Alexander did not speak Egyptian and neither did Ptolemy when he took over the government of Egypt after Alexander's death. Indeed, no Ptolemaic Pharaoh bothered to learn the langauge of the country for close to 300 years until Cleopatra VII, who is said to have spoken it.

The court language of all the successor kingdoms was Koine, an international form of Greek which was spoken by all the upper classes everywhere. The Macedonian rulers lived as a race apart from the people and had little direct contact with them.Laws and decrees were translated by what must have been a large group of bi lingual native people employed by the state.