North Syrian Arabic
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "North_Syrian_Arabic".

North Syrian Arabic (Arabic: اللهجة السورية الشمالية‎) is the variety of Arabic spoken in Northern Syria. This dialect is spoken mainly in the region of Aleppo. It is a variant of Levantine Arabic.

Features

North Syrian is one of the most primitive dialects of Levant and one that still preserves much of the features of classical Levantine dialect.^{citation needed}

Pronunciation

The pronunciation is similar to that of Damascus with few distinctions that are fading today as people are more inclined toward imitating the prevalent dialect of Damascus.

Consonants

• • ج is more realized as [dʒ] than [ʒ] in the classical dialect of Aleppo.
  • ق is pronounced [ʔ] but is more pharyngealized than the southern Levantine variant.
  • ش is sometimes pronounced [tʃ], but this has almost disappeared in modern speech.

Vowels

The major difference between Damascuss and Aleppo is the preservation of the classical Najdi transition of /aː/ to /eː/ (imāla) in Aleppo dialect.

This feature, termed in Arabic slanting of A, shows also in North Syrian pronouns.

Verb conjugation

The only notable difference between Aleppo and Damascus is the first person singular prefix of the imperfective.

Interrogative pronouns

• The pronoun shū (what) retains more primitive forms in north Syrian.

Etymology: أيّ شيء هو/هي ؟

• The pronoun ēmta (when) is not used in north Syrian; rather the Syriac equivalent ēmat is used. North Syrian in general uses more Syriac vocabulary than elsewhere in Levant.

• The Syriac pronoun ēna (which) is used in north Syrian instead of ayya.

• The pronoun addēsh (how many/much) often becomes shʔad in North Syrian.

Nominal negation

Negation of nominal sentences in Damascus is by mū, which comes from mā huw(a) and means "not." In Aleppo, mā alone is used, or one of the following particles:

The pronoun "her"

The pronoun her has two alternative forms in Damascus: a & ha. In rural north Syrian, the version ha is never used. In Aleppo, the ha version is used in only one case which is when attached to the preposition ʕalā or to a verb ending with -ā.

The demonstrative "ecce"

Although share a common etymology, the demonstratives of "here is/are" are different between Aleppo and Damascus.

Etymology: إليك هو هنا/هناك

Grammar

Pronouns

North Syrian pronouns show clear influence from Syriac in addition to the slanting feature.

Subject Pronouns

Object Pronouns

Demonstratives

Place demonstratives

Interrogative pronouns

Numbers

See also

• Levantine Arabic
• Syrian Arabic
• Varieties of Arabic

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