Acquaintances, and even strangers, often address each other as relations, by the terms “Father,” “Son,” “Paternal uncle,” “Son of my paternal uncle,” “Brother,” “Mother,” “Daughter,” “Maternal aunt,” “Daughter of my maternal aunt,” “Sister,” etc. ---------------------------- CHAPTER IX. LANGUAGE, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE. The metropolis of Egypt maintains the comparative reputation by which it has been distinguished for many centuries, of being the best school of Arabic literature, and of Muslim theology and jurisprudence. Learning, indeed, has much declined among the Arabs universally; but least in Cairo: consequently, the fame of the professors of this city still remains unrivalled; and its great collegiate mosque, the Azhar, continues to attract innumerable students from every quarter of the Muslim world. The Arabic spoken by the middle and higher classes in Cairo is generally inferior, in point of grammatical correctness and pronunciation, to the dialects of the Bedawees of Arabia, and of the inhabitants of the towns in their immediate vicinity; but much to be preferred to those of Syria; and still more, to those of the Western Arabs. The most remarkable peculiarities in the pronunciation of the people of Egypt are the following:—The fifth letter of the alphabet is pronounced by the natives of Cairo, and throughout the greater part of Egypt, as _g_ in _give_; while, in most parts of Arabia, and in Syria and other countries, it receives the sound of _j_ in _joy_: but it is worthy of remark, that, in a part of southern Arabia, where, it is said, Arabic was first spoken, the former sound is given to this letter.[329] In those parts of Egypt where this pronunciation of the fifth letter prevails, the sound of “hemzeh” (which is produced by a sudden emission of the voice after a total suppression) is given to the twenty-first letter, excepting by the better instructed, who give to this letter its true sound, which I represent by “k.” In other parts of Egypt, the pronunciation of the fifth letter is the same as that of _j_ in _joy_, or nearly so; and the twenty-first letter is pronounced as _g_ in _give_. By all the Egyptians, in common with most other people who speak the Arabic language, the third and fourth letters of the alphabet are pronounced alike, as our _t_; and the eighth and ninth, as our _d_.—Of the peculiarities in the _structure_ of the Egyptian dialect of Arabic, the most remarkable are, the annexation of the letter “sheen” in negative phrases, in the same manner as the word “pas” is used in French; as “má yerdásh,” for “má yerda,” “he will not consent;” “má hoosh teiyib,” (vulgarly, “mósh teiyib”), for “má huwa teiyib,” “it is not good:” the placing the demonstrative pronoun _after_ the word to which it relates; as “el-beyt dé,” “this house;” and a frequent unnecessary use of the