Levantine Arabic
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Levantine Arabic (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 Syria, Palestine, western Jordan and Lebanon. 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 (some mutually intelligible) sub-dialects
- Lebanese dialects (Lebanon, Nusairieh Mountains in Syria)
- Central Syrian (Damascus to Hama)
- Northern Syrian (Aleppo)
- Rural Palestinian (Palestine down to Bethlehem), west Jordan.
- Urban Palestinian (Hebron, Jerusalem, Haifa, Nablus, Jaffa, Nazareth, ...)
- Bedouin Palestinian dialects in the southern Margins (Palestine, Jordan)
They are characterized against other Arabic dialects by
- the fact that are those in the Arab world which retained best the original Arabic stress pattern (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 |
For more information, see
