A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Friday, September 12, 2014

Souag: Why Levantine is Arabic, Not Aramaic

It's Friday! After a work week, let's sit back and relax with some comparative Semitic linguistics! Lameen Souag at Jabal al-Lughat responds to a claim that spoken Levantine (Shami) dialect is actually closer to Aramaic than to standard Arabic. He dissects the claim and dismantles it in terms of comparative linguistics in a three-part posing: "Why 'Levantine' is Arabic, Not Aramaic," Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.

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