Levantine Arabic

Levantine Arabic, also called Shami (autonym: شامي, šāmi or اللهجة الشامية, el-lahje š-šāmiyye), 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 (MSA), 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 ‏العامية‎ al-ʿāmmiyya , '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.

From Wikipedia · Levantine Arabic · CC BY-SA 4.0