Levantine Arabic
شامي, šāmi
Native to	Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Palestine, Israel
Region	Levant / Greater Syria[1][2]
Ethnicity	Primarily Arabs Also used as a first or second language by some other ethnic groups in the region.[3]
Native speakers	44 million (2022)[4]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic Central Semitic South Semitic Arabic Levantine Arabic
Dialects	North Levantine South Levantine
Writing system	Arabic alphabet Latin script (Arabizi) Hebrew alphabet (in Israel)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: apc – North Levantine ajp – South Levantine
Glottolog	leva1239
Linguasphere	12-AAC-eh "Syro-Palestinian"
North Levantine   South Levantine
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Template:Contains Levantine characters Levantine Arabic, also called Shami (autonym: شامي šāmi, or Arabic: اللَّهْجَةِ الشَّامِيَّةِ, il-lahje š-šāmiyye), or Levantine, is a subgroup of mutually intelligible vernacular Arabic varieties spoken in the Levant, in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and Turkey (historically in Adana, Mersin and Hatay provinces only). With numerous dialects and over 44 million speakers worldwide, Levantine is, with Egyptian, one of the two prestige varieties of spoken Arabic comprehensible all over the Arab world.

Levantine is not officially recognized in any state or territory. It is the majority language in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, but it is predominantly used as a spoken vernacular in daily communication, whereas most written and official documents and media in these countries use the official Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), a form of literary Arabic that is only acquired through formal education and does not function as a native language. In Israel and Turkey, Levantine is a minority language.

The Palestinian dialect is the closest vernacular Arabic variety to MSA, with about 50% of common words. Nevertheless, Levantine and MSA are not mutually intelligible. Levantine speakers therefore often call their language Amiya, which means "slang", "dialect", or "colloquial" in MSA (العامية al-ʿāmmiyya). However, with the emergence of social media, attitudes toward Levantine have improved and the amount of written Levantine has significantly increased, especially online where Levantine is written using Arabic, Latin, or Hebrew characters.

The lack of written sources in Levantine makes it impossible to determine its history before the modern period. Aramaic was the dominant language in the Levant starting in the first millennium BCE. Aramaic coexisted with many other languages, including many Arabic dialects spoken by various Arabic tribes. With the Muslim conquest of the Levant, new Arabic speakers from the Arabian Peninsula settled in the region and a lengthy language shift from Aramaic to vernacular Arabic occurred. Levantine does not descend from Classical Arabic: they both descend from an unattested common ancestor called Proto-Arabic.

Levantine pronunciation varies greatly along social and geographical lines. Its grammar is similar to that shared by most vernacular varieties of Arabic. Its lexicon is overwhelmingly Arabic, with an important Aramaic influence.

Naming

Scholars use the term "Levantine Arabic" to describe the continuum of mutually intelligible dialects spoken across the Levant.^[5][3] Other terms include "Syro-Palestinian",^[6] "Eastern Arabic",^[a][7] "Syro-Lebanese" (as a broad term covering Jordan and Palestine as well),^[8] "Greater Syrian",^[9] or simply "Syrian Arabic" (in a broad meaning, referring to all the dialects of Greater Syria, which corresponds to the Levant).^[1][2] Most authors include only the sedentary dialects, excluding Bedouin dialects of the Syrian Desert and the Negev, which belong to the dialects of the Arabian peninsula. Mesopotamian dialects from northeast Syria are also excluded.^[8] Linguists Kristen Brustad and Emilie Zuniga note that the term "Levantine Arabic" is not indigenous and that "it is likely that many speakers would resist the grouping on the basis that the rich phonological, morphological and lexical variation within the Levant carries important social meanings and distinctions."^[10]

Indeed, Levantine speakers often call their language Amiya, which means "slang", "dialect", or "colloquial" in MSA (‏العامية‎, al-ʿāmmiyya) to compare their vernacular to Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic (‏الفصحى‎, al-fuṣḥā, meaning "the eloquent").^[b][11][12] They also simply call their spoken language "Arabic" (‏عربي‎, ʿarabiyy).^[13] Alternatively, they identify their language by the name of their country, for instance, Jordanian (‏أردني‎, Urduni),^[4] Syrian (‏شامي‎, Šāmi^[c]),^[4] or Lebanese (‏لبناني‎). Lebanese literary figure Said Akl also led a movement to recognize the "Lebanese language" as a distinct prestigious language and oppose it to MSA, which he considered a "dead language".^[14]

Classification

Levantine is a variety of Arabic, a Semitic language. Semitic languages belong to Afroasiatic languages. There is no consensus regarding the genealogical position of Arabic within Semitic languages.^[15] The position of Levantine and other Arabic vernaculars in the Arabic macrolanguage family has also been contested. According to the Arabic linguistic and intellectual tradition, Classical Arabic was the spoken language of the pre- and Early Islamic period and remained stable to today's Modern Standard Arabic.^[b] In this view, Classical Arabic is the ancestor of all other Arabic vernaculars, including Levantine, which were corrupted by contacts with other languages.^[16][17][18] However, many Arabic varieties preserve features lost in Classical Arabic and are closer to other Semitic languages, which proves that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. That's why most Western scholars now consider that Arabic vernaculars represent a different type of Arabic, rather than just a modified version of the Classical language,^[19] and that Classical Arabic is a sister language to other varieties of Arabic rather than their direct ancestor.^[18] Classical Arabic and all vernacular varieties developed from an unattested common ancestor conventionally called Proto-Arabic or Early Arabic.^[18] Kees Versteegh calls it Ancient North Arabian.^[20]

Sedentary vernaculars (also called dialects) are then traditionally classified into 5 groups according to shared features:

• Peninsular,
• Mesopotamian,
• Levantine,
• Egyptian,
• Maghrebi.^[21][22]

In the pre-Islamic period, Arabs from all over the peninsula were able to communicate easily.^[23] Today, it is extremely difficult for Moroccans and Iraqis, each speaking their own variety, to understand each other. The linguistic distance between Arabic vernaculars (including Levantine) is as large as that between the Germanic languages and the Romance languages (including Romanian), if not larger.^[23] However, in practice, research by Trentman & Shiri indicates that native speakers of Arabic languages are able, thanks to previous exposure to their non-native dialects through media or personal contacts and through various strategies (contextual clues, predicting phonological differences, using knowledge of the root system to guess meaning, and recognizing affixes), to reach a high degree of mutual intelligibility in interactional situations.^[24]

Geographical distribution and varieties

Dialects

Levantine is spoken in the fertile strip on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. It is bordered by other Arabic varieties: Mesopotamian Arabic and North Mesopotamian Arabic to the north and the north-east of Syria; Najdi Arabic to the east and the south-east of Jordan and Syria; and Northwest Arabian Arabic to the south and the south west of Jordan, Israel, and Palestine.^[25][26]

The degree of similarity among Levantine dialects is not necessarily determined by geographical location or political boundaries. The urban dialects of the main cities (such as Damascus, Beirut, and Jerusalem) have much more in common with each other than they do with the rural dialects of their respective countries. The sociolects of two different social or religious groups within the same country may also show more points of dissimilarity with each other than when compared with their counterparts in another country.^[1]

The process of linguistic homogenization within each country of the Levant makes a classification of dialects by country possible today.^[27][22] Versteegh classifies Levantine (which he calls "Syro-Lebanese") into three groups: Lebanese/Central Syrian (inc. Beirut, Damascus, Druze Arabic, Cypriot Maronite), North Syrian (inc. Aleppo), and Palestinian/Jordanian.^[28] However, according to Versteegh, the distinctions between the groups are unclear and the exact boundary cannot be determined with certainty using isoglosses.^[29] The ISO 639-3 standard and Ethnologue divide Levantine into two groups: North Levantine (ISO 639-3 code: apc) and South Levantine (ISO 639-3 code: ajp).^[4] Ethnologue notes a "high mutual intelligibility" between these two varieties.^[4] Contrary to Versteegh, Ethnologue does not consider Cypriot Arabic as a Levantine dialect,^[30] but as a hybrid language between Levantine and North Mesopotamian Arabic (qeltu),^[31] with its own ISO 639-3 code (acy).^[32]

According to Ethnologue, North Levantine extends from Turkey in the North (in the coastal provinces of Adana, Hatay, and Mersin),^[33] to Lebanon,^[34] passing through the Mediterranean coastal regions of Syria (the Latakia and Tartus governorates) as well as the areas surrounding Aleppo and Damascus.^[4] In the North, the limit with Mesopotamian starts from the Turkish border near el-Rāʿi, and Sabkhat al-Jabbul is the north-eastern limit of Levantine, which includes further south al-Qaryatayn, Damascus, and the Hauran.^[25] Dialects of North Levantine include:^[4]

• Syrian Arabic: There is an urban standard dialect based on Damascus speech. This prestige dialect is the most widely documented and described Levantine variety.^[10] A "common Syrian Arabic" is emerging.^[35] The dialect of Aleppo shows Mesopotamian influence.
• Lebanese Arabic: No special prestige is attributed to the Beiruti dialect.^[36] There is an emerging "Standard Lebanese Arabic", which combines features of Beiruti Arabic and Jabale Arabic, the language of Mount Lebanon.^[37]
• Çukurova Arabic (also called Cilician Arabic): spoken in Çukurova, Turkey, including Antakya,^[38] in danger of extinction.^[39]

According to Ethnologue, South Levantine is spoken in Palestine, in the western area of Jordan,^[25] and in Israel.^[4] Bedouin varieties are spoken in the Negev and Sinai Peninsula, areas of transition to Egyptian.^[40][41] The dialect of Arish, Egypt, is classified by Linguasphere as Levantine.^[6] The major characteristics distinguishing this dialect from its surrounding Bedouin dialects are those that more generally distinguish sedentary dialects from Bedouin dialects.^[42] Dialects of South Levantine include:^[4]

• Jordanian Arabic: There is a newly emerging urban standard dialect based on the Amman dialect.^[43][44] Other dialects include Fellahi, Madani.
• Palestinian Arabic: Fellahi (rural), Madani (urban).^[45][46] The Gaza dialect contains features that are characteristic of both urban Palestinian Arabic and Bedouin Arabic.^[47]

Ethnicity and religion

The Levant is characterized by ethnic diversity and religious pluralism^[48] and Levantine dialects vary along sectarian lines.^[10]

Religious groups include Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Alawites,^[d] Christians, Druze, and Jews.^[49][50] Differences between Muslim and Christian dialects are minimal, mainly involving some religious vocabulary.^[51] A minority of features are perceived as typically associated with one group. For example, in Beirut, the exponent tēʕ is only used by Muslims and never by Christians (who use tabaʕ).^[52] Druze and Alawite dialects are distinguished from others by retention of the phoneme /q/.^[10] Sunni dialects are more influenced by MSA. Jewish dialects diverge more from Muslim dialects and often show influences from other towns due to trade networks and contacts with other Jewish communities.^[48] For instance, the Jewish dialect of Hatay is very similar to the Aleppo dialect, in particular to the dialect of the Jews of Aleppo, and shows traits otherwise not found in any dialect of Hatay.^[48][38] Koineization in cities such as Damascus leads to a homogenization of the language among religious groups.^[53]

Levantine is primarily spoken by Arabs. It is also spoken as a first or second language by some other ethnic minorities in the region.^[3] In particular, it is spoken natively by Samaritans^[54] and by most Circassians in Jordan,^[3][55] Armenians in Jordan^[56] and Israel,^[57] Assyrians in Israel,^[57] Turkmen in Syria^[58] and Lebanon,^[59] Kurds in Lebanon,^[60][61] and Dom people in Jerusalem.^[62][63] Most Lebanese in Israel speak Lebanese and do not consider themselves Arabs, claiming to be Phoenicians.^[64][65] Syrian Jews,^[50] Lebanese Jews,^[66] and Turkish Jews from Çukurova are native Levantine speakers, however, most of them moved to Israel after 1948.^[38] Levantine also used to be spoken natively by most Jews in Jerusalem but the community experienced a shift to Modern Hebrew after the establishment of Israel.^[67][68]

Moreover, Levantine is used as a second language by Dom people across the Levant,^[69][4] Circassians in Israel,^[4] Armenians in Lebanon,^[3] Chechens in Jordan,^[55][56] Assyrians in Syria^[4] and Lebanon,^[70] and most Kurds in Syria.^[4][71]

Speakers by country

In addition to the Levant, where it is indigenous, Levantine is spoken among diaspora communities from the region, especially among the Palestinian,^[46] Lebanese, and Syrian diasporas.^[72] The language has gradually fallen into disuse among subsequent diaspora generations, such as the 7 million Lebanese Brazilians.^[73][4]

Levantine speakers, Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)^[4][e]

Country	Total population	North Levantine speakers (apc)	South Levantine speakers (ajp)	Total Levantine speakers (apc+ajp)	% Levantine speakers among the population
Syria	17,070,000	13,600,000	33,300	13,633,300	80%
Jordan	10,102,000	1,300,000	5,560,000	6,860,000	68%
Lebanon	6,825,000	6,759,000	—	6,759,000	99%
Turkey	83,430,000	4,250,000	—	4,250,000	5%
Palestine	4,981,000	14,800	4,000,000	4,014,800	81%
Israel	8,675,000	93,700	1,430,000	1,523,700	18%
Saudi Arabia	34,269,000	900,000	415,000	1,315,000	4%
Qatar	2,832,000	561,000	380,000	941,000	33%
Germany	83,149,000	778,000	19,800	797,800	1%
United Arab Emirates	9,890,000	244,000	532,000	776,000	8%
Brazil	211,716,000	700,000	—	700,000	0%
United States	329,065,000	173,000	164,000	337,000	0%
Indonesia	266,912,000	283,000	—	283,000	0%
Kuwait	4,421,000	214,000	65,000	279,000	6%
Egypt	100,388,000	173,000	—	173,000	0%
Canada	38,062,000	135,000	34,900	169,900	0%
Australia	25,466,000	159,000	—	159,000	1%
Venezuela	28,516,000	127,000	—	127,000	0%

History

Pre-Islamic antiquity

Starting in the first millennium BCE, Aramaic was both the dominant spoken language and the language of writing and administration in the Levant.^[74][75] Greek became the language of administration with the Seleucid Empire and was maintained by the Roman, then Byzantine empires.^[76][77] At the same period, in the Arabian Peninsula there was a continuum of Central Semitic languages and Central Arabia was home to languages quite distinct from Arabic.^[78]

The lack of written sources in Levantine makes it impossible to determine its history before the modern period.^[79] Old Arabic was a dialect continuum stretching from the southern Levant (where Northern Old Arabic was spoken) to the northern Hijaz, in the Arabian Peninsula, where Old Hijazi was spoken.^[18] In the early first century CE, a great variety of Arabic dialects were already spoken by various nomadic or semi-nomadic Arabic tribes,^[80][77][35] such as the Nabataeans^[81]—who used Aramaic for official purposes^[82]—, the Tanukhids,^[f][81] and the Ghassanids.^[55] Their colloquial language was related to later Classical Arabic.^[81] These Arab communities stretched from the southern extremities of the Syrian Desert to central Syria, the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and the Beqaa Valley.^[83][84]

The main representatives of Northern Old Arabic were Safaitic, Hismaic, and Nabataean Arabic.^[78] Tens of thousands of graffiti in the Safaitic and Hismaic scripts cover the Syrian Desert. The Safaitic inscriptions sometimes exhibit the article ʾ(l), a shared areal isogloss with the Arabic substrate of the Nabataean inscriptions. Many Safaitic inscriptions exhibit all of the features typical of Arabic. The Hismaic script was used to compose two long texts in an archaic stage of Arabic before the language acquired the definite article.^[82]

Muslim conquest of the Levant

With the Muslim conquest of the Levant, some Arabic speakers from the Arabian Peninsula settled in the Levant.^[51] Different Peninsular Arabic dialects competed for prestige, including the Hijazi vernacular of the Umayyad elites. In the Levant, these Peninsular dialects mixed with ancient forms of Arabic, such as the northern Old Arabic dialect.^[18] For instance, by the mid-sixth century CE in the dialect of Petra, the onset of the article and its vowel seem to have weakened. There, the article is sometimes written as /el-/ or simply /l-/. A similar, but not identical, situation is found in the texts from the Islamic period. Unlike the pre-Islamic attestations, the code of the article in the conquest Arabic assimilates to a following coronal consonant. The Arabic transcribed in the Petra papyri represents a different strand of the Arabic language, likely related to Old Hijazi,.^[85] According to Pr. Simon Hopkins this papyri shows there is "a very impressive continuity in colloquial Arabic usage, and the roots of the modern vernaculars are thus seen to lie very deep".^[86]

With the conquest, Arabic also replaced Greek as the language of administration^[87] and became the language of trade and public life in the cities, whereas Aramaic continued to be spoken at home and in the countryside.^[84] The language shift from Aramaic to vernacular Arabic was a long process over several generations, with an extended period of bilingualism, especially among non-Muslims.^[88][84] Some communities, such as the Samaritans, retained Aramaic well into the Muslim period. Eventually Aramaic nearly disappeared, with the exception of a few Aramaic-speaking villages, but it has left substrate influences on Levantine.^[88]

Medieval Levantine Arabic

The Damascus Psalm Fragment, dated to the 9th century but possibly earlier, shed light on the Damascus dialect of that period. Because its Arabic text is written in Greek characters it reveals the pronunciation of the time.^[89] For instance, it features many examples of imāla (the fronting and raising of /a/ toward /i/).^[90] It also features a pre-grammarian standard of Arabic and the dialect from which it sprung, likely Old Hijazi.^[91]

Scholars do not agree on the dates of phonological changes. The shift of interdental spirants to dental stops dates to the 9th to 10th centuries, or even earlier.^[92] The shift from /q/ to a glottal stop is dated between the 11th and 15th century.^[93] Imāla seems already important in pre-Islamic times.^[90]

The Crusades brought into contact Old French–spoken in the Crusader states—and Medieval Levantine for the first time, from 1099 until the fall of Acre in 1291. And yet Old French had almost no influence on Medieval Levantine.^[94]

Swedish orientalist Carlo Landberg [sv] writes about the vulgarisms encountered in Damascene poet Usama ibn Munqidh's Memoirs: "All of them are found in today's spoken language of Syria and it is very interesting to note that that language is, on the whole, not very different from the language of ˀUsāma's days [the twelfth century]."^[86]

Early modern Levantine Arabic

The Compendio of Lucas Caballero (1709) contains a description of spoken Damascene Arabic in the early 1700s. In some respects, the data given in this manuscript correspond to modern Damascene Arabic. For example, the allomorphic variation between -a/-e in the feminine suffix is essentially identical. In other respects, especially when it comes to insertion and deletion of vowels, it differs from the modern dialect. The presence of short vowels in /zibībih/ and /sifīnih/ point to an earlier stage of linguistic development, before elision led to the modern zbībe and sfīne, though the orthography of the manuscript is in this respect unclear.^[95]

From 1516 to 1918, the Ottoman Empire dominated the Levant. Many Western words entered Arabic through Ottoman Turkish as it was the main language for transmitting Western ideas into the Arab world.^[96][97] The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire resulted in a rapid and drastic decrease in Turkish words due to the Arabization of the language and the negative perception of the Ottoman era among Arabs.^[98]

20th and 21st centuries

With the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (1920-1946),^[94] the British protectorate over Jordan (1921–1946) and the British Mandate for Palestine (1923-1948), French and English words gradually entered Levantine Arabic.^[3][99] Similarly, Modern Hebrew has significantly influenced the Palestinian dialect of Arab Israelis since the establishment of Israel in 1948.^[100]

In 1928 Atatürk announced the Turkish alphabet reform: the vernacular Turkish language replaced the literary Ottoman Turkish as the official language, a Latin-script alphabet replaced the Arabic alphabet, and Arabic borrowings were removed from the language. In Malta, the government promoted a a Latin-script alphabet to write the Maltese language (a variety of Arabic). These events inspired Lebanese literary figure Said Akl in the 1930s to design a new Latin alphabet for Lebanese Arabic and promote the official use of vernacular Arabic instead of MSA. Although Said Akl and a handful of writers used this new alphabet to write in Lebanese during the second half of the 20th century, this movement wasn't successful.^[101]

Although Levantine dialects have remained notably stable over the past two centuries, in cities such as Damascus and Amman, a rapid standardization of the spoken language occurs through variant reduction and linguistic homogenization among the various religious groups and neighborhoods. Rapid urbanization and the increasing proportion of youth^[g] constitute the common causes of dialect change.^[53][44][22] The prestige dialects of the capitals are also rapidly replacing the rural varieties.^[28] With the emergence of social media, the amount of written Levantine has also significantly increased online.^[103]

Status and usage

Diglossia and code-switching

Levantine is not recognized in any state or territory.^[104] MSA is the official language in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Palestine. It has a "special status" in Israel under the Basic Law. French is also recognized in Lebanon. In Turkey, the only official language is Turkish. Any variation from MSA is considered a "dialect" of Arabic.^[104][105] As in the rest of the Arab world, this linguistic situation has been described as diglossia: MSA is nobody's first acquired language. It is not transmitted naturally from parent to child but is learned later through formal instruction.^[51] This situation has been compared to the functioning of Latin as the sole written, official, and literary language in Europe during the medieval period, while Romance languages were the spoken vernaculars.^[106][107] Levantine and MSA are drastically different—on phonology, morphology, lexicon, and syntax levels— and mutually unintelligible.^[2][108]

MSA is the language of literature, official documents, and formal written media in general (newspapers, instruction leaflets, school books, etc.). In spoken form, MSA is mostly used when reading from a scripted text (e.g., news bulletins). MSA is also used for prayer and sermons in the mosque or church.^[51] In Israel, Hebrew is the language used in the public sphere, except in religious and Arabic education settings and internally among the Arab communities and on social media.^[109][110]

Attitudes toward MSA are largely positive in the Arab world, even among those not proficient in the language. MSA is associated with "the language of the Quran" and therefore revered by Muslims who form the majority of the population, including non-Arabs such as Kurds. MSA is also associated with the "Arab heritage and civilization", eloquent expression, and a pan-Arab identity. It is respected and admired by Arabs in general regardless of their religious affiliation.^[111][104] Because the French and the British emphasized spoken vernaculars when they colonized the Arab world, Arabs also saw MSA as an asset against colonialism and imperialism.^[112][113]

On the other hand, Levantine is the mother tongue of Arabic speakers in the region. It is the usual medium of communication in all domains except those described above, which require MSA.^[51] Traditionally in the Arab world, colloquial varieties, such as Levantine, have been regarded as corrupt forms of MSA, less eloquent and not fit for literature, and thus looked upon with disdain.^[111][114] Writing in the vernacular has been a controversial issue for two reasons. First, Pan-Arab nationalists consider that this might divide the Arab people into different nations. Second, because Classical Arabic^[b] is the language of the Quran, it is believed to be pure and everlasting, and Islamic religious ideology considers vernaculars to be inferior.^[111][114] Therefore, until recently, the use of Levantine in formal settings or written form was often ideologically motivated, for instance, in opposition to Pan-Arabism.^[114][111]

However, language attitudes are progressively shifting, and using Levantine has become de-ideologized for most people.^[114] Levantine is now regarded in a more positive light, and its use is acknowledged in certain modes of writing, thanks to its recent widespread use online, in both written and spoken forms.^[105][111]

Code-switching between Levantine, MSA, English, French (in Lebanon and among Arab Christians in Syria^[35]), and Hebrew (in Israel^[114][64]) is frequent among Levantine speakers, in both informal and formal settings (such as on television).^[116] Gordon cites two Lebanese examples: "Bonjour, ya habibti, how are you?" ("Hello, my love, how are you?") and "Oui, but leish?" ("Yes, but why?").^[117] Code-switching also happens in politics. For instance, in Lebanon, not all politicians master MSA, so they have to rely on Lebanese. Many public and formal speeches and most political talk shows are in Lebanese instead of MSA.^[37] In Israel, Arabic and Hebrew are allowed to be spoken in the Knesset, but Arabic is rarely used.^[118] MK Ahmad Tibi often adds Palestinian Arabic sentences to his Hebrew speech, but does not give full speeches in Arabic.^[119]

Education

In the Levant, MSA is the only variety taught in schools as "Arabic," Levantine is not taught.^[51] For example, in Syria teachers are obliged to speak only MSA with their pupils. In practice, they only do so partly^[35] and lessons are often taught in a mix of MSA and Levantine with, for instance, the lesson read out in MSA and explained in Levantine.^[3] In Lebanon, about 50% of school students study in French.^[120] In Arab universities, MSA is the medium of instruction in social sciences and humanities, whereas in most universities, English or French are used in the applied and medical sciences (except in Syria where only MSA is used).^[51][3][55]

In Israel, MSA is the only language of instruction in Arab schools. The local Palestinian dialect is excluded from schools. Hebrew is studied as a second language by all Palestinian students from the second grade on and English from the third grade on. Some schools start teaching Arabic, Hebrew and English in the first grade.^[121][110] In Jewish schools, in 2012, 23,000 pupils were studying spoken Arabic in 800 elementary schools. Palestinian Arabic is a compulsory subject in Jewish elementary schools in the Northern District. Otherwise, Jewish schools teach MSA.^[122] Arabic was studied by about 100,000 pupils in Jewish junior high schools and over 18,000 in Jewish high schools. At all stages in 2012, 141,000 Jewish students were learning Arabic. In 2014, 2,487 Jewish students took the expanded Bagrut exam in Arabic, representing 2-3 percent of all students.^[123]

In Turkey, article 42.9 of the Constitution prohibits languages other than Turkish being taught as a mother tongue. Therefore, almost all Arabic speakers are illiterate in Arabic unless they have learned MSA for religious purposes.^[49]

Films and music

Most movies and songs are in vernacular Arabic.^[11] Egypt was the most influential center of Arab media productions (films, drama, TV series, etc.) during the 20th century,^[124] but Levantine is now competing with Egyptian.^[125] It is estimated that 40% of all music production in the Arab world is in Lebanese.^[124] Lebanese television is the oldest and largest private Arab broadcast industry.^[126] The majority of big-budget pan-Arab entertainment shows are filmed in the Lebanese dialect in the studios of Beirut. Moreover, the Syrian dialect dominates in Syrian TV series (such as Bab Al-Hara) and in the dubbing of Turkish television dramas (such as Noor), popular across the Arab world.^[124][127] Levantine is, with Egyptian, one of the two prestige varieties of spoken Arabic^[128] and dubbing of Turkish TV dramas has made the Syrian dialect understandable all over the Arab world,.^[10]

Most Arabic satellite television networks use colloquial varieties for their programs. MSA is limited to news bulletins. This shift to vernacular started in Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War and expanded to the rest of the Arab world. Despite this trend, Al Jazeera still uses MSA only, while Al Arabiya and Al-Manar use MSA or a hybrid between MSA and colloquial for talkshows.^[116] On the popular Lebanese satellite channel Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation International (LBCI), Arab and international news bulletins are only in MSA, while the Lebanese national news broadcast is in a mix of MSA and Lebanese Arabic.^[129]

Written media

Levantine is seldom written, except for some novels, plays, and humorous writings. Most Arab critics do not acknowledge the literary dignity of prose in dialect.^[130] Prose written in Lebanese goes back to at least 1892 when Ṭannūs al-Ḥurr published Riwāyat aš-šābb as-sikkīr ʾay Qiṣṣat Naṣṣūr as-Sikrī ("The tale of the drunken youth, or The story of Naṣṣūr the Drunkard'"). In the 1960s, Said Akl led a movement in Lebanon to replace MSA as the national and literary language, and a handful of writers wrote in Lebanese. They also translated foreign works, such as La Fontaine's Fables, in Lebanese using Akl's alphabet.^{[131][14][132]} The Gospel of Mark was published in the Palestinian dialect in 1940,^[133] with the Gospel of Matthew and the Letter of James published in 1946.^[134][135] The four Gospels were translated in Lebanese using Akl's alphabet in 1996 by Gilbert Khalifé. Muris (Maurice) 'Awwad translated the four Gospels and The Little Prince in 2001 in Lebanese in Arabic script.^[14][132] The Little Prince was also translated in Palestinian and published in two biscriptal editions (one Arabic/Hebrew script, one Arabic/Latin script).^{[136][137][138]}

Newspapers usually use MSA and reserve Levantine for sarcastic commentaries and caricatures.^[139] However, Levantine titles are common. The letter to the editor section often includes entire paragraphs in Levantine, written by readers. Many newspapers also regularly publish personal columns in Levantine, such as خرم إبرةcode: ajp is deprecated xurm ʾibra, lit. '[through the] needle's eye' in the weekend edition of Al-Ayyam.^[140] From 1983 to 1990, Said Akl's newspaper Lebnaan was published in Lebanese written in the Latin alphabet.^[14] Levantine is also commonly used in zajal and other forms of oral poetry.^[141][35] Zajal written in vernacular was published in Lebanese newspapers such as al-Mašriq ("The Levant", from 1898) and ad-Dabbūr ("The Hornet", from 1925). In the 1940s, five reviews in Beirut were dedicated exclusively to poetry in Lebanese.^[132]

In a 2013 study, Abuhakema investigated 270 written commercial ads in two Jordanian (Al Ghad and Ad-Dustour) and two Palestinian (Al-Quds and Al-Ayyam) daily newspapers. The study concluded that MSA is still the most used variety in ads, but both MSA and Levantine are acceptable, and Levantine is increasingly used in the language of ads.^[142][143]

In general, most comedies are written in Levantine.^[144] In Syria, plays became more common and popular in the 1980s by using Levantine instead of Classical Arabic. Saadallah Wannous, the most renowned Syrian playwright, used Syrian Arabic in his later plays.^[145] Similarly, comic books, such as the Syrian comic strip Kūktīl, are often written in Levantine instead of MSA.^[146]

In novels and short stories, most authors, such as Israeli-Arabs Riyad Baydas [ar] and Odeh Bisharat [ar], write the dialogues in their Levantine dialect, while the rest of the text is in MSA.^{[147][148][140][149]} Lebanese authors Elias Khoury (especially in his recent works) and Kahlil Gibran wrote in Levantine, not only in the dialogues but also in the main narrative.^[150][151] Some collections of short stories and anthologies of Palestinian folktales (turāṯ or heritage literature) display full texts in dialect. On the other hand, Palestinian children's literature is almost exclusively written in MSA.^[140][11]

Research found that users in the Arab world communicate with their dialect language (such as Levantine) more than MSA on social media (such as Twitter, Facebook, or in the comments of online newspapers). According to this paper, depending on the platform, between 12% and 23% of all dialectal Arabic content online was written in Levantine.^[152]

Phonology

Vowel length is phonemic in Levantine. Vowels often show dialectal and/or allophonic variations, that are socially, geographically, and phonologically conditioned. Diphthongs /aj/ and /aw/ are found in some Lebanese dialects, they respectively correspond to long vowels /eː/ and /oː/ in other dialects.^[155] One of the most distinctive features of Levantine is word-final imāla, a process by which the vowel corresponding to ةcode: ajp is deprecated tāʼ marbūṭah is raised from [a] to [æ], [ε], [e] or even [i] in some dialects.^[48][156] The difference between the short vowel pairs /e/ and /i/ as well as /o/ and /u/ is not always phonemic.^[67] The vowel quality is usually /i/ and /u/ in stressed syllables.^[50] Vowels in word final position are shortened. As a result, more short vowels are distinguished.^[50]

In North Levantine:

• Stressed /i/ and /u/ merge. They usually become /i/, but might also be /u/ near emphatic consonants. Syrian and Beiruti tends to pronounce both of them as schwa [ə].^[36]
• The long vowel "ā" is pronounced similar to "ē" or even merge to "ē", when it is not near an emphatic or guttural consonant.^[36]

Speakers often add a short vowel, called helping vowel or epenthetic vowel, sounding like a short schwa right before a word-initial consonant cluster to break it, as in ktiːr ^ǝmniːħ "very good/well". They are not considered part of the word as such and are never stressed. This process of anaptyxis is subject to social and regional variation.^{[157][158][159]} They are usually not written.^[160][161]

A helping vowel is inserted:

• Before the word, if this word starts with two consonants and is at the beginning of a sentence,
• Between two words, when a word ending in a consonant is followed by a word which starts with two consonants,
• Between two consonants in the same word, if this word ends with two consonants and either is followed by a consonant or is at the end of a sentence.^[162][163]

In the Damascus dialect, word stress falls on the last superheavy syllable (CVːC or CVCC). In the absence of a superheavy syllable:

• if the word is bisyllabic, stress falls on the penultimate,
• if the word contains three or more syllables and none of them is superheavy, then stress falls:
  • on the penultimate if it is heavy (CVː or CVC),
  • on the antepenult, if the penultimate is light (CV).^[157]

There are many socio-phonetic variations, based on socio-cultural classifications (urban, rural and Bedouin), gender, or religion (Muslim, Christian, Druze). For instance, in urban varieties, interdentals /θ/, /ð/, and /ðʕ/ tend to merge to stops or fricatives [t] ~ [s]; [d] ~ [z]; and [dʕ] ~ [zʕ] respectively.^[164][153]

Orthography and writing systems

Levantine is mainly used for daily spoken use, while most written and official documents and media use MSA.^[11][12] Until recently, Levantine was rarely written. Brustad and Zuniga report that in 1988, they did not find anything published in Levantine in Syria. However, it is now possible to see written Levantine in many public venues and on the internet,^[165] especially on social media.^[103]

There is no standard orthography for Levantine.^[103] There have been failed attempts to Latinize Levantine, especially Lebanese. For instance, the Lebanese writer Said Akl promoted a modified Latin alphabet. Akl used this alphabet to write books and to publish a newspaper, Lebnaan.^{[166][167][14]} The Computational Approaches to Modeling Language (CAMeL) Lab, a research lab at New York University Abu Dhabi, has been developing CODA, a conventional orthography for dialectal Arabic, since 2012. CODA uses the Arabic script and is a unified framework for writing all vernacular varieties of Arabic, including Levantine. CODA is designed primarily to develop computational models of Arabic dialects.^[168][169] A Palestinian CODA was also released.^[161]

Today, written communication takes place using a variety of orthographies and writing systems, including Arabic (right-to-left script), Hebrew (right-to-left, used in Israel, especially online among Bedouin, Arab Christians, and Druze^{[64][170][140][171][172]}), Latin (Arabizi, left-to-right), and a mixture of the three. Arabizi is a non-standard romanization often used by Levantine speakers in social media and discussion forums, SMS messaging and online chat.^[173] Arabizi was initially developed because the Arabic script was not available or not easy to use on most computers and smartphones. Its usage persisted even after Arabic software became widespread.^[114] A 2012 study found that on the Jordanian forum Mahjoob about one-third of messages were written in Levantine in the Arabic script, one-third in Arabizi, and one-third in English.^[174]

A 2012 study found that on Facebook, the Arabic script was dominant in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Libya while the Latin script dominates in former French colonies: Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Lebanon. In Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, and Gulf countries, both Arabic and Latin scripts are used. Israeli Druze and Bedouins preferred Hebrew characters. According to the study, several factors affect script choice: formality (the Arabic script is more formal), religion (Muslims use the Arabic script more), age (young use Latin more), education (educated people write more in Latin), script congruence (the tendency to reply to a post in the same script).^[170]

According to a 2020 survey done in and around Nazareth, Arabizi "emerged" as a "'bottom-up' orthography" and there is now "a high degree of normativization or standardisation in Arabizi orthography." Among consonants, only five (ج ,ذ ,ض ,ظ ,ق) revealed variability in their representation in Arabizi.^[175]

The Arabic alphabet is always cursive and letters vary in shape depending on their position within a word. Letters exhibit up to four distinct forms corresponding to an initial, medial (middle), final, or isolated position (IMFI).^[176] Only the isolated form is shown in the tables below. In the Arabic script, short vowels are not represented by letters but by diacritics above or below the letters. When Levantine is written with the Arabic script, the short vowels are usually not indicated, unless a word is ambiguous.^[177][178] In the Arabic script, the symbol shadda is written above the consonant to double it. In Latin alphabet, the consonant is written twice: ‏مدرِّسة‎, mudarrise, 'a female teacher' / ‏مدرسة‎, madrase, 'a school'.^[178]

Said Akl's alphabet uses non-standard characters and could not be displayed on this page, it can be found in Płonka 2006, pp. 465–466.

Grammar

Both VSO and SVO word orders are possible in Levantine. In both cases, the verb precedes the object (VO).^[184] SVO is more common, contrary to Classical Arabic which prefers VSO.^[185] Subject-initial order indicates topic-prominent sentences, while verb-initial order indicates subject-prominent sentences.^[186] In interrogative sentences, the interrogative particle comes first.^[187]

Nouns and noun phrases

Nouns are either masculine or feminine. They are singular, dual or plural.^[188][189] The dual is formed with the suffix ين-code: ajp is deprecated -ēn.^[190][189] Most feminine singular nouns end with tāʼ marbūṭah (ـة), pronounced as –a or -e depending on the preceding consonant: -a after guttural (ح خ ع غ ق ه ء) and emphatic consonants (ر ص ض ط ظ), -e after other consonants.^[50] There is no case marking in Levantine, contrary to Classical Arabic.^[189]

There is no indefinite article in Levantine. Nouns (except proper nouns) are automatically indefinite by the absence of the definite article.^[191] The Arabic definite article ال il precedes the noun or adjective and has multiple pronunciations. Its vowel is dropped when the preceding word ends in a vowel. A helping vowel "e" is inserted if the following word begins with a consonant cluster.^[162] It assimilates with "Sun letters" (consonants that are pronounced with the tip of the tongue).^[162] The letter Jeem (ج) is a Sun letter for speakers pronouncing it as [ʒ] but not for those pronouncing it as [d͡ʒ].^[191][192]

For nouns referring to humans, the regular (also called sound) masculine plural is formed with the suffix -īn. The regular feminine plural is formed with -āt.^[50][193] The masculine plural is used to refer to a group with both genders.^[194] However, there are many broken plurals (also called internal plurals), in which the consonantal root of the singular is changed (nonconcatenative morphology).^[189] These plural patterns are shared with other varieties of Arabic and may also be applied to foreign borrowings.^[189] Several patterns of broken plurals exist and it is not possible to exactly predict them.^[195] One common pattern is for instance CvCvC => CuCaCa (e.g.: singular: ‏مدير‎ mudīr, 'manager'; plural: ‏مدرا‎ mudara, 'managers').^[195] Inanimate objects take feminine singular agreement in the plural, for verbs, attached pronouns, and adjectives.^[196]

The genitive relationship is formed by putting the nouns next to each other^[197] in a construct called iḍāfah (lit. 'addition'). The first noun is always indefinite. If an indefinite noun is added to a definite noun, it results in a new definite compound noun:^{[198][50][199]} كتاب الإستاذ ktāb il-ʾistāz, 'the book of the teacher'.^[200] Besides possessiveness, the iḍāfah can also specify or define the first term.^[198] There is no limit to the number of nouns that can be strung together in an iḍāfah. However, it is rare to have three or more words.^[197] The first term must be in the construct state: if it ends in the feminine marker (/-ah/, or /-ih/), it changes to (/-at/, /-it/) in pronunciation (i.e. ة pronounced as "t"): مدينة نيويورك madīnet nyū-yōrk, 'New York City'.^[198]

Adjectives typically have three forms: a masculine singular, a feminine singular, and a plural which does not distinguish gender.^[50] In most adjectives the feminine is formed through addition of -a/e.^[201][202] Many adjectives have the pattern فعيلcode: ajp is deprecated (fʕīl / CCīC or faʕīl / CaCīC) but other patterns exist.^[50] Adjectives derived from nouns using the suffix ـيcode: ajp is deprecated -i are called nisba adjectives. Their feminine form ends in ـيةcode: ajp is deprecated -iyye and their plural in ـيينcode: ajp is deprecated -iyyīn.^[203] Nouns in dual have adjectives in plural.^[50] The plural of adjectives is either regular ending in ـينcode: ajp is deprecated -īn or is an irregular "broken" plural. It is used with nouns referring to people. For non-human, inanimate, or abstract nouns, adjectives use either the plural or the singular feminine form regardless of the noun's gender.^{[50][204][196]}

Adjectives follow the noun they modify and agree with it in definiteness. Adjectives without an article after a definite noun express a clause with the invisible copula "to be":^[205]

• بيت كبيرcode: ajp is deprecated bēt kbīr, 'a big house'
• البيت الكبيرcode: ajp is deprecated il-bēt le-kbīr, 'the big house'
• البيت كبيرcode: ajp is deprecated il-bēt kbīr, 'the house is big'
• بيت الكبيرcode: ajp is deprecated bēt le-kbīr, 'the house of the important (lit. big) one'

There are no separate comparative and superlative forms: the elative is used instead.^[206] The elative is formed by adding a hamza at the beginning of the adjective and replacing the vowels by "a" (pattern: أفعلcode: ajp is deprecated ʾafʕal / aCCaC, e.g.: ‏كبير‎ kbīr, 'big'; ‏أكبر‎ ʾakbar, 'bigger/biggest').^[50] Adjective endings in ‏ي‎ (i) and ‏و‎ (u) are changed into ‏ی‎ (a). If the second and third consonant in the root are the same, they are geminated (pattern: أفلّcode: ajp is deprecated ʾafall / ʾaCaCC).^[207] When an elative modifies a noun, it precedes the noun and no definite article is used.^[208]

Levantine does not distinguish between adverbs and adjectives in adverbial function. Almost any adjective can be used as an adverb: ‏منيح‎ mnīḥ, 'good' vs. نمتي منيح؟code: ajp is deprecated nimti mnīḥ, 'Did you sleep well?'. MSA adverbs, with the suffix -an, are often used, e.g. ‏أبدا‎ ʾabadan, 'at all'.^[186] Adverbs often appear after the verb or the adjective. ‏كتير‎ ktīr, 'very' can be positioned after or before the adjective.^[186] Adverbs of manner can usually be formed using bi- followed by the nominal form: ‏بسرعة‎ b-sirʿa, 'fast, quickly', lit. 'with speed'.^[36]

‏مش‎ miš or in Syrian Arabic ‏مو‎ mū negate adjectives (including active participles), demonstratives, and nominal phrases:^[209][210]

• أنا مش فلسطيني.code: ajp is deprecated ʾana miš falasṭīni., 'I'm not Palestinian.'
• مش عارفة.code: ajp is deprecated miš ʕārfe., 'I (fem.) don't know.'
• هادا مش منيح.code: ajp is deprecated hāda miš mnīḥ., 'That's not good.'

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Levantine has eight persons, and therefore eight pronouns. Dual forms that exist in MSA do not exist in Levantine, the plural is used instead. Because conjugated verbs indicate the subject with a prefix and/or a suffix, independent subject pronouns are usually not necessary and are mainly used for emphasis.^[211][212] Feminine plural forms modifying human females are found mostly in rural and Bedouin areas. They are not mentioned below.^[213]

Independent personal pronouns

Direct object and possessive pronouns

Direct object pronouns are indicated by suffixes attached to the conjugated verb. Their form depends whether the verb ends with a consonant or a vowel. Suffixed to nouns, these pronouns express possessive.^[214][212] Levantine does not have a verb "to have". Instead, possession is expressed using the prepositions عند (ʕind, lit. 'at', meaning "to possess") and مع (maʕ, lit. 'with', meaning "to have on oneself"), followed by personal pronoun suffixes.^[215][216]

Indirect object pronouns

Indirect object pronouns (dative) are suffixed to the conjugated verb. They are form by adding an ل (-l) and then the possessive suffix to the verb.^[213] They precede object pronouns if present:

• jāb il-jarīde la-ʔabūy: he brought the newspaper to my father,
• jāb-ha la-ʔabūy: he brought it to my father,
• jab-lo il-jarīde: he brought him the newspaper,
• jab-lo yyā-ha: he brought him it.^[213][217]

Demonstrative pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns have three referential types: immediate, proximal, and distal. The distinction between proximal and distal demonstratives is of physical, temporal, or metaphorical distance. The genderless and numberless immediate demonstrative article ‏ها‎ ha is translated by "this/the", to designate something immediately visible or accessible.^[218]

Verbs and verb phrases

Root and verb forms

Like Arabic verbs, most Levantine verbs are based on a triliteral root (also called radical) made of three consonants (therefore also called triconsonantal root). The set of consonants communicates the basic meaning of a verb, e.g. ‏ك ت ب‎ k-t-b ('write'), ‏ق ر ء‎ q-r-ʼ ('read'), ‏ء ك ل‎ ʼ-k-l ('eat'). Changes to the vowels in between the consonants, along with prefixes or suffixes, specify grammatical functions such as tense, person and number, in addition to changes in the meaning of the verb that embody grammatical concepts such as mood (e.g. indicative, subjunctive, imperative), voice (active or passive), and functions such as causative, intensive, or reflexive.^[219] Quadriliteral roots are less common, but often used to coin new vocabulary or to Arabicize foreign words.^[220][221] The base form is the third-person masculine singular of the perfect (also called past) tense.^[222]

Almost all Levantine verbs are categorized in one of ten verb forms (also called verb measures,^[223] stems,^[224] patterns,^[225] or types^[226]). Form I, the most common one, serves as a base for the other nine forms. Each form carries a different verbal idea, relative to the meaning of its root. Technically, 10 verbs can be constructed from any given triconsonantal root. However, all of those ten forms are not used in practice.^[219] After Form I, Forms II, V, VII, and X are the most common ones.^[224] Aldrich also defines verb forms XI (for verbs based on quadriliteral roots) and XII (for passive or intransitive version of form XI verbs).^[223] Some irregular verbs do not fit into any of the verb forms.^[223]

In addition to its form, each verb has a "quality":

• Sound (or regular): 3 distinct radicals, neither the second nor the third is w or y,
• Verbs containing the radicals w or y are called weak. They are either:
  • Hollow: verbs with w or y as the second radical, which becomes a long a in some forms, or
  • Defective: verbs with w or y as the third radical, treated as a vowel,
• Geminate (or doubled): the second and third radicals are identical, remaining together as a double consonant.^[223]

Regular verb conjugation

The Levantine verb has only two tenses: past (perfect) and present (also called imperfect, b-imperfect, or bi-imperfect). The future tense is an extension of the present tense. The negative imperative is the same as the negative present with helping verb (imperfect). The grammatical person and number as well as the mood are designated by a variety of prefixes and suffixes. The following table shows the paradigm of a sound Form I verb, كتب katab, 'to write'.^[219] There is no copula used in the present tense in Levantine. In other tenses, the verb (كانcode: ajp is deprecated kān is used. Its present tense form is used in the future tense.^[227]

The b-imperfect is usually used for the indicative mood (non-past present, habitual/general present, narrative present, planned future actions, or potential). The prefix b- is deleted in the subjunctive mood, usually after various modal verbs, auxiliary verbs, pseudo-verbs, prepositions, and particles.^{[50][67][36][154]} The future can also be expressed by the imperfect preceded by the particle ‏رح‎ raḥ or by the prefixed particle ‏حـ‎ ḥa-.^[228] The present continuous is formed with the progressive particle ‏عم‎ ʕam followed by the imperfect, with or without the initial b/m depending on the speaker.^[229]

The active participle, also called present participle, is grammatically an adjective derived from a verb. Depending on the context, it can express the present or present continuous (with verbs of motion, location, or mental state), the near future, or the present perfect (past action with a present result).^[230] It can also serve as a noun or an adjective.^[231] The passive participle, also called past participle,^[5] has a similar meaning as in English (i.e. sent, written, etc.). It is mostly used as an adjective and sometimes as a noun. It is inflected from the verb based on its verb form.^[232] However, in practice, passive participles are largely limited to verb forms I (CvCvC) and II (CvCCvC), becoming maCCūC for the former and mCaCCaC for the latter.^[186]

Compound tenses

The verb ‏كان‎ (kān), followed by another verb, forms compound tenses. Both verbs are conjugated with their subject.^[235]

Passive voice

Form I verbs often correspond to an equivalent passive form VII verb, with the prefix n-. Form II and form III verbs usually correspond to an equivalent passive on forms V and VI, respectively, with the prefix t-.^[223] While the verb forms V, VI and VII are common in the simple past and compound tenses, the passive participle (past participle) is preferred in the present tense.^[237]

Negation

Verbs and prepositional phrases are negated by the particle ‏ما‎ mā / ma either on its own or, in South Levantine, together with the suffix ‏ـش‎ -iš at the end of the verb or prepositional phrase. In Palestinian, it is also common to negate verbs by the suffix ‏ـش‎ -iš only.^[210]

Vocabulary

The lexicon of Levantine is overwhelmingly Arabic,^[98] and a large number of Levantine words are shared with a least another vernacular Arabic variety outside the Levant, especially with Egyptian .^[238] Many words, such as verbal nouns (also called gerunds or masdar^[5]) are derived from a Semitic root. For instance ‏درس‎ dars, 'a lesson' is derived from ‏‏درس‎ daras, 'to study, to learn'.^[239] However, it also includes layers of ancient languages: Canaanite, classical Hebrew (Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew), Aramaic (particularly Western Aramaic), Persian, Greek, and Latin.^[240]

Aramaic traces remain in Levantine, especially in rural areas. Aramaic influence on Levantine is important and particularly prominent in vocabulary. Aramaic words underwent morphophonemic adaptation when they entered Levantine. Over time, it has become difficult to identify them. They belong to different fields of everyday life such as seasonal agriculture, housekeeping, tools and utensils, alongside Christian religious terms.^[240][241] Aramaic is still spoken in the Syrian villages of Maaloula, Al-Sarkha, and Jubb'adin;^[88] near them, Aramaic words in Levantine are more frequent.^[84][242]

Since the early modern period, Levantine has borrowed from Turkish and European languages, mainly English (particularly in the contexts of technology and entertainment^[243]), French (especially in Lebanese due to the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon^[3]), German, and Italian.^[240] With the establishment of Israel in 1948, there has also been a significant influence of Modern Hebrew on the Palestinian dialect spoken by Arab Israelis.^[100][244]

Loanwords are gradually replaced with words of Arabic root. For instance, borrowings from Ottoman Turkish that were common in the 20th century have been largely replaced by Arabic words after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.^[98] However, Arabic-speaking minorities in Turkey (mainly in Hatay) are still influenced by Turkish.^[96][97]

An analysis of spoken words from five-year-old native Palestinian speakers concluded that 40% were not present in MSA; 40% were related to MSA but different in 1 to 6 phonological parameters (such as sound change, addition, or deletion); and 20% were identical to MSA.^[245][246] Despite these differences, three scientific papers concluded, using various natural language processing techniques, that Levantine dialects (and especially Palestinian^[247][4]) were the closest colloquial varieties, in terms of lexical similarity, to MSA: one compared MSA to two Algerian dialects, Tunisian, Palestinian, and Syrian and found 38% of common words between Syrian and MSA and 52% between Palestinian and MSA;^[248] another compared MSA to Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf, and North African Arabic;^[249] and the other compared MSA to Algerian, Tunisian, Palestinian, Syrian, Jordanian, and Egyptian and found a very high similarity between Levantine dialects themselves and between 0.4 and 0.5 similarity between MSA and Palestinian.^[250]

Sample texts

Notes

References