Home | About us | Contact us

Come to Syria - Русский версия Come to Syria - اللغة العربية

Home >  About Syria >  Language

Language

Spoken Languages in Syria:

Arabic is the official and most widely spoken language. Kurdish is widely spoken in the Kurdish regions of Syria (northeastern regions), Kurds are less than 10% of Syria's population. Aramaic, the lingua franca of the region before the advent of Islam and Arabic, is spoken among certain ethnic groups: Syriac, it is used as the liturgical language of various Syriac denominations; modern Aramaic (particularly, Turoyo language and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic) is spoken in al Jezira region. Most remarkably, Western Neo-Aramaic is still spoken in the village of Maalula, and two neighboring villages, 35 miles (56 km) northeast of Damascus.

 

The Arabic Language:

Arabic (al Arabiya), a Semitic idiom, is the main language spoken in Syria. The Arabic language was adopted and spread over a large area of land in the 7th Century. This language has very old roots going back to the Assyrians in the 9th Century BC. Arabic was probably first written in the 2nd and 3rd Centuries AD under the rule of the Lakhmid tribe in Southern Mesopotamia. Other languages related to Arabic are Babylonian, Hittite (or Hurrian), Hebrew and Aramean. The Arabic alphabet has a few extra letters that do not exist in the normal Latin and Germanic languages.

The Arabic alphabet, written from Right to Left, was first used to write texts in Arabic - most importantly, the Koran, the holy book of Islam. With the spread of Islam, it came to be used to write many other languages, even outside of the Semitic family to which Arabic belongs. Examples of non-Semitic languages written with the Arabic alphabet include Persian, Urdu, Malay, Azerbaijani (in Iran) and Kurdish in Iraq and Iran. In order to accommodate the needs of these other languages, new letters and other symbols were added to the original alphabet.

 

The First Alphabet:

In the history of the world, man wrote the alphabet for the first time in Ugarit - Syria, locally known as "Ras Shamra", on the Syrian coast, that the genius of a scribe drew the first thirty letters on a small clay tablet. This little invention dates back to the 14th century BC. The tablet is exhibited at the museum of Damascus.

In this picture are some alphabetical symbols compared to the first alphabet of Ugarit (the second row from top):

 

The first alphabet

 

Arabic

English

Arabic

English

Inch'Allah

God wiling

Esmi

My name is

El Hamdul Allah

Thanks God

Fenn

Where?

Bakhshish

Tips

Houna

Here

Ahlan Wa Sahlan

Welcome

Hounak

There

Shokran

Thank You

Fok/Tahet

Up/Down

Sabah El Kher

Good Morning

Shamal/Yamin

Left/Right

Masaa El Kher

Good Evening

Adesh Be Yeswa?

How Much Does It Cost?

Kifak?

How Are You?

Ghali

It's Expensiv!

Maa al Salame

Good Bye

Zero/Sefr

0

Bokra

tomorrow

Wahed

1

Masari

Money

Nein

2

Law Samaht

Please

Thalatha

3

Ana/Anta

Me/you

Arbaa

4

Shay

Tea

Khamsa

5

Kahwa

Coffee

Setta

6

Halib

Milk

Sabaa

7

Jamila

Beautiful

Thamania

8

Naam/Kalla

Yes/ No

Tsaa

9

Tamam

Ok

Ashara

10

Print