Arabic, North Levantine Spoken

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A language of Syria

ISO 639-3
apc
Alternate Names
Lebanese-Syrian Arabic, Levantine Arabic, North Levantine Arabic, Syro-Lebanese Arabic, il-lahje š-šāmiyye
Autonym
شامي‎ (Shami)
User Population

13,600,000 in Syria (2019). Total users in all countries: 31,437,480 (as L1: 29,778,480; as L2: 359,000).

Location

Al Ladhiqiyah and Tartus governorates; widespread along Mediterranean coast.

Language Maps
Language Status

3 (Wider communication). De facto national working language.

Classification
Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, South, Arabic
Dialects

High mutual intelligibility with South Levantine Spoken Arabic [ajp] (2017 N. E. Kelly). There is an urban standard dialect based on Damascus speech. Beiruti dialect well accepted. Aleppo dialect shows Mesopotamian (North Syrian) influence. Lexical similarity (based on percentage of common words): 77%–90% with South Levantine Spoken Arabic [ajp] (Kwaik et al 2018); 37% with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) [arb] (Harrat et al 2015). A member of macrolanguage Arabic [ara].

Language Use

Used as L2 by Domari [rmt], Northern Kurdish [kmr], Turoyo [tru], Western Neo-Aramaic [amw].

Language Development

Radio. TV. Dictionary. Grammar. Bible portions: 1973.

Language Resources
OLAC resources in and about Arabic, North Levantine Spoken
Writing

Arabic script, Naskh variant [Arab].

Other Comments

Druze, Christian, Jewish, Muslim.

Also spoken in:

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