Levantine Arabic Language Guide

Where it's spoken

Levantine Arabic is described as the dialect of Arabic that includes the Arabic spoken in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine, within which a separate Syrian dialect can be identified. Arabic is the official language of the state under the constitutions of Syria and Jordan, and the official national language under Lebanon's constitution.

Even inside Syria the speech is not uniform: villages near Damascus are described as differing significantly from the prestige language of educated Damascenes, and cities such as Aleppo and Deir az-Zur have their own distinctive variations. This app's cards follow one variety, so some cards add a note for neighbouring countries: its card مو مسموح؟ (Mū masmūḥ?, "Is it not allowed?") gives "mish masmūḥ?" as the form used in Lebanon and Jordan.

Sources

• Murphy, Isa Wayne (2014). The realization of negation in the Syrian Arabic clause, phrase, and word. M.Phil. dissertation, Trinity College Dublin — Introduction, p.9 (Levantine and Syrian dialects; Damascus villages, Aleppo, Deir az-Zur)
• Syria's Constitution of 2012 (Constitute Project) — Article 4 (official language)
• Lebanon's Constitution of 1926 with Amendments through 2004 (Constitute Project) — Article 11 (official national language)
• Jordan's Constitution of 1952 with Amendments through 2016 (Constitute Project) — Article 2 (official language)

Script & pronunciation

Levantine Arabic is written in the Arabic script, which is written from right to left. In normal Arabic writing the short vowels are not written, because the marks that show them are omitted. This app's cards follow that practice: the card إنت (Inte, "You") has no vowel marks in its Arabic text, and its romanization line shows the vowels.

Sources

• The Unicode Standard, Version 16.0.0 — Core Specification, Chapter 9: Arabic — Directionality; tashkil (vowel and other marks omitted in normal writing)

Grammar essentials

A sentence is made negative by placing the particle ما before the verb, as in this app's card ما بحكي عربي (Mā baḥki ʿarabi, "I can't speak Arabic"). A different particle, مو, negates nouns, adjectives, participles and prepositional phrases, as in this app's card مو مسموح؟ (Mū masmūḥ?, "Is it not allowed?"), where مسموح is a participle.

The prefix عم marks an action in progress, and ما is placed before it when the sentence is negative, as in this app's card المكيف ما عم يشتغل (El-mukayyef mā ʿam yeshtaghel, "The air conditioning is not working."). In the Syrian Arabic described in one study, the future is marked by putting a proclitic of the raħ family, or in some uses a b- proclitic, before the verb; this app's card رح وصل متأخر شوي (Raḥ ōṣal mitʾakhkher shwayy, "I will arrive a little late"). The same study describes بدي plus a pronoun ending as the primary means of expressing "to want" in Syrian Arabic, placed before the verb, as in this app's card ضاعت بطاقتي وبدي بلغ البنك (Ḍāʿat biṭāʾti w-biddi ballegh el-bank, "I lost my card and need to report it to the bank.").

Sources

• Murphy, Isa Wayne (2014). The realization of negation in the Syrian Arabic clause, phrase, and word. M.Phil. dissertation, Trinity College Dublin — Ch.4, p.50 (future proclitics); §5.2 (negation with ma); §5.2.1.3, p.65 (progressive ʕam-); §5.2.1.7 (to want); §5.3, p.83 (muː)

Politeness & etiquette

The word for "you" has separate masculine and feminine forms: the masculine singular is إنت and the feminine singular is إنتي. This app's card for "you" says that إنت is for a man, that a woman is addressed as "inti", and that several people are addressed as "intu".

Words that describe the person addressed agree with their gender: this app's card إنت منيح؟ (Inte mnīḥ?, "Are you OK?") is said to a man, and to a woman the card gives "inti mnīḥa?".

Sources

• Murphy, Isa Wayne (2014). The realization of negation in the Syrian Arabic clause, phrase, and word. M.Phil. dissertation, Trinity College Dublin — §5.2 and §5.3.2 (glossed examples of 2SG.M and 2SG.F "you")