Languages of Syria

Languages of Syria
Languages of Syria
	Road sign in Syria in Arabic and English
Official	Modern Standard Arabic
Vernacular	Levantine Arabic and Mesopotamian Arabic
Minority	Kurdish, Turkish, Neo-Aramaic, Circassian, Chechen, Armenian, Greek, Domari
Foreign	English and French
Signed	Syrian Sign Language
Keyboard layout	Arabic keyboard;

Arabic is the official language of Syria and is the most widely spoken language in the country.^[1]^[2] Several modern Arabic dialects are used in everyday life, most notably Levantine in the west and Mesopotamian in the northeast.

According to The Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, in addition to Arabic, the following languages are spoken in the country, in order of the number of speakers: Kurdish,^[1] Turkish,^[1] Neo-Aramaic (four dialects),^[1] Circassian,^[1] Chechen,^[1] Armenian,^[1] and finally Greek.^[1] None of these languages has official status.^[1]

Historically, Aramaic was the lingua franca of the region before the advent of Arabic and is still spoken among Assyrians, and Classical Syriac is still used as the liturgical language of various Syriac Christian denominations. Most remarkably, Western Neo-Aramaic is still spoken in the village of Maaloula as well as two neighboring villages, 56 kilometres (35 mi) northeast of Damascus.

Syrian Sign Language is the principal language of the deaf community.

Arabic

A man speaking Syrian Arabic.

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the language of education and most writing, but it is not usually spoken. Instead, various dialects of Levantine Arabic, which are not mutually intelligible with MSA,^[3]^[4] are spoken by most Syrians, with Damascus Arabic being the prestigious dialect in the media. Dialects of the cities of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Tartous are more similar to each other than to that of the northern region of Aleppo. Allied dialects are spoken in the coastal mountains. Levantine Arabic has the ISO 639-3 language code apc.^[5]^[6] Levantine has no standardized spelling,^[7] and is written in two main ways: using Arabic script from right to left and, less commonly, using Arabizi from left to right.^[8]

Lebanese is similar especially to the southern Syrian dialects, though it has more influence from Palestinian Arabic.

Due to Syria's long history of multiculturalism and foreign imperialism, Syrian Arabic exhibits a vocabulary stratum that includes word borrowings from Turkish, Kurdish, Armenian, Syriac, English, French and Persian.

Other forms of Arabic natively spoken in Syria include:

the dialect spoken in the Jabal al-Druze (Jabal al-Arab) mountains;
the eastern dialect group (Al-Hasakah, Al-Raqqah, and Deir ez-Zor), part of Mesopotamian Arabic (rarely called "North Syrian Arabic");
Shawi Arabic, spoken by sheep-rearing Bedouin;^[9]
Najdi Arabic, spoken by the Rwala tribe.^[10]

Non-indigenous dialects of Arabic, most notably those of Iraq and Palestine, are frequently used within their respective refugee diasporas, especially in Damascus.

Kurdish

Kurdish (specifically Kurmanji) is the second most spoken language in Syria.^[1] It is spoken particularly in the northeast and northwest of the country within the Kurdish minority.^[2]

Turkish

Turkish is the third most widely used language in Syria.^[1] Various Turkish dialects are spoken by the Turkmen/Turkoman minority, mostly in villages east of the Euphrates and along the Syrian-Turkish border.^[2] In addition, there are Turkish language islands in the Qalamun area and the Homs area.^[1]

Moreover, Syrian Arabic dialects have borrowed many loanwords from Turkish, particularly during Ottoman rule.^[1]

Aramaic

Four dialects of Neo-Aramaic are spoken in Syria.^[1] Western Neo-Aramaic is spoken in only two villages, Maaloula and Jubb'adin, and until the Syrian Civil War also in Bakhʽa, in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains of western Syria. Bakhʽa was completely destroyed during the war and all the survivors fled to other parts of Syria or to Lebanon.^[11] Turoyo speakers from Tur Abdin have settled in the province of Al-Hasakah.^[1] There is also a relatively large linguistic island formed by the Assyrians along the Khabur River. Moreover, Chaldean speakers are found in the northeast of Syria.^[1]

Circassian

Circassian languages are spoken in some villages south of Aleppo, as well as in the Homs area and on the Golan Heights.^[1] In particular, Kabardian is spoken by the Circassian minority.^[2]

Chechen

The Chechen language is spoken by the Chechen minority in two villages on the Khabur River.^[2]

Armenian

The Armenian language is spoken within the Armenian community in Aleppo and other major cities,^[2] such as Damascus and in one small town exclusively in Kessab.^[1] Although Syria does not recognise any minority languages, the Armenians are the only community allowed to teach in their own language, in addition to Arabic.^[1]

Greek

There is also a small number of Greek speakers in Syria. The Greek language is spoken in Al-Hamidiyah by Cretan Muslims.^[1] Their demand to be allowed to teach Greek in their schools has been rejected by the State with the argument that they are Muslims.^[1]

Foreign languages

English and French are also spoken by Syrian citizens, mostly in urban centers and among the educated.^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s ^t ^u Behnstedt, Peter (2008), "Syria", in Versteegh, Kees; Eid, Mushira; Elgibali, Alaa; Woidich, Manfred; Zaborski, Andrzej (eds.), Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, vol. 4, Brill Publishers, p. 402, ISBN 978-90-04-14476-7
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Etheredge, Laura (2012), Middle East Region in Transition: Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, Britannica Educational Publishing, p. 9, ISBN 1615303294
^ al-Sharkawi, Muhammad (2016). History and Development of the Arabic Language. Taylor & Francis. p. xvi. ISBN 978-1-317-58863-4. OCLC 965157532.
^ Qwaider, Chatrine; Abu Kwaik, Kathrein (2022). Resources and Applications for Dialectal Arabic: the Case of Levantine. University of Gothenburg. pp. 136, 139. ISBN 978-91-8009-803-8.
^ "apc | ISO 639-3". iso639-3.sil.org. Retrieved 2023-09-29.
^ "Arabic, Levantine | Ethnologue Free". Ethnologue (Free All). Retrieved 2023-09-29.
^ Abu Kwaik, Kathrein; Saad, Motaz K.; Chatzikyriakidis, Stergios; Dobnik, Simon (2018). "Shami: A Corpus of Levantine Arabic Dialects". Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2018). LREC. Miyazaki: European Language Resources Association (ELRA). pp. 3645, 3647. Archived from the original on 12 July 2021. Retrieved 17 July 2021.
^ Abu Elhija, Dua'a (2014). "A new writing system? Developing orthographies for writing Arabic dialects in electronic media". Writing Systems Research. 6 (2). Informa: 193, 208. doi:10.1080/17586801.2013.868334. S2CID 219568845.
^ Younes, Igor; Herin, Bruno (2016-01-01). "Šāwi Arabic". Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics Online Edition.
^ O'Hara, J. (2022). The Arabic dialect of the Rwala tribe, based on the ethnographic records of Alois Musil (http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text thesis). University of Oxford. {{cite thesis}}: External link in |degree= (help)
^ https://www.aymennjawad.org/2020/01/the-village-of-bakha-in-qalamoun-interview

[Behnstedt-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s ^t ^u Behnstedt, Peter (2008), "Syria", in Versteegh, Kees; Eid, Mushira; Elgibali, Alaa; Woidich, Manfred; Zaborski, Andrzej (eds.), Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, vol. 4, Brill Publishers, p. 402, ISBN 978-90-04-14476-7

[Etheredge-2] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Etheredge, Laura (2012), Middle East Region in Transition: Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, Britannica Educational Publishing, p. 9, ISBN 1615303294

[3] -Sharkawi, Muhammad (2016). History and Development of the Arabic Language. Taylor & Francis. p. xvi. ISBN 978-1-317-58863-4. OCLC 965157532.

[4] Qwaider, Chatrine; Abu Kwaik, Kathrein (2022). Resources and Applications for Dialectal Arabic: the Case of Levantine. University of Gothenburg. pp. 136, 139. ISBN 978-91-8009-803-8.

[5] "apc | ISO 639-3". iso639-3.sil.org. Retrieved 2023-09-29.

[6] "Arabic, Levantine | Ethnologue Free". Ethnologue (Free All). Retrieved 2023-09-29.

[Kwaik2018Shami-7] Abu Kwaik, Kathrein; Saad, Motaz K.; Chatzikyriakidis, Stergios; Dobnik, Simon (2018). "Shami: A Corpus of Levantine Arabic Dialects". Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2018). LREC. Miyazaki: European Language Resources Association (ELRA). pp. 3645, 3647. Archived from the original on 12 July 2021. Retrieved 17 July 2021.

[AbuElhija-8] Abu Elhija, Dua'a (2014). "A new writing system? Developing orthographies for writing Arabic dialects in electronic media". Writing Systems Research. 6 (2). Informa: 193, 208. doi:10.1080/17586801.2013.868334. S2CID 219568845.

[9] Younes, Igor; Herin, Bruno (2016-01-01). "Šāwi Arabic". Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics Online Edition.

[10] O'Hara, J. (2022). The Arabic dialect of the Rwala tribe, based on the ethnographic records of Alois Musil (http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text thesis). University of Oxford. {{cite thesis}}: External link in |degree= (help)

[11] ttps://www.aymennjawad.org/2020/01/the-village-of-bakha-in-qalamoun-interview

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