Elie from Aïn Ikrine, Lebanon, is a native speaker of Lebanese, considers himself near-native in French, but does not feel as comfortable speaking Arabic. Yes, Lebanese is a dialect of Arabic - and yet it's quite a different language.
We talk about French, Christians in Lebanon, diverse dialects, aggressive sounds, how to chat and write poetry in Arabic, roots and patterns, words and numbers, Lebanese christmas traditions, and giant metal Santa Clauses.
Music:
Meen – Min L Manjam 3al Marreekh (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Jonathan Coulton – Chiron Beta Prime (CC BY-NC 3.0)
We talk about French, Christians in Lebanon, diverse dialects, aggressive sounds, how to chat and write poetry in Arabic, roots and patterns, words and numbers, Lebanese christmas traditions, and giant metal Santa Clauses.
Music:
Meen – Min L Manjam 3al Marreekh (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Jonathan Coulton – Chiron Beta Prime (CC BY-NC 3.0)
Show notes
Introduction
Basic facts
- Arabic
- Afroasiatic languages
- List of countries where Arabic is an official language
- Aramaic language
- Muslim conquests
- Levantine Arabic
- Christianity in Lebanon
- Islam by country
Lebanese
Sounds
- Arabic phonology
- Voiceless uvular stop
- Glottal stop
- Voiceless pharyngeal fricative
- Voiced pharyngeal fricative
Writing in Arabic
Morphology
Loan words
- Torre Agbar (turns out the name is neither Arabic nor “local dialect” – it’s owned by a company called Agbar)
- List of English words of Arabic origin
- Arabic numerals