Disney has announced a return to using the Egyptian dialect in dubbing its animation films, which many Arab fans have called for since Disney switched to the standard Arabic dialect in 2013.
After years of using the Egyptian dialect, the new trend of dubbing Disney films in standard Arabic – starting with Frozen (2013) – was met with disappointment from Egyptian and Arab Disney fans.
There were many calls asking Disney to reconsider this decision, including a particularly strong online campaign last year that trended on social media with three major hashtags: 'Disney in Egyptian', 'Disney must return to being Egyptian' and 'Bring Egyptian Disney back.'
The Arabic Voiceover Company had said on its Facebook page in support of the 2016 campaign that “the Egyptian dialect is the most well-known in the entire Arab world, spoken by more than 90 million citizens and is number one in all Middle Eastern media and films.”
Fans argued that Egyptian Arabic is better at communicating the light hearted nature of Disney films, using language more familiar to young audiences and making it easier to relay the humour, which was often lost in the standard Arabic dubbing.
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