Don't Use Egyptian Dialect in Arabic Dubbed Disney Movies

  • by: Save Arabic
  • recipient: The Walt Disney Company, Disney Character Voices International Inc, Disney Arabia

In 2014, Disney finally decided to switch to Modern Standard Arabic when dubbing their movies, with the release of Frozen. This was done so that all Arab speaking children could understand those movies, and to appeal to Arab TV channels that refused to broadcast those movies in a dialect the viewers would not understand.

However, in the recent Disney movies, Finding Dory and Moana, they decided to include the Egyptian dialect with Modern Standard Arabic, because of pressure from the Egyptian fans. Almost 20% of the movie had random Egyptian dialect dialogue included, in what is labeled as an Arabic dubbed movie. This, in turn, excluded all other Arabs who don't understand the Egyptian dialect. The Egyptian dialect is only spoken by Egyptian, and not all other Arabs understand it fully, especially Middle Eastern children. Modern Standard Arabic is taught to all Arabs throughout the Arab world for more than 12 years. Therefore, this should be a dub for all Arabs (290 million people), not just Egyptian (64 million people).

Imagine that you are buying the movie, and it said on the cover that it is in English, but when you later watch it you hear "Scottish English", not just an accent, but also the different non-English words they have. That is how Egyptian is differs greatly from Modern Standard Arabic. The problem is that Egyptian do understand Modern Standard Arabic, but other Arabs don't understand the Egyptian dialect. So why should the dub be targeted towards them only?

Moreover, don't forget about the people trying to teach their children Arabic or older people learning the language. They would find difficulties understanding the language and those non-Arabic words.

A solution to this, in my opinion, is either abolishing the Egyptian dialect from Disney movies or make 2 dub versions, Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian.

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