Levantine Arabic

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Levantine Arabic
Spoken in: Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan
Total speakers: 35,000,000
Language family: Afro-Asiatic
 Semitic
  West Semitic
   Central Semitic
    South-Central Semitic
     Arabic
      Levantine Arabic 
Writing system: Arabic alphabet 
Official status
Official language in: none
Regulated by: none
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: —
ISO 639-3: apc
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Levantine Arabic (Arabic: شامي (Shami) and sometimes called Eastern Arabic) is a group of Arabic dialects spoken in the 100 km-wide eastern-Mediterranean coastal strip known as the Levant, i.e. in Lebanon, Palestine, western Jordan and Syria. This corresponds to the western wing of the Fertile Crescent, which clearly appears green on satellite photos.

To the East, in the Desert, the North Arabian Beduinic dialects are found. There is no transition to Egyptian dialects in the South due to the Sinai desert. In the North, between Aleppo and Euphrates valley, there may be a transition zone towards North Mesopotamian qeltu dialects (to be confirmed, since the Raqqah dialect in the Syrian Euphrates valley still seems to be quite close to South Iraqi and Beduinic dialects.)

It can be divided into six mutually intelligible sub-dialects

They are characterized against other Arabic dialects by

  • the closest stress pattern to Standard Arabic (along with Hejazi dialects).
  • their common tendency to pronounce the final -ah of feminine as -eh.
  • some traces of Aramaic pronunciation and vocabulary, for example the second person plural suffix "-kon".

Sub dialects can be distinguished by the following features:

  • Product of /aː/
  • Products of diphthongs /aj/ and /aw/
  • Realizations of feminine ending -ah
  • Realizations of ﻙ /k/, ﻕ /q/, and ﺝ /ʤ/.
  • Conservation of interdentals ﺙ /θ/, ﺫ /ð/, and ﻅ /ðˁ/;
  • Vocalism and consonnatism of the plural suffix pronouns, -kum and -kunna (your m./f.)
  • The form of the plural independent pronouns, hum and hunna (they m./f.)

The table below shows how the variants are distributed.

Dialect /aː/ /aj/ /aw/ /k/ /q/ /ʤ/ /θ/ /ð/ /ðˁ/ -ah -kum -kunna hum hunna
Lebanese /eː/, /oː/ in Tripoli /ej/ /aw/ /k/ /q/, /ʔ/ /ʒ/, /ʤ/ /t/ /d/ /dˁ/ -i -kon -ken henne henne
Central Syrian /aː/, /eː/ word-terminally /eː/ /oː/ /k/ /ʔ/ /ʒ/ /t/ /d/ /dˁ/ -e -kon -kon henne henne
North Syrian /eː/ /eː/ /oː/ /k/ /ʔ/ /ʤ/ /t/ /d/ /dˁ/ -e -kon -kon henne henne
Rural Palestinian /aː/ /eː/ /oː/ /ʧ/ /k/ /ʤ/ /θ/ /ð/ /ðˁ/ -e, -a -kem -ken hemme henne
Urban Palestinian /aː/ /eː/ /oː/ /k/ /ʔ/ /ʒ/ /t/ /d/ /dˁ/ -e -kom -kom homme homme
Bedouin Palestinian /aː/ /eː/ /oː/ /ʧ/ /ɡ/ /ʤ/ /θ/ /ð/ /ðˁ/ -a -kom -ken homme henne

[edit] See more

For more information, see

v • d • e
Varieties of Arabic
Pre-Muslim conquests Ancient North Arabian† (Safaitic†, Lihyanitic†, Thamudic†, Hasaitic†) · Classical Arabic
Modern Standard Variety Literary Arabic
Maghrebi Arabic Moroccan Arabic · Algerian Arabic · Tunisian Arabic · Andalusian Arabic† · Libyan Arabic · Jebli Arabic · Jijel Arabic · Saharan Arabic · Hassānīya · Maltese language · Siculo-Arabic†
Levantine Arabic Lebanese Arabic · Syrian Arabic · North Syrian Arabic · Palestinian Arabic · Cypriot Maronite Arabic
Arabian Arabic Gulf Arabic · Bahrani Arabic · Najdi Arabic · Hejazi Arabic · Shargi Arabic · Yemeni Arabic (Hadhrami Arabic)
Iraqi Arabic Baghdad Arabic
Egyptian Arabic Cairene Arabic · Sa'idi Arabic
Sudanese Arabic Sudanese Arabic · Nigerian Arabic . Chadian Arabic
Peripheries Khuzestani Arabic · Shirvani Arabic† · Central Asian Arabic
Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Moroccan · Judeo-Yemenite · Baghdad Arabic (Jewish)
Creoles Nubi language · Babalia Creole Arabic · Juba Arabic
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