Levantine Arabic


Levantine Arabic, also called Shami, is an Arabic variety spoken in the Levant, namely in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and southern Turkey. With over 60 million speakers, Levantine is, alongside Egyptian, one of the two prestige varieties of spoken Arabic comprehensible all over the Arab world.
In Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine, Levantine is the primary language and is commonly spoken in daily life. However, it is not officially recognized as a separate language, and most written and official documents and media in these countries use Modern Standard Arabic, a form of literary Arabic acquired through formal education, which is not mutually intelligible with Levantine. In Israel and Turkey, Levantine is a minority language.
The Palestinian dialect is lexically the closest vernacular Arabic variety to MSA, with about 50% of common words. Levantine speakers therefore often call their language , 'slang', 'dialect', or 'colloquial'. With the emergence of social media, attitudes toward Levantine have improved. The amount of written Levantine has significantly increased, especially online, where Levantine is written using Arabic, Latin, or Hebrew characters. Levantine pronunciation varies greatly along social, ethnic, and geographical lines. Its grammar is similar to that shared by most vernacular varieties of Arabic. Its lexicon is overwhelmingly Arabic, with a significant Aramaic influence.
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 1st millennium BCE; it coexisted with other languages, including many Arabic dialects spoken by various Arab tribes. With the Muslim conquest of Syria in the 7th century, new Arabic speakers from the Arabian Peninsula settled in the area, and a lengthy language shift from Aramaic to vernacular Arabic occurred.

Naming and classification

Scholars use "Levantine Arabic" to describe the continuum of mutually intelligible dialects spoken across the Levant. Other terms include "Syro-Palestinian", "Eastern Arabic", "East Mediterranean Arabic", "Syro-Lebanese", "Greater Syrian", or "Syrian Arabic". Most authors only include sedentary dialects, excluding Levantine Bedawi Arabic of the Syrian Desert and the Negev, which belongs to Peninsular Arabic. Mesopotamian Arabic from northeast Syria is also excluded. Other authors include Bedouin varieties.
The term "Levantine Arabic" is not indigenous and, according to linguists Kristen Brustad and Emilie Zuniga, "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." Levantine speakers often call their language , 'slang', 'dialect', or 'colloquial', to contrast it to Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic. They also call their spoken language , 'Arabic'. Alternatively, they identify their language by the name of their country. can refer to Damascus Arabic, Syrian Arabic, or Levantine as a whole. Lebanese literary figure Said Akl led a movement to recognize the "Lebanese language" as a distinct prestigious language instead of MSA.
Levantine is a variety of Arabic, a Semitic language. There is no consensus regarding the genealogical position of Arabic within the Semitic languages. The position of Levantine and other Arabic vernaculars in the Arabic macrolanguage family has also been contested. According to the Arabic tradition, Classical Arabic was the spoken language of the pre-Islamic and Early Islamic periods and remained stable until today's MSA. According to this view, all Arabic vernaculars, including Levantine, descend from Classical Arabic and were corrupted by contacts with other languages. Several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars are not a modified version of the Classical language, which is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Classical Arabic and vernacular varieties all developed from an unattested common ancestor, Proto-Arabic. The ISO 639-3 standard classifies Levantine as a language, member of the macrolanguage Arabic.
Sedentary vernaculars are traditionally classified into five groups according to shared features: Peninsular, Mesopotamian, Levantine, Egyptian, and Maghrebi. The linguistic distance between these vernaculars is at least as large as between Germanic languages or Romance languages. It is, for instance, extremely difficult for Moroccans and Iraqis, each speaking their own variety, to understand each other. Levantine and Egyptian are the two prestige varieties of spoken Arabic; they are also the most widely understood vernaculars in the Arab world and the most commonly taught to non-native speakers outside the Arab world.

Geographical distribution and varieties

Dialects

Levantine is spoken in the fertile strip on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean: from the Turkish coastal provinces of Adana, Hatay, and Mersin in the north to the Negev, passing through Lebanon, the coastal regions of Syria as well as around Aleppo and Damascus, the Hauran in Syria and Jordan, the rest of western Jordan, Palestine and Israel. Other Arabic varieties border it: Mesopotamian and North Mesopotamian Arabic to the north and north-east; Najdi Arabic to the east and south-east; and Northwest Arabian Arabic to the south and south-west.
The similarity among Levantine dialects transcends geographical location and political boundaries. The urban dialects of the main cities 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 dissimilarity with each other than when compared with their counterparts in another country.
The process of linguistic homogenization within each country of the Levant makes a classification of dialects by country possible today. Linguist Kees Versteegh classifies Levantine into three groups: Lebanese/Central Syrian, North Syrian, and Palestinian/Jordanian. He writes that distinctions between these groups are unclear, and isoglosses cannot determine the exact boundary.
File:Hatimogullari speaking Cilician Arabic.webm|thumb|Turkish politician Tülay Hatimoğulları is giving a political speech in Cilician Arabic.
The dialect of Aleppo shows Mesopotamian influence. The prestige dialect of Damascus is the most documented Levantine dialect. A "common Syrian Arabic" is emerging. Similarly, a "Standard Lebanese Arabic" is emerging, combining features of Beiruti Arabic and Jabale Arabic, the language of Mount Lebanon. In Çukurova, Turkey, the local dialect is endangered. Bedouin varieties are spoken in the Negev and the Sinai Peninsula, areas of transition between Levantine and Egyptian. The dialect of Arish, Egypt, is classified by Linguasphere as Levantine. The Amman dialect is emerging as an urban standard in Jordanian Arabic, while other Jordanian and Palestinian Arabic dialects include Fellahi and Madani. The Gaza dialect contains features of both urban Palestinian and Bedouin Arabic.

Ethnicity and religion

The Levant is characterized by ethnic diversity and religious pluralism. Levantine dialects vary along sectarian lines. Religious groups include Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Alawites, Christians, Druze, and Jews. Differences between Muslim and Christian dialects are minimal, mainly involving some religious vocabulary. A minority of features are perceived as typically associated with one group. For example, in Beirut, the exponent is only used by Muslims and never by Christians who use . Contrary to others, Druze and Alawite dialects retained the phoneme. MSA influences Sunni dialects more. Jewish dialects diverge more from Muslim dialects and often show influences from other towns due to trade networks and contacts with other Jewish communities. For instance, the Jewish dialect of Hatay is very similar to the Aleppo dialect, particularly the dialect of the Jews of Aleppo. It shows traits otherwise not found in any dialect of Hatay. Koineization in cities such as Damascus leads to a homogenization of the language among religious groups. In contrast, the marginalization of Christians in Jordan intensifies linguistic differences between Christian Arabs and Muslims.
Levantine is primarily spoken by Arabs. It is also spoken as a first or second language by several ethnic minorities. In particular, it is spoken natively by Samaritans and by most Circassians in Jordan, Armenians in Jordan and Israel, Assyrians in Israel, Turkmen in Syria and Lebanon, Kurds in Lebanon, and Dom people in Jerusalem. Most Christian and Muslim Lebanese people in Israel speak Lebanese Arabic. Syrian Jews, Lebanese Jews, and Turkish Jews from Çukurova are native Levantine speakers; however, most moved to Israel after 1948. Levantine was spoken natively by most Jews in Jerusalem, but the community shifted to Modern Hebrew after the establishment of Israel. Levantine is the second language of Dom people across the Levant, Circassians in Israel, Armenians in Lebanon, Chechens in Jordan, Assyrians in Syria and Lebanon, and most Kurds in Syria.

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, Lebanese, and Syrian diasporas. The language has fallen into disuse among subsequent diaspora generations, such as the 7 million Lebanese Brazilians.
CountryLevantine speakers
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History