Saad deciphers the honking code of Cairo. — spa
CAIRO: In Egypt's hopelessly gridlocked capital, beeping your horn has become something of an art form, a secret language that could mean anything from "I love you" to a gross insult.Beeping your horn is a way of expressing many things, taxi driver Mahmoud Saad says as he navigates his white Hyundai through the sea of traffic around Tahrir Square, the sound of horns coming every two or three seconds.
While for tourists the beeps, long and short, may blend into the general background noise and overall atmosphere, for drivers like Saad they are part of the local language - a form of automotive Morse Code.
"If, for example, I know a driver coming towards me or I see a friend sitting in a cafe, I greet him with a beep of my horn," the 30-year-old explains, demonstrating with a "beeep-beep-beep."
Traffic jam in Cairo. - dpa
To express joy, particularly at weddings, a longer combination is usual, a kind of congratulations to the new couple.
"Thank you" is expressed with two short blasts of the horn, "I love you" is three short blasts and tossing an insult is three short beeps followed by two longer ones.
There is ample and growing opportunity to hear all of these sounds and more.
The Egyptian population, and with it the traffic, has exploded in the past 20 years. The country recently reached the 100-million mark and one fifth of the population lives in Cairo and its immediate surroundings. The mega city has grown by more than 700 per cent since 1950.
Car journeys that should take only 20 minutes can now take up to two hours or even more.
"The language started when Cairo’s traffic got out of hand," Ayman Kamel, who runs transportation for an immigrant services company, told the travel website "Culture Trip."
Kamel learned the language in his local coffee shop, while Saad learned it during his time as a minibus driver.
Aside from taxi drivers, minibus drivers are known for speaking the language particularly well.
But noise is also a problem for residents in crowded urban centres. In Mumbai, police became so annoyed with the levels of noise that they rigged some traffic lights up with decibel meters - when the noise reaches more than 85 decibels, the lights stay red for longer.
