List of Libyan Arabic words and their Classical Arabic counterparts

Note on transcription notation

The transcription of Libyan Arabic to Latin Alphabet poses a few problems. First, there is no standard transcription already in use even in Arabic. The use of IPA alone is not sufficient as it obscures many grammatical points that can be better understood if several allophones in Libyan Arabic are transcribed using the same alphabatical symbol. On the other hand, Available Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic transcription standards, while provide good support for representing Arabic sounds that are not normally represented by the Latin alphabet, do not list symbols for uniquely Libyan Arabic phonemes. Therefore, to make this article more legible, DIN 31635 is used with a few additions to render phonemes special to Libyan Arabic. These additions are as following:

Relation to Classical Arabic

The bulk of vocabulary in Libyan Arabic has the same meaning as Classical Arabic. However, many words have different but related meaning to those used in Classical Arabic. The following table serves to illustrate how the relation looks like. The past tense is used in the case of verbs as it is more distinctive and has been traditionally used in Arabic Lexicons. Canonically, those verbs are pronounced with the final a (marker of the past tense in Classical Arabic) attached, in lexical literature. This notation is preserved the table below. However, the relation between Libyan and Classical Arabic verbs can be better understood if the final a is dropped, in accordance with the elision rule of pre-pause vowels of Classical Arabic.

See also

• Libyan Arabic