Lebanese Arabic
| Lebanese Arabic | |
|---|---|
| North-Central Levantine Arabic | |
| اللبنانية | |
| Native to | Lebanon |
| Arabic alphabet, Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
Lebanese Arabic in cyan
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Lebanese Arabic or Lebanese is a variety of Levantine Arabic, indigenous to and spoken primarily in Lebanon, with significant linguistic influences borrowed from other Middle Eastern and European languages, and is in some ways unique from other varieties of Arabic. Due to multilingualism among Lebanese people (the vast majority of the Lebanese people are trilingual - Lebanese Arabic, French, English), it is not uncommon for Lebanese people to mix Lebanese Arabic, French, and English languages into their daily speech.
Lebanese Arabic shares many features with other modern varieties of Arabic. Lebanese Arabic, like many other spoken Levantine Arabic varieties, has a syllable structure very different from that of Modern Standard Arabic. While Standard Arabic can have only one consonant at the beginning of a syllable, after which a vowel must follow, Lebanese Arabic commonly has two consonants in the onset.
This table shows the correspondence between general Lebanese Arabic vowel phonemes and their counterpart realizations in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and other Levantine Arabic varieties.
^1 After back consonants this is pronounced [ʌ] in Lebanese Arabic, Central and Northern Levantine varieties, and as [ɑ] in Southern Levantine varieties
Although there is a common Lebanese Arabic dialect mutually understood by Lebanese people, there are regionally distinct variations with, at times, unique pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.
Widely used regional dialects include:
Lebanese Arabic is rarely written, except in novels where a dialect is implied or in some types of poetry that do not use classical Arabic at all. Lebanese Arabic is also utilized in many Lebanese songs, theatrical pieces, local television and radio productions, and very prominently in zajal.
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