Egyptian Linguistic Separatism. A Study in Wikipedia Masri

The establishment of a separate Egyptian Wikipedia edition was a development whose consequences shall reverberate through history, drastically changing the language/dialect perceptions in Egypt and the Arab World. Wikipedia Maṣrī, also known as Wikipedia Masry or Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia, was established in 2008. It was the first edition of the free online encyclopedia in one of the many non-standard varieties of Arabic. Wikipedia Maṣrī was to become a platform for disseminating anti-Arabist ideology and promoting ethnic Egyptian separatism. The editors of Wikipedia Maṣrī disseminate the view that the Egyptian identity is unique and independent of the larger Arab community. Even more importantly, they insist that Egyptian Arabic should finally gain legal recognition as the Modern Egyptian language. This work aims to analyze Wikipedia Maṣrī from as many perspectives as possible: historical and ideological, social, cultural, and religious, as well as purely linguistic, which is concerned with grammar, syntax, and vocabulary.