Mutual intelligibility between Lebanese and other Levantine varieties is high, while MSA and Levantine are mutually unintelligible. Despite that,
Arabs consider both
varieties of Arabic to be a part of a single
Arabic language. Some sources count Levantine and MSA as two languages of the same
language family.
Statistics
According to Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024),[1] these languages have the most users in Lebanon:
Lebanon—and the
Arab world in general—exists in a state of
diglossia:[2] the language used in
literature, formal writing, or other specific settings is very divergent from that used in conversations. Lebanon's official language, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA),[3] has no native speakers in or outside Lebanon.[4] It is almost never used in conversations[5] and is learned through formal instruction rather than
transmission from parent to child.[6] MSA is the language of literature, official documents, and formal written media (newspapers, instruction leaflets, school books),[6] and in spoken form, it is mostly used when reading from a scripted text (e.g., news bulletins) and for prayer and sermons in the mosque or church.[6] Levantine, conversely, is spoken natively and used in conversations, TV shows, films, and advertisements.[7] This diglossia has been compared to the use of
Latin as the sole written, official,
liturgical, and literary language in Europe during the
medieval period, while
Romance languages were the spoken languages.[8][9] Levantine—specifically its
Palestinian dialect—is the
closest Arabic variety to MSA,[10][11][12] but Levantine and MSA are not
mutually intelligible.[13][2] They differ significantly in their
phonology,
morphology,
lexicon and
syntax,[14] and exposure to MSA in the early childhood of native speakers of an
Arabic variety results in a linguistic system that behaves like that of
bilinguals.[15]
Levantine speakers often call their language العامية al-ʿāmmiyya, '
slang', 'dialect', or 'colloquial' (
lit.'the language of common people'), to contrast it to
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and
Classical Arabic (الفصحى al-fuṣḥā,
lit.'the eloquent').[a][17][18][19] They also call their spoken language عربي ʿarabiyy, 'Arabic'.[20] Alternatively, they identify their language by the name of their country, such as لبناني libnāni, 'Lebanese'.[21] شامي šāmi can refer to
Damascus Arabic,
Syrian Arabic, or Levantine as a whole.[22] Lebanese literary figure
Said Akl led a movement to recognize the "
Lebanese language" as a prestigious language instead of MSA.[23] Most people consider Arabic to be a single language.[24] The
ISO 639-3 standard, however, classifies Arabic as a
macrolanguage and Levantine as one of its languages, giving it the language code "apc".[25]
Code-switching and loanwords
Code-switching (alternating between languages in a single conversation) between Levantine, MSA, French, and English is very common in Lebanon, often being done in both casual situations and formal situations like TV interviews.[26][27] This prevalence of code-switching has led to phrases that naturally embed multiple linguistic codes being used in daily sentence, like the typical greeting "hi, كيفك؟[b]Ça va ?", which combines English, Levantine and French.[28][29][30] Code-switching also happens in politics. For instance, not all politicians master MSA, so they rely on the Lebanese Levantine Arabic.[31]
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Additionally, many words used in the Lebanese dialect of Levantine have been borrowed from French, such as telfizyōnlistenⓘ(French: télévisionlistenⓘ, meaning 'television'), balkōnⓘ(French: balconlistenⓘ, meaning '
balcony') and doktōrlistenⓘ (French: docteurlistenⓘ, meaning 'doctor'),[32] and from English, such as CD, crispy, hot dog, and keyboard,[33] with some phrases and verbs being altered to follow the syntax of Levantine Arabic, instead of English. For example, shayyik comes from the English word 'check', and sayyiv comes from the English word 'save'.[33]
Some Kurds fled to Lebanon from violence and poverty in Turkey, but they are now dispersed in Lebanon and have largely abandoned
Kurdish languages.[d][34]Kurds in Lebanon were estimated at 70,000 in 2020, and
Kurmanji's users at 23,000.[1]
Lebanon's native language,
Levantine Arabic,[1] is the main language used in conversations. MSA, despite being Lebanon's second language by number of users,[1] is almost never used in conversations,[5] while English[33] and French[40] are, even between some native speakers of Levantine.
Levantine Arabic Sign Language is Lebanon's native sign language, and Lebanon's
deaf population is estimated at 12,000.[41][1]
Oral media
Many public and formal speeches and most political
talk shows are in Lebanese, not MSA.[31] In the Arab world, most films and songs are in vernacular Arabic.[42]Egypt was the most influential center of Arab media productions (movies,
drama, TV series) during the 20th century,[43] but Levantine is now competing with Egyptian.[44] As of 2013, about 40% of all
music production in the Arab world was in Lebanese.[43] Lebanese television is the oldest and largest private Arab broadcast industry.[45] Most big-budget pan-Arab entertainment shows are filmed in the Lebanese dialect in the studios of Beirut. Moreover, the Syrian dialect dominates in
Syrian TV series (such as Bab al-Hara) and in the
dubbing of
Turkish television dramas, which are both aired in Lebanon.[43][46] With the release of
Secret of the Wings in 2012, Disney began re-dubbing and dubbing its films in MSA, instead of
Egyptian,[47][48] and in March 2013, Disney and pan-Arab television network
Al Jazeera made a deal allowing the latter to distribute some of Disney's MSA-dubbed shows and films.[47][49] The release of
Frozen with an MSA dub and without an Egyptian one caused a controversy in the Arab world.[47][7]
Typically, news bulletins are in MSA.[2] On the popular television network
LBCI, Arab and international news bulletins are in MSA, while the Lebanese national news broadcast is in a mix of MSA and Lebanese Arabic.[2] Lebanese TV station
OTV and some radio stations that cover news of the
Armenian diaspora in Lebanon broadcast daily news bulletins in Armenian.[34]
Lebanon used to have two
francophone television stations, but they were shut down in the mid-1990s. Show hosts on television networks that are traditionally affiliated with Christians, such as
MTV and
LBCI, tend to use more English and French words than hosts in networks owned by Muslims, such as
Future TV,
Al-Manar, and
NBN.[33]
Unlike Levantine,[51] Modern Standard Arabic has a standardized spelling in the
Arabic script[52] and is typically used in literature, official documents, newspapers, school books, and instruction leaflets.[6] In formal media, Levantine is seldom written, except for some novels, plays, and humorous writings.[53][54]Subtitles are usually in MSA,[55] sometimes translating Arabic dialects to MSA.[56]
Most Arabs struggle to write MSA correctly.[24] On social media[51] and when texting, they use their native variety, either in the Arabic script or Arabizi.
Arabizi combines the
Latin alphabet with
Western Arabic numerals to make up for sounds unavailable with the Latin alphabet alone.[57][30] The numbers are visually similar to the Arabic character they represent. For example, 3 represents "ع".[58] Arabizi is commonly used on social media and
discussion forums,
SMS messaging, and
online chat,[59] especially among younger generations. Arabizi initially evolved because of the lack of support for Arabic letters, but it is now used to save time switching keyboards and, for typists who are not proficient in an Arabic keyboard, save time typing.[60] A 2012 study found that, when writing in Levantine on
Facebook, Arabizi is more common than the Arabic script in Lebanon, while the Arabic script is more common in
Syria.[61] Several studies have reported that the complexity of
Arabic orthography slows down the word identification process,[7] but Arabizi is not always read faster than the Arabic script, depending on
vowelization, the reader's gender, and other factors.[7]
Between 1994 and 1997, the Council of Ministers passed a new National Language Curriculum that required schools to use either English or French in natural sciences and mathematics.[33][66] In general, school students are exposed to two or three languages: MSA and either French, English or both.[27] Students' native language, Levantine, is not taught in schools, although MSA-
medium lessons are often taught in a mix of MSA and Levantine with, for instance, the lesson read out in MSA and explained in Levantine.[26][3] Foreign language teachers, such as English and French teachers, also commonly code-switch to Levantine.[40]
Although all language teachers face difficulties, especially in low socio-economic schools, MSA teachers' teaching resources are inferior to those of English and French, focusing mostly on classical books, as other resources are rare.[40] Many young Lebanese struggle with basic MSA reading and writing skills,[5] while
Syrian refugees in Lebanon transitioning from the MSA-centric Syrian education system to the English- and French-centric Lebanese system struggle with English and French. They are therefore often placed several grade levels below their age level, causing negative consequences on their
psychosocial well-being.[67]
The number of students learning in English is increasing, while those learning in French is decreasing: In 2019, 50% of school students studied in French, compared to 70% twenty years prior to that, and 55% of French-educated students chose to go to
English-medium universities.[68][69] Lebanon's
brain drain is high,[47][70] and its job market is weak.[47][40] Foreign language proficiency, therefore, is highly beneficial to Lebanese graduates, as it helps them find jobs abroad.[40]
The
Lebanese lira is in Modern Standard Arabic on one side and French on the other
French-language inscription "
Banque du Liban" on the headquarters of the Bank of Lebanon
Lebanese Arabic—the
variety of Levantine Arabic—is used in courtrooms, but in order to record court proceedings, the
judge restates in MSA what the suspect has said, and the court recorder handwrites the judge's translation.[33][72] This process, according to a report funded and led by the
World Bank, "risks an edit or an omission in the restatement by the judge."[73][74]
Brands and businesses
Email communication and announcements in professional job settings are mostly through English.[33] Of Lebanon's 34 radio stations, 11 have either French or English names.[33] Using photographs from 2015, a 2018 study of the
linguistic landscape of Lebanon's capital,
Beirut, found that the Arabic script is only used in 20% of storefront's primary text (store's name) and 9% of secondary text (other information, such as opening hours). The
Armenian script was absent.[75]
Starting in the
1st millennium BCE,
Aramaic was the dominant spoken language and the language of writing and administration in the
Levant—[76] where Lebanon is. Because there are no written sources, the history of Levantine Arabic before the
modern period is unknown.[77] In the early 1st century CE, a great variety of Arabic dialects were already spoken by various nomadic or semi-nomadic Arabic tribes in the Levant.[78][79][26] These dialects were local, coming from the
Hauran—and not from the
Arabian Peninsula—[80] and related to later
Classical Arabic.[81] Initially restricted to the
steppe, Arabic-speaking nomads started to settle in cities and fertile areas after the
Plague of Justinian in 542 CE.[80] These Arab communities stretched from the southern extremities of the Syrian Desert to central Syria, the
Anti-Lebanon mountains, and the
Beqaa Valley.[82][83] The
Muslim conquest of the Levant (634–640[84][85]) brought Arabic speakers from the Arabian Peninsula who settled in the Levant.[86] Arabic became the
language of trade and public life in cities, while Aramaic continued to be spoken at home and in the countryside.[83] The
language shift from Aramaic to vernacular Arabic was a long process over several generations, with an extended period of
bilingualism, especially among non-Muslims.[83][87] Christians continued to speak
Syriac for about two centuries, and Syriac remained their literary language until the 14th century.[88][89] In its spoken form, Aramaic nearly disappeared, except for
a few Aramaic-speaking villages,[89] but it has left
substrate influences on Levantine.[87] The
dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century reduced the use of Turkish words due to
Arabization and the negative perception of the Ottoman era among Arabs.[90] With the
French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (1920–1946),[91] the
British protectorate over Jordan (1921–1946), and the
British Mandate for Palestine (3–1948), French and English words gradually entered Levantine Arabic.[92][93]
^Native speakers of Arabic generally do not distinguish between
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and
Classical Arabic and refer to both as العربية الفصحىal-ʻArabīyah al-Fuṣḥā,
lit.'the eloquent Arabic'.[16]
^Transliterated as kīfak (when asked to a male) or kīfik (when asked to a female)
^According to Minority Rights Group,[36] Cilician Catholics seeking refuge from the Armenian Orthodox Church's persecution initially came to Lebanon in the 18th century. Subsequent and bigger immigration waves arrived due to massacres by the Turks in 1895–1896 and the
Armenian genocide of 1915. More arrived when France's attempt to establish an Armenian entity in Cilicia failed in 1920–1921. The last influx resulted from France ceding Alexandretta to Turkey in 1939.
^Kurdish is often seen as a single language, and its descendants
Kurmanji and
Zazaki as it dialects, instead of separate languages.[39]
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