terms, and a peculiar manner of pronouncing certain letters of the