Talk:Levantine Arabic/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Notes for editors (please read this before editing)

• The borders of sub-dialectical regions are NOT related to political borders.
• This is a simplified table; each one of these sub-dialects needs its own variations table. This table should mention only the mainstream varieties within each region.

HD1986 (talk) 18:49, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Somebody update the table please. Thanks. HD1986 (talk) 19:26, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I have added the correct IPA symbols and cleaned up the table. I have not changed any information, as I am not familiar with the language or the dialects given. All the information I used was from this article and the ones on the Arabic language and Arabic alphabet. Please correct any mistakes in the data. Dave 21:28, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

I am correcting the apparent reversal of /ʔ/ and /k/ in the Central Syrian values of /k/ and /q/. Wareh 14:16, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Just out of interest: what do they speak in Eastern Jordan? 86.133.246.224 14:52, 3 March 2007 (UTC) -- Bedouin Arabic I think.

What does this mean: "the fact that are those in the Arab world which retained best the original Arabic stress pattern (along with Hejazi dialects)."

The meaning is perfectly plain. The incidence of the stress in Levantine Arabic and Hejazi Arabic is similar to that in Classical Arabic. In other dialects, e.g. Maghrebi, the stress pattern diverges from Classical Arabic far more.

By the way, do we need all these project markers? There are already articles on Syrian Arabic, Lebanese Arabic and Palestinian Arabic, which belong to the respective Wikiprojects: do they all need to include this general article as well? --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 09:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

This article is very ambiguous. "there's no transition to egyptian arabic because of the sinai" huh? What does that mean? I'm not sure what it means, but there are mixtures such as the ghazi dialect which is very similar to egyptian but contains a similar tone to shami. Also, classical arabic was heavily influenced by aramaic in its development. Words such as khamr and much of the grammar is similar to aramaic. I'm also not sure what that incidence of stress phrase means? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Knowledgeseeker3 (talk • contribs) 05:06, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Shami?!

I don't know where you got this designation from, but I am Syrian and there is only one thing that comes to my mind when I hear "shami" === DAMASCUS.

This designation may be ok to an Egyptian or Saudi person, but for a real Levantine speaker: Sham = Damascus. You should think up another translation for "Levantine." HD1986 (talk) 16:02, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Though I did see information about Shaam being the city of Damascus in Syria, using WP:reliable sources, I have a reason to believe that Ash-Shâm (Arabic: اَلـشَّـام) did not originally refer to the city, but a region that includes the modern country of Syria. Otherwise, what do you call this historical region in Arabic, if is not "Ash-Shaam"? Leo1pard (talk) 09:58, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes. Shaam is Damascus. Bilad ash-Shaam is the whole of Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine and Jordan. --Sir Myles na Gopaleen (the da) (talk) 11:25, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

References

Some main points that are missing

Many don't these vowel "maps". Main points are missing.

• Which accent is closest to classical Arabic phonology?
• Which accent is closest to Modern Standard Arabic phonology.
• History. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Standforder (talk • contribs) 07:33, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

"Ethnologue" is not a reliable reference

This article was missed up when somebody who does not know anything about the subject (as proved by the fact that they never added any information to the article) changed the content based on information from a website called "Ethnologue." This is definitely not a reliable reference on this subject. I looked it up, and it says that Aleppo Arabic belongs to Northern Mesopotamian! This is absolute nonsense. This source should never be used for this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.44.255.12 (talk) 20:10, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Original research removed

I have removed original research that I added myself. I restored an older version of the article.--HD86 (talk) 23:07, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Varieties of Arabic

One of the recurring problems in the Arabic language articles is the misuse of the label "dialect" based on a variety of non-linguistic factors. The forms of "Arabic" across the Middle East range from closely related and easily intelligible to very distant and unintelligible. Therefore it is very common Wikipedia usage to use the term "variety" to describe these forms rather than either "dialect" or "language" so avoid the non-linguistic politico-religio-sociological problems attendant with either of those terms. That's why the article Varieties of Arabic is called "varieties" and not either "Dialects" or "Languages". This careful use of "variety" has been especially important in the leads of articles as there are reliable sources that use "languages" and reliable sources that use "dialects". --Taivo (talk) 13:58, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

According to you and who else?Koakhtzvigad (talk) 03:32, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Ethnologue, Linguasphere, Ruhlen, etc. all break "Arabic" up into multiple languages. The notion that Arabic is a single language with multiple dialects is not linguistically based, but is sociologically based. --Taivo (talk) 04:24, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

General Remarks

Just wanted to say that this is a really insightful article and a great resource. It seems a wonderful and UNIQUE synthesis of many credible sources. I haven't found anything this extensive, exact, and well referenced online regarding Levantine Arabic. Even the Lebanese Arabic article here on Wikipedia lacks important relevant points revealed in this article about the history of its language. Perhaps I can add them at some point.

Keep up the great work and I will hope to add what little knowledge I have gleaned from study materials on Lebanese Arabic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dizziewiki (talk • contribs) 19:17, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

could NOT be regarded as a self standing language

Levantine Arabic could not be regarded as a self standing language, at least not yet. Comparing Arabic varieties to French, Spanish and Romanian and their relation to Latin is wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abdurra7man (talk • contribs) 20:30, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

"On the basis of the criterion of mutual intelligibility" wow this is a little too intelligent. Trying to hard to sound smart — Preceding unsigned comment added by 8.225.200.133 (talk) 23:45, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Recent revert

@Jeppiz:; see those [1] - also - Special:Contributions/WillRock41. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 14:46, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Please stop this nonsense, Mahmudmasri. You made a bold edit edit, which is fine, and it was reverted. After that, you have no right to revert back, you need to discuss and gain a consensus first (WP:BRD). There is not even an argument for your deletions in the post above. You need to stop reverting and instead argue for why you want to delete the content.Jeppiz (talk) 18:02, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Page views

Leo1pard (talk) 09:58, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

New map and classifications

Nehme1499 (talk · contribs) has kindly created a new map to replace the old one, which had various problems. Comments? I would mention a couple of things:

• The map, and the newly-added "Levantine Arabic" taxonomy list in the "Classification" section and infobox, lists "Levantine Bedawi" (i.e., "Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic", code avl, called Northwest Arabian Arabic by Wikipedia) as a sub-type of "Levantine Arabic", but this isn't supported by the given sources. Glottolog puts it (as Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic) under Egyptic Arabic, not Levantine (neither "Egyptic Arabic" nor "Levantine Arabic" have ISO language codes, but are used in Glottolog's hierarchical listing, glottocode leva1239 for the latter). Ethnologue gives "Levantine Bedawi Arabic" as an "alternate name" for "Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Spoken", but it doesn't have a general category called "Levantine Arabic" or a description of what that might consist of. Neither source shows a category consisting of apc/ajp/avl/acy, nor does any reliable source I can find. My main concern is that Wikipedia not invent its own language categories/classifications/taxonomies/terminology, but use only those that are widely accepted in the literature. While it may be appropriate for the article to mention any important dialect spoken in the Levant region, all sources I can find seem to use the phrase "Levantine Arabic" to mean only North and South Levantine Arabic (apc/ajp). See for example [2] or search Google books for "Levantine Arabic". I think the article should use this common understanding of the concept.
• Nehme1499, could you explain how the mapping in Israel is supported by the sources?
• The two blue colors are very similar, and it's easy to mistake it as showing the Gaza Strip as Bedawi.

--IamNotU (talk) 18:48, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi IamNotU (talk · contribs), thanks for taking your time in commenting my changes.

• I have no problem in removing Northwest Arabian Arabic from the map and infobox: what made me categorize it under "Levantine Arabic" was this map, as it uses the term "Levantine Bedawi Spoken Arabic". I myself was reluctant to put it in the map, but the word "Levantine" made me think that was correct to call it a "Levantine Arabic" dialect. Another reason why I have included both Bedawi and Cypriot is this division provided by the Varieties of Arabic article in Wikipedia. My impression is that, as the Wikipedia article states, since Bedawi Arabic is divided into various dialects (Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic, South Levantine Bedawi Arabic, and North Levantine Bedawi Arabic), North and South Levantine Bedawi Arabic share significant traits with the Levantine dialects.
• This is what I have found regarding the mapping in Palestine: as you can see it includes all of Palestine (widespread) as well as the HaZafon district.
• As for the colours, since we will most likely remove Bedawi it won't be a problem
• What is your opinion regarding Cypriot Arabic? Should it remain as "Levantine"?

Thanks, Nehme1499 (talk) 19:07, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

@Nehme1499: It's a bit complicated, I admit... If the article, or the map, was titled "Varieties of Arabic spoken in the Levant region", then it could include Bedawi, Cypriot Arabic, or any other important dialect. But by calling it "Levantine Arabic", and describing that mainly as the proper name of a language classification category, we have to be careful to follow the standard meaning of that term, as used by reliable sources. I think the article needs a clearer explanation of what "Levantine Arabic" means, with proper sources. At the moment, neither of the sources cited in the lede (5 & 6) actually use the phrase, but refer to "Syro-Lebanese dialects". Either that, or it should be changed and made clear somehow that the article is about all varieties of Arabic spoken in the Levant, not only (North and South) Levantine.

I see now where you got that division provided at Varieties of Arabic#Northern varieties... that article is a very good example of a very bad practice! It has pages and pages of unsourced material, much of which should be removed. It may be that as you say, North and South Levantine Bedawi Arabic dialects share significant traits with the Levantine dialects. But unless there's a citation of a reliable source, putting that specific group of language varieties under the classification heading of "Levantine Arabic" (as opposed to a general description of "Arabic dialects spoken in the Levant"), it shouldn't be presented that way. Regarding Cypriot Arabic, it seems to me that it's not included in the usual meaning of "Levantine Arabic", but it's debatable. Glottolog groups it that way, I guess because they have to put it somewhere in their deep hierarchical classification. But Ethnologue doesn't, it's just another variety of Arabic, and described as "A hybrid language with roots in the Arabic of both Anatolia and Levant. Many borrowings from Syriac [syc] and Greek [ell]." There are also less than 10,000 speakers of it (there are about two orders of magnitude more Levantine Arabic speakers in Germany than in Cyprus). But as I said, Ethnologue doesn't recognize a classification category of "Levantine Arabic" (other than a common-sense pairing of North and South). What about basing this map only on the Ethnologue source? What does Glottolog contribute to it?

I didn't see from ethnologue:ajp, the mapping information including HaZafon district. Is it on the subscription-only map? I did find this page though: [3] that can be cited to support it. I wondered, because Arabic is an official language of Israel, and the old map had it all colored, if that should be done. But according to that page, the South Levantine Arabic variety is restricted mainly to HaZafon district, so I guess it's right to do it the way you did. Well, again if the article/map was about "all varieties of Arabic spoken in the Levant", it should include the various Judeo-Arabic dialects; but if it's about the "(North and South) Levantine Arabic" variety classification, then not... --IamNotU (talk) 04:26, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

@IamNotU: I agree that the article definition of "Levantine Arabic" is a bit confusing, we should probably just stick to North/South and remove Bedawi since, while it is spoken in the Levantine region, it isn't per se "Levantine Arabic".

Regarding Cypriot arabic you are right in saying that there are only a handful of people speaking this language today, but I feel like it's still important to properly classify it (be it under Mesopotamian or Levantine). The Wikipedia article classifies it under Mesopotamian Arabic stating that it "shares a large number of common features with Mesopotamian Arabic; particularly the northern variety, and has been reckoned as belonging to this dialect area"; however it does also state that "Cypriot Arabic was first introduced to Cyprus by Maronites who came mainly from Syria and Lebanon between the ninth and tenth century" (Syria and Lebanon being countries from the Levant rather than Mesopotamia). Glottolog itself classifies it under "Levantine Arabic" (neither North or South), even though the website has an "Eastern Arabic" classification further ramified into "Afghanistan-Uzbekistan", "Gilit Mesopotamian", "Khorasan" and "Qeltu". "Qeltu" itself is divided into "Judeo-Iraqi Arabic" and "North Mesopotamian Arabic": it is the latter that Wikipedia advocates being the parent language group of "Cypriot Arabic" (North Mesopotamian Arabic, Cypriot Arabic). It would have been possible for Glottolog to classify "Cypriot Arabic" under "North Mesopotamian Arabic" but they deliberately opted to categorize it as a Levantine Arabic variety.

ethnologue:ajp provided detailed information sheets regarding the population number, dialects, language usage and location of South Levantine Arabic. Under location it states that it is widespread in Palestine and is spoken in the HaZafon district (as well as in the western area of Jordan). Regarding Arabic as an official language: while many Jewish people do know Arabic, it is important to remember the distinction between "fusha" (Arabic used in formal speech or in written form) and spoken Arabic dialects, which is the case of Levantine Arabic. While many Jews are able to speak "Arabic", it is incorrect to say that it is native to them (in the same way that, while I speak English and live in Italy, it's incorrect to say that the English language is "native" to Italy).

EDIT: I have removed Bedawi Arabic from both the article and the map.Nehme1499 (talk) 10:28, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

@Nehme1499: I think Ethnologue's approach of not classifying Cypriot Arabic as either Mesopotamian or Levantine, but directly under Arabic, makes the most sense and is common in other sources. It's an isolated ancient/medieval Christian Lebanese-Syrian dialect (apparently with elements of Mesopotamian), strongly mixed with Greek, and so on. Several sources describe it as a unique variety, that doesn't fit well into one or the other of those classifications. For example, the "Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics" uses the phrase "Levantine Arabic" dozens of times (unfortunately without a clear definition of what that means - perhaps it's thought to be obvious), when explaining characteristics of Syrian/Lebanese/etc. I think it would be a mistake to assume that those characteristics equally apply to Cypriot Arabic, just because it's also classified as "Levantine Arabic". In other words, when the author says "Levantine Arabic" throughout the book, it's fairly clear he doesn't mean to include Cypriot Arabic. Also, in the Cypriot Arabic article, there are two sources given for "classification", one (11, Owens) is discussing a map of Iraq, northern Syria, and Turkey, when it says "Cypriot as well can be reckoned as belonging to this dialect area." It doesn't say it belongs exclusively to that area nor that it should be classified as "Mesopotamian Arabic"; and it seems to be talking about a geographic area more than a language classification. The other (5, Versteegh) says it's "of great importance for the historical study of the Syrian and Mesopotamian dialects. Most of its traits are shared with the sedentary dialects of Greater Syria, for instance the verbal marker for the non-past p(i), which goes back to the common Syro-Lebanese bi-." as well as "a large number of common features between Cypriot Arabic and the so-called qaltu dialects of the Mesopotamian group". Again it's described as a kind of hybrid, and not classified as one or the other. I don't think the Wikipedia article's classification of it under "Mesopotamian Arabic" is supported by reliable sources. There's some support for "Levantine Arabic" because of Glottolog, but I think there would need to be significantly more reliable sources supporting that first, and again I think it's misleading, given the descriptions in other sources. The normal understanding of "Levantine Arabic" is the modern Arabic of Lebanon/Syria/Palestine/Jordan, and Cypriot Arabic isn't that. See also this, for some "folk" commentary: [4].

I finally found at ethnologue:ajp what you meant, I had missed the "show details" buttons! According to this page [5], there are hundreds of thousands of speakers of Judeo-Arabic spoken dialects (not fusha). The majority of the Jewish population are Mizrahim, most of whose ancestors lived in Arab lands for thousands of years and whose native tongue was Arabic. I guess that a map of "Arabic dialects spoken in the Levant" should show Judeo-Arabic, as the main map at Varieties of Arabic does. But a map of "Levantine Arabic" language classification shouldn't, since the majority appears to be Tripolitanian, Tunisian, and Yemeni. --IamNotU (talk) 23:09, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

@IamNotU: So, would you consider "Cypriot Arabic" as a variety of "Levantine Arabic" as Glottolog says, therefore keeping the map and article unvaried but changing the Cypriot Arabic page so that it is considered a Levantine Arabic dialect instead of a Mesopotamian one, or would you consider it an independent language with both Mesopotamian and Levantine influences, meaning that we would have to remove it from both the aforementioned map and article, as well as having to change the Cypriot Arabic classification in the infobox from being a ramification of "Mesopotamian Arabic" to simply a direct ramification of "Arabic"?

I must admit that I have forgot about the Jewish people living in Arabic speaking countries prior to the immigration to Palestine; I agree with you: the Judeo-Arabic varieties shouldn't be classified under "Levantine Arabic", rather under a potential "Arabic dialects spoken in the Levant" article.

I came across another problem while creating the articles North Levantine Arabic and South Levantine Arabic: Syrian and Jordanian Arabic, technically speaking, aren't real denominations of Arabic dialects. Syria and Jordan don't have one spoken dialect in their region, rather a number of different dialects (for example Najdi, Mesopotamian, Bedawi ecc...). This is different for Lebanese Arabic, since the only variety spoken in the region is the North Levantine Arabic dialect as well as having a proper glottolog code (stan1323). Nehme1499 (talk) 23:43, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

@Nehme1499: I've been reading some more about Cypriot Maronite Arabic... apparently some people in the past classified it as Levantine, specifically Lebanese. But according to Borg (A Comparative Glossary of Cypriot Maronite Arabic), who seems to be the leading expert on it, they were misled by the presence of a large Maronite community that had moved from Anatolia (then called northern Syria) to Lebanon and shifted to Lebanese Arabic, and were the center of the Maronite church. Borg shows that the Cypriots have many of the features of the contemporary qeltu dialects, aka North Mesopotamian Arabic (southeast Anatolia and northern Syria, and Christian/Jewish Baghdadi]], but also "Levantine" features, some found otherwise only in Palestine, and so on. There were several waves of immigration, as early as the 7th and as late as the 13th century. So in one sense, it could be described as belonging to the region where qeltu dialects are spoken. But that was as much as a thousand years ago, and it's evolved into something very different now, eg. with a huge influence from Greek. It's essentially unintelligible to mainland Arabic speakers. Borg describes it as one of the "peripheral Arabic" dialects, like Maltese.

The qeltu features used to be widespread, part of the standard Baghdad dialect for example. Starting around the 12th century, over time they were lost, but survived in some pockets, like among the Christians and Jews in Baghdad, in Mosul, and scattered areas in northern Syria and southeastern Anatolia. So it can't be assumed that the Cypriot people/language necessarily came from the places where qeltu still survives today.

In any case, in terms of language codes, it can't be classified as qeltu/North Mesopotamian ethnologue:ayp. You can't classify "acy" under "ayp", though you can mention the similarities. Neither can it be classified as Mesopotamian Arabic (aka Iraqi Arabic), which is ethnologue:acm. Again Wikipedia has this all mixed up - the Mesopotamian Arabic article quotes the "acm" code, and Glottolog's meso1252 (Gillit Mesopotamian) but then describes "Mesopotamian Arabic" as a higher category that includes North Mesopotamian Arabic (ayp), which is incorrect, at least according to Ethnologue and Glottolog. Glottolog lists a qeltu dialects group under its "Eastern Arabic" category, Ethnologue as usual just under "Arabic"; neither has a "Mesopotamian Arabic" category that includes qeltu and gelet. That usage of "Mesopotamian Arabic" isn't necessarily wrong, as some sources use it that way, but what is wrong is to mix the usages together without explanation. It's very wrong to list either "acy" or "ayp" (qeltu) as a subdivision of "acm" (gelet), and confusing to describe Cypriot Arabic as "Iraqi Arabic". Wikipedia tends to use these more hierarchical structures of families, in the templates and infoboxes, which aren't supported by ISO/Ethnologue, and the terms stray far from Glottolog, and it becomes quite unclear whether the categories are actually widely used by reliable sources, or completely made up by Wikipedia.

Similar problems, as you point out, with "Syrian Arabic" and "Jordanian Arabic". It's not wrong to have articles with those names, as they're notable subjects - the Arabic dialects of Syria, or of Jordan, and discussions of the similarities and differences, etc. There are many books with those phrases in the title for example. The problem is when Wikipedia editors start using them as language classification names, putting them in the templates without context. I'm partly to blame, because I put "Syrian Arabic" in some of those places, but I needed something to replace "North Syrian Arabic", which was being used in a very incorrect way - it was the lesser of two evils, for now. --IamNotU (talk) 23:11, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

PS, I just updated the Cypriot Arabic article's History section to give a fuller picture. I removed the "Mesopotamian" classification from the infobox. I guess the map should be changed too... --IamNotU (talk) 02:03, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

@IamNotU: I have updated the map for Levantine Arabic (Levantine Arabic Map.jpg) and have created a new map called "Arabic in the Levant" which also includes Bedawi and Cypriot (Map Arabic in the Levant.jpg).

There are some edits that have to be done: 1) The History section of Levantine Arabic should reflect our recent changes regarding Cypriot Arabic (Cypriot Arabic stems in large part from the Arabic spoken by Levantine Maronites during the 12th and 13th centuries and represents a variety of Levantine Arabic that has come under considerably less influence from the imperial idiom and interaction with non-Levantine varieties.) This particular frase makes it seem as if Cypriot Arabic is mainly influenced by Levantine Arabic, and that the other influences are less significant.

2) Also, should we change this template and this article, or is it OK to still keep Cypriot Arabic as a dialect of North Mesopotamian Arabic in these cases anyway?

3) This article needs cleanup because, as you said, it contains lots of unsourced material as well as erroneous classifications of Arabic varieties ([1], [2]).

Nehme1499 (talk) 10:36, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

@Nehme1499: Thanks for continuing to work on the maps! I suppose that the "Arabic in the Levant" should include all of the varieties in the Levant, including the Judeo-Arabic varieties - though as of a few days ago, Arabic is no longer an official language of Israel :( - Northern Mesopotamian, etc. - and it's not really strightforward to determine exactly what "the Levant" means, or where its borders are. It would have to be based on citations as well, otherwise there isn't a good rationale for including or excluding one or another variety from the map.

Thanks also for pointing out the part about Cypriot Arabic in the History section. I'm not sure yet what to do about that. I want to look a bit more at the article's history first. That part is all unsourced, and it was actually added by the same person whose deletions you just reverted. They seem to have done a lot of adding and deleting not based on reliable sources.

I think the template needs to be changed, but I'm not quite sure in what way to do it. I think it's ok to mention Cypriot Arabic in the North Mesopotamian article, but I'll update it with some of the text I added recently. --IamNotU (talk) 01:17, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

@IamNotU: Do you have any source/map that lists the languages/dialects spoken today in the Levant (other that Ethnolog's map on Syria/Jordan)? As for the definition of "Levant", I would use Wikipedia's definition of "Countries of the Levant in 20th century usage" (meaning the region of Greater Syria as well as Cyprus and the Hatay province). I would extend this to the Sinai and Iraq, but I'm not sure if to do so. Also, could you take a look at the new talk section underneath? Thanks, Nehme1499 (talk) 11:33, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

@Nehme1499: No, I don't have a map like that, sorry... With regard to Wikipedia's definition of "Countries of the Levant in 20th century usage", keep in mind that Wikipedia isn't a reliable source. For example, the 2009 source cited in support of that doesn't say anything about 20th century usage vs. 21st, and says that the Levant excludes Turkey, contradicting the map. That map also shows the West Bank as part of Jordan. The given source also defines the Levant in terms of present-day country borders, but in its next sentence says "this specific meaning is probably a product of the French Mandate of 1920-1946", when the borders were very different, for example Hatay province was part of Syria. Then there's the list of "regions sometimes included in the 21st century", with no source - the 20th/21st thing seems to be made up. The opening paragraph says it's "equivalent to the historical region of Syria", but that article has its own (unsourced) map, without Hatay or Cyprus (and the West Bank not in Jordan). The second paragraph of the Levant article says "It has the same meaning as "Syria-Palestine" or Ash-Shaam", which redirects to the same Syria (region) article and map, but the sentence continues on to give a purely geographical definition, with citation, based on mountain ranges and deserts, rather than country borders, which contradicts both maps. The "Geography and modern-day use of the term" section says "Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey are sometimes considered Levant countries", also without a citation. I think it would be a difficult job just to draw a map of "the Levant", nevermind put all of its dozens of language varieties on it, and still follow the policies of WP:NPOV, WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, WP:UNDUE, etc. - for example, can you justify putting Cypriot Arabic, with 1000 speakers, on the map, but leaving out 1,000,000 native Russian speakers in Israel? Not to discourage you, but just to encourage you to find the best, most reliable sources to base it on, and be wary of combining several sources to say something that none of them actually say. --IamNotU (talk) 03:48, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

References

Added new section on history

I have added a new section on the history of the dialect, from its earliest attestations in Syria in Jordan in the second millenium BC to the early modern period. This section has replaced the old section which talks more about contact situations and does not provide a good chronological overview of the evolution of the dialect. So I have renamed it "Contact situations".

I am the original author of the original section and after a couple of years of more research I have found it to be grossly inaccurate. It is first off based on out of date sources. Second, it discusses Arabic as if it entered the Levant in the 7th century, which is quite frankly an absolutely ridiculous notion given the fact that it is continuously attested there since probably as early as the 2nd millenium BC.

--Jadhimah (talk) 02:53, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

@Jadhimah: While I agree with you on the fact that Levantine Arabic was mostly influenced from Arabic rather than from other languages, I don't understand your omission of the influences the different languages of the Levant had on the Levantine Arabic dialect (first Phoenician and then Aramaic/Syriac). Even if they have minimal influence on today's dialect, I feel like it's still important to talk about those languages and their role in shaping the Levantine Arabic language. Also, could you take a look at the talk section above (New map and classifications), thanks. Nehme1499 (talk) 11:35, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

@Nehme1499: This is a much more complicated topic than most people make it out to be. Arabic from the outset was in contact with Northwest Semitic (Canaanite and Aramaic), so every Arabic dialect today has some component that can be traced back to this ancient contact situation. Where Levantine Arabic diverges from other varieties of Arabic is specifically in contact with Western (Neo-)Aramaic varieties in the Middle Ages, after the 7th century. Furthermore, this contact is highly limited in Southern Levantine. I think subsequent focus should be on filling out the "Contact Situation" section with reliable sources on post-7th century contact with Western Aramaic, and perhaps even non-Semitic languages from the early modern period onwards. Focus should not be on contact with antique Canaanite and Aramaic since much of what arises from that can be seen in Arabic as a whole. I know that there is a certain group of people who look for Phoenician/Syriac influence in the Lebanese dialect specifically. It is tempting to look for direct Phoenician/Syriac influence, but Lebanon spoke Western Neo-Aramaic throughout the Middle Ages, which was neither Phoenician nor Syriac. I will begin revamping the section.Jadhimah (talk) 16:14, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

I've restored the paragraph about the changes in the 7th century, cited to Semitic Languages in Contact, since it was based on a recent reliable source. I've edited it to provide additional context and clarification from the source. Since it's been repeatedly deleted, but restored by three different editors, I would suggest that any further deletions not be made unless there is a consensus on this talk page to do so. It may be true that Arabic is attested in the region for millenia. However, if the article was to give the impression that it has been the dominant language since that time, and that there was no language change in the Levant following the Muslim conquests (i.e. since everyone was already speaking Arabic, with only minor contact with Aramaic) would not seem to be in line with current scholarship. --IamNotU (talk) 18:33, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

@IamNotU:My problem is not with the paragraph as a whole, but this statement: "The language shift from Aramaic to Arabic, both Semitic languages, that began in the 7th century after the conquests". The source you cite does not even say this. It even goes as far as emphasizing that the initial contact that led to a "significant phase of Aramaic-Arabic bilingualism" began before the conquests. I have gone into detail on this phase in the "Contact with Northwest Aramaic" section. Now, despite this, it is true that there was a language change in the Levant following the conquests in the 7th century, and it was the introduction of Arabic dialects from the Hijaz and their rise to prestige. These dialects accelerated the demise of both Aramaic and the existing Northern Old Arabic dialects (Safaitic, Nabataean, Hismaic, etc.). See "Spread of Old Hijazi" in the History section.--Jadhimah (talk) 04:35, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Romanization

We should use a consistent romanization for this article. I would suggest that we use the Wiktionary romanization for Arabic but with the slight change of using ʕ for ع while keeping ʾ for ء, ق as the two kinds of apostrophes are hard to distinguish.

The short vowel pairs e and i as well as o and u are not phonemic unless they are in word final position. Lebanese merges them in final position as well, but we should keep the distinction in romanization, which would be "e" for ة (when it is not "a"), "i" for ي, "o" for ه (3rd person masculin suffix pronoun) and "u" for و.

The long vowel ā (ا) is affected by Imāla in North Levantine dialects, merging into ē in most positions, but we should keep it ā in romanization as not all dialects have this feature and to distinguish it from the diphtong /ay/ prounced as ē.

SarahFatimaK (talk) 12:54, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi!

Yes definitely, we should be consistent.

However, ideally, we shouldn't have to decide on the romanization/transliteration but find one single reliable source and follow its guidelines. Is there such a source for Levantine? I would suggest using Matthew Aldrich's spelling conventions (on page v of Levantine Arabic Verbs for instance). Because he's the only author I know which uses both Arabic script and a consistent transliteration in Latin in all his books. But if there are other good books I'm happy to follow another convention.

Whatever spelling convention we use, we should add a section "Alphabet" or "Writing system" at the beginning with a table with: the Arabic letters (in their different forms), the Levantine pronunciation (maybe with different columns North/South/rural/urban/etc.), the transliteration used in the article, and other transliteration commonly used in other sources, in particular in Arabic chat alphabet. A455bcd9 (talk) 13:23, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

As there's no standard, official or universally approved romanization I added the ones from the "good" books I have. Feel free to add others. Especially, if there's a book or scholarly article about Levantine using the Wiktionary romanization and/or the one that you want to use it would be amazing to add it to the table and mention that this is the transliteration used in this Wikipedia article. Otherwise, without a secondary source, we shouldn't use it. A455bcd9 (talk) 18:04, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi,

I'm answering here to your message so that other Wikipedians can follow the discussion more easily :)

You're right I made a mistake for Elihay, in my edition the q̈ was unclear and I thought it was a typo. I fixed this issue. Regarding the other letters and the other authors, unless I made a mistake as I did with ق, I think we should not make any correction, we should just copy/paste these secondary sources without judgment. This is what I tried to do. If there's a good secondary source that can back your claim, please add it. (I trust you 100% on this, but without source it would be considered as original work on Wikipedia, and therefore removed). A455bcd9 (talk) 18:10, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Font for South Levantine

I have noticed that the font in the templates lang and wikt-lang for Arabic (ar) and North Levantine (apc) is larger and better readable than for South Levantine (ajp). Is it possible to change the font for ajp to the same font as the other two? SarahFatimaK (talk) 08:41, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi, on my computer (MacOS, Chrome) the two seem identical. Can you please provide an example here? Also, which operating system/browser are you using? A455bcd9 (talk) 16:05, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

I use Firefox on Windows 10. It is clearly visible here in the table: Levantine_Arabic_Pronouns.png

Interestingly in Edge both "apc" and "ajp" look the same, small and hardly readable but "ar" is larger and readable. SarahFatimaK (talk) 17:59, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

In the image you provided are you talking about the difference between ihna and nihna? Actually I can't see any difference... So I tried to put the word side by side with either the ajp or apc code: ‏احنا‎ (ar) ‏احنا‎ (ajp) ‏احنا‎ (apc) And I still can't see any difference... A455bcd9 (talk) 18:15, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

And the same test with "lang" instead of "wikt-lang": ‏احنا‎ (ar) ‏احنا‎code: ajp is deprecated (ajp) ‏احنا‎ (apc). Still no visible difference to me. Do you see one on Firefox+Windows 10? A455bcd9 (talk) 18:16, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Same test with a longer expression and vowel marking: ‏اللَّهْجَةُ الشَّامِيَّة‎‎ (ar) ‏اللَّهْجَةُ الشَّامِيَّة‎ (ajp) ‏اللَّهْجَةُ الشَّامِيَّة‎ (apc) / ‏اللَّهْجَةُ الشَّامِيَّة (ar) ‏اللَّهْجَةُ الشَّامِيَّةcode: ajp is deprecated (ajp) ‏اللَّهْجَةُ الشَّامِيَّة (apc). Still can't see any difference. A455bcd9 (talk) 18:18, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Here are some screenshots how it's rendered in different browsers on my computer: Wiki_Arabic_Font_Browsers.png It looks the same on my computer at home as well as the one in my office. SarahFatimaK (talk) 18:56, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Hm... Is your computer at your office also running on Windows 10? Then it may be an issue related to Windows 10 that may not recognize the codes ajp and apc? (The behavior on Firefox is super weird though...) On MacOS it looks like this with Chrome, Safari, or Firefox. I have no idea how we could solve the problem, I'll ask the question on Wikipedia:Help desk... A455bcd9 (talk) 20:51, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes both computers are running on Windows 10. Thank you for posting it in the Help desk. I didn't know that it's about the OS and the browser to detect the language. My assumtion was that there are stylesheets linked with the templates for the different languages. As Windows and Mac dont have the same fonts preinstalled, the default font for the languages might be a font only present on Mac. SarahFatimaK (talk) 05:03, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Apparently, the Help Desk wasn't the good place to ask so I asked there instead. Wait and see... A455bcd9 (talk) 07:56, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

A455bcd9, I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's a Firefox thing. It sometimes applies some extra font logic for certain languages when it sees the HTML lang attribute, for example Arabic and Korean, and maybe some others. Codes like ajp are much more rarely used in comparison to ar, so Firefox doesn't do anything with them. Sometimes it does it totally incorrectly: for example, it tries to apply a Korean font to language code koi, which is completely unrelated to Korean.

I think that Chrome doesn't do it.

The only thing I can think of is to apply explicit fonts to everything and force it to be the same, although it's probably overkill. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 07:08, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your message. I copied it there, where we are continuing this discussion, and trying to find solutions (without success so far...). A455bcd9 (talk) 07:17, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

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