I started looking more into the colonization of Egypt by the British and the French. Beyond that, I began to remember and notice certain aspects of our societies in Egypt, jokes, and articles that were shared online that all point to colonization, except I started seeing it now clearly. I looked back to how I was raised, and how come I speak three languages, two of which are those of the colonizers. And here, the question of language, and the role it plays in colonization sparked my interest.

My dad understands English to a large extent, he can speak and communicate but his English is broken and his accent is not perfect. A lot of people are like that because during his time, president AbdelNasser banned teaching the English language in schools around his time. My mom on the other hand, grew up in Kuwait and her English is really good. My dad’s family all conversed together in French, and here we see the effects of the French colonization as well. So, this idea of perfecting the accent and pronouncing words correctly is very significant in Egypt in that it shows class, as well as the societal gap between the people. I am an educated person, when we were young and we would go to a restaurant or a fast food place like McDonalds’, when the guy says “bebsi” instead of “pepsi” or “borgar” instead of “burger” we would laugh. This is a shame. We think, just because we can speak different languages properly, we can make fun of the people who don’t.

So, I decided to look at our Egyptian colloquial language, and examine as many words as I can think of and look for words with French origin that are now incorporated in the Egyptian language. I was also thinking about the discussion I attended after the screening of a documentary, Colonization Roads, where the Anishinaabe dictionary was manipulated to remove and insert different meaning into the language. 

I created a pocket dictionary, and the reason for such a small size is to be able to carry it around and see how words are properly pronounced. The idea of the dictionary is not just to show the French words incorporated in our Egyptian language, but also to show how Egyptians pronounce these words and how they have become very normal in our everyday conversations.

I named the dictionary Francoptien which mixes the word “Francophone” and “Egyptien”, and I also did a similar concept mix for the Arabic name of it. As for the cover, I chose to go with colours similar to the French flag, blue, red (I used a magenta tone), and white. They’re not in the same order, nor are they vertical because I did not want it to be too noticeable.