Lebanese Arabic

Lebanese or Lebanese Arabic is the colloquial form of Arabic spoken in Lebanon.

Classification

Lebanese Arabic is one of the Levantine dialects of Arabic. Some local Maronites consider Lebanese Arabic a separate language, as do the radical right-wing Guardians of the Cedars group. However, if Lebanese Arabic is considered as a descendant then other dialects such as Egyptian, Palestinian and Iraqi Arabic might also be considered as descendants. All Arabic dialects differ significantly from Standard Arabic.

Changes from Classical Arabic

Lebanese Arabic shares many featural similarities with other modern dialects of Arabic. Syntax has become simpler, losing both mood and case markings. Also, verbal agreement regarding number and gender is required for all subjects, whether already mentioned or not. Also, plural inanimate nouns are treated as feminine. Classical Arabic on the other hand requires the singular for newly introduced subjects. For example, the expression "the mites have eaten me" is rendered akalatni al-barağītu ("the-mites it-ate-me") in literary Arabic, and aklūnē l-Breğīt ("the-mites they-ate-me") in Lebanese.

Lebanese Arabic vocabulary and phonology (as in other modern-day dialects) differ from Classical Arabic.

Examples:

• In Arabic, "look inside" is translated as unð̣ur fid-dāxil, or in the feminine, unð̣urī fid-dāxil. However In Lebanese Arabic, as in Syrian and Palestinian, it becomes šūf žuwwa, or in the female command form, šūfī žuwwa.
• The following example demonstrates two differences between Standard Arabic and Spoken Lebanese: Coffee (قهوة), pronounced qahwa in Standard Arabic, is pronounced ah-way in Lebanese Arabic. The letter Qaaf is not pronounced, and the letter Alif becomes a softer "ay" sound.
• As a general rule of thumb, the Qaaf is dropped from the words in which it appears, and is replaced instead with the hamza or glottal stop: e.g. daqiqa (minute) becomes da'i'a.
• The Exception for this general rule is the Druze of Lebanon who like the Druze of Syria and Palestine/Israel have retained the letter Qaaf in the centre of direct neighbours who have substituted the Qaaf for the Aaf (example: "Heart" is Qalb in Arabic, becomes Aleb in Syrian, Lebanese, and Palestinian.
• Unlike most other Arabic dialects, Lebanese has retained the classical diphthongs ay and aw, which were monophthongised into e and o elsewhere.

The divergence of vocabulary has been driven by small borrowings from other languages, such as Aramaic, Greek, French, and Turkish.

Spelling reform

Lebanese Arabic is rarely written, except in novels where an accent is implied or in some types of poetry that do not use classical Arabic at all.^[1] Formal publications in Lebanon, such as newspapers, are typically written in standard classical Arabic. Like Chinese, Arabic uses a single literary language (Fuṣ′ḥá) for writing. While Arabic script is usually employed, informal usage such as online chat may mix-and-match Latin letter transliterations. Saïd Akl proposed the use of the Latin alphabet but this did not gain wide acceptance. While some works, such as Romeo and Juliet and Plato's Dialogues have been transliterated using such systems, they have not gained widespread acceptance.

References

• Spoken Lebanese. Maksoud N. Feghali, Appalachian State University. Parkway Publishers, 1999 (ISBN 1-887905-14-6)
• Michel T. Feghali, Syntaxe des parlers arabes actuels du Liban, Geuthner, Paris, 1928.
• Elie Kallas, 'Atabi Lebnaaniyyi. Un livello soglia per l'apprendimento del neoarabo libanese, Cafoscarina, Venice, 1995.
• Angela Daiana Langone, Btesem ente lebneni. Commedia in dialetto libanese di Yahya Jaber, Università degli Studi La Sapienza, Rome, 2004.
• Jérome Lentin, "Classification et typologie des dialectes du Bilad al-Sham", in Matériaux Arabes et Sudarabiques n. 6, 1994, 11-43.

1. ^ the poetry of Younis Al-Ibn

External links

• Online Material for Learning Lebanese Arabic
• Lebanese Dialect Audio CDs
• North Levantine Spoken Arabic at Ethnologue
• Lessons of Lebanese dialect
• Learn Lebanese
• Lebanese alphabet by Omniglot

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