North Levantine Arabic

North Levantine Arabic (Arabic: اللهجة الشامية الشمالية, romanized: al-lahja š-šāmiyya š-šamāliyya, North Levantine Arabic: el-lahje š-šāmiyye š-šmāliyye) was defined in the ISO 639-3 international standard for language codes as a distinct Arabic variety, under the apc code. It is also known as Syro-Lebanese Arabic, though that term is also used to mean all of Levantine Arabic.

It was reported by Ethnologue as stemming from the north in Turkey (specifically the coastal regions of the Adana, Hatay, and Mersin provinces) to Lebanon, passing through the Mediterranean coastal regions of Syria (the Latakia and Tartus governorates) as well as the areas surrounding Aleppo and Damascus.

In 2023, South Levantine Arabic and North Levantine Arabic were merged into a single Levantine Arabic, based on the high mutual intelligibility between Arabic varieties spoken by sedentary populations across the Levant and the lack of clear distinctions between variants along national borders.

Dialects

• Syrian Arabic: The dialect of Damascus and the dialect of Aleppo are well-known.
• Lebanese Arabic: North Lebanese, South Lebanese (Metuali, Shii), North-Central Lebanese (Mount Lebanon Arabic), South-Central Lebanese (Druze Arabic), Standard Lebanese, Beqaa, Sunni Beiruti, Saida Sunni, Iqlim-Al-Kharrub Sunni, Jdaideh
• Çukurova, Turkey: Cilician/Çukurovan

References

1. Levantine Arabic
2. South Levantine Arabic
3. Lebanese Arabic
4. Levantine Arabic vocabulary
5. Levantine Arabic grammar
6. Levantine Arabic phonology
7. Jordanian Arabic
8. Levant
9. Cilician Arabic
10. Levantine Sea
11. Syrian Arabic
12. Damascus Arabic
13. Languages of Syria
14. Copula (linguistics)
15. Palestinian Arabic
16. Aleppo Arabic
17. Northwest Arabian Arabic
18. North Mesopotamian Arabic
19. Mashriqi Arabic
20. Varieties of Arabic