El-Said Badawi (El-Saʿīd Muḥammad Badawī) (Arabiс: السعيد محمد بدوي; 1929 – March 16, 2014) was a scholar and linguist and author of many works, both in English and in Arabic, dealing with various aspects of the Arabic language.[1]
El-Said Badawi
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| Born | 1929
El-Nakhas, Zagazig, Sharqiyya Governorate, Egypt
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| Died | March 16, 2014(2014-03-16) (aged 84–85) |
| Alma mater | Cairo University, University of London |
| Occupation(s) | Linguist, scholar |
Having learned the Qur'an by the age of ten in his village, El-Nakhas, Sharqiyya Governorate, he attended Al-Azhar University for his secondary schooling. He received a B.A. in Arabic Language & Literature and Islamic Studies from Cairo University, an M.A. in General Linguistics and Phonetics from the University of London, and his Ph.D. in Experimental Phonetics from the University of London.[2]
After obtaining his Ph.D. Badawi briefly taught linguistics at the University of Cairo, then began teaching Arabic literature and linguistics at Omdurman UniversityinSudan,[3] and moved to the American University in Cairo in 1969, where he became the Curriculum Advisor for the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) in 1970.[4]
Badawi's wide-ranging interests included colloquial Egyptian Arabic, classical Arabic as found in the Qur'an, and the teaching of Arabic as a foreign language. In the field of sociolinguistics, perhaps Badawi's best known work is Mustawayāt al-ʻArabīyah al-muʻāṣirah fī Miṣr (Levels of Contemporary Arabic in Egypt) wherein he challenges the traditional simplistic dichotomy of Classical and Colloquial Arabic, proposing instead a more subtle analysis involving several levels of usage.[5][6]