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Lebanese Arabic: Background

When one decides to learn Arabic, often the question of “which Arabic?” ensues.  Among the approximately 240 million Arabic speakers worldwide, there exist numerous dialects.  These dialects are generally classified into two families; Occidental, which comprises much of North Africa, and Oriental, which includes dialects from the Nile regions, the Levant, and the Arabian Gulf.  Modern Standard Arabic, or Fus7a is the common language taught in schools, used in administrative offices, literature, and the mass media.  However, for daily life the dialects are what people will normally use.  Each is unique in its mixture of Standard Arabic that came at the time of the Muslim conquest, and of indigenous languages that also existed at that time.  Some Arabic dialects have become well known to the ears of other Arabic speakers across the globe due to the film industry and satellite TV.  Probably the most popular is Egyptian Arabic, followed ever more closely by Lebanese Arabic. 

Lebanese Arabic has developed over time with foreign influence, and the Lebanese borrow some words from other languages, such as Turkish, French, and English.  Lebanese Arabic is considered among the Levantine region of Arabic dialects.  So, that means Lebanese, Jordanians, Syrians, and Palestinians can understand each other.  One notable difference in Lebanese Arabic is that they don’t pronounce the “9 or q” sound except for a certain pocket of the country, for example.  Within Lebanese Arabic itself are also different accents depending on the region.  They are split up primarily by the regions of the north, of Batrun and Jbeil, Beirut, Mont-Liban, Saida, the surroundings of Saida, the Bekaa, and the Chouf.  None inhibit mutual comprehension among Lebanese speakers. 

Some of this information was obtained from: “Parlons Arabe Libanais,” by Fida Bizri.

Bizri, Fida. Parlons Arabe Libanais. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2010. Print

Lebanese Arabic: Writing and Pronunciation

The blog will contain Arabic script as well as Latin transcription of Arabic words for easier comprehension for those who aren’t yet familiar with script. 

When writing Lebanese Arabic in transcription, we will be using the numbers system that is used in online platforms and SMS.  For a quick refresher, we have listed the letter and pronunciation equivalents below. 

2 = alif, pronounced like a glottal stop

3 = aayn, pronounced like a more guttural “a” sound

5 = kh, pronounced like a “j” in Spanish or the “ch” in German, such as in “Bach”

7 = H, pronounced like a regular “h,” but deeper in the throat, like panting

9 = q, but in Lebanese it is pronounced like a “2” alif.  In MSA and the Chouf region, the “q” is pronounced as normal, deeper in the throat, and not like a “k”.

Arabic vowels are broken down into two categories, generally - long vowels and short vowels.  Long vowels are written using the following three consonant letters, which are substituted for vowels when needed:

- ا Alif, and when written as a long vowel is pronounced "aa," as in "father". Written as "a"  

- ي Ya' is used as the long vowel "ee" as in "sheep". It can be written as "ee" or "i."

- و Waw, when used as a long vowel is pronounced like "oo" as in "moon". It can be written as "oo" or "u."

Short vowels are written using graphical marks called "7arakeh", made around the consonant.  They are primarily only written in school books and in the Qu'ran.  Short vowels are pronounced more briefly, and are as follows:

- fat7a, marked by a tick  above the consonant makes the sound "a."

- kasra, marked by a tick  below the consonant makes the sound "i."  In Lebanese Arabic it is sometimes pronounced like "é."

- damma, marked by a  above the consonant makes the sound "u" sometimes pronounced "oo."

Not a short vowel, but also important is the shedda as explained below. 

- shedda, marked by a ّ   above the consonant specifying that emphasis be placed on the pronunciation of that letter by pronouncing it in double.  In our transcriptions, we will write the letter twice to signify the presence of a shedda for pronunciation purposes.

Additionally, in Lebanese Arabic there are four other short vowels that are not written in Modern Standard Arabic.  They are:

- o: pronounced with the mouth more closed like "o" as in "Bo."

- é or eh: pronounced like in French, but in English it sounds like "a" as in "convey."  However, sometimes it is pronounced like a soft "i."

- ô: pronounced like "o" but for a longer duration.

- ê: pronounced like "é" but for a longer duration.

That's it for now. Stay tuned to learn Lebanese Arabic with songs, sayings , and much more!