Lebanese Arabic

Lebanese Arabic
اللهجة اللبنانية
Pronunciation	[ˈʕaɾabe ləbˈneːne]
Native to	Lebanon
Native speakers	5.0 million (2022)[1]
Language family	Afro-Asiatic Semitic West Central Arabic Levantine Lebanese Arabic
Dialects	Beqaa Arabic Iqlim-Al-Kharrub Sunni Arabic Jdaideh Arabic North-Central Lebanese Arabic North Lebanese Arabic Saida Sunni Arabic South-Central Lebanese Arabic South Lebanese Arabic Sunni Beiruti Arabic
Writing system	Arabic alphabet Arabic chat alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	(covered by apc)
Glottolog	stan1323
IETF	apc-LB
North Lebanese Arabic   North-Central Lebanese Arabic   Beqaa Arabic   Jdaideh Arabic   Sunni Beiruti Arabic   South-Central Lebanese Arabic   Iqlim-Al-Kharrub Sunni Arabic   Saida Sunni Arabic   South Lebanese Arabic
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Lebanese Arabic (Arabic: عَرَبِيّ لُبْنَانِيّ ʿarabiyy lubnāniyy; autonym: ʿarabe lebnēne [ˈʕaɾabe ləbˈneːne]), or simply Lebanese (Arabic: لُبْنَانِيّ lubnāniyy; autonym: lebnēne [ləbˈneːne]), is a group of accents or a variety of Levantine Arabic, indigenous to and primarily spoken in Lebanon, with some linguistic influences borrowed from other Middle Eastern and European languages.

Lebanese Arabic is a descendant of the Arabic dialects introduced to the Levant and other Arabic dialects that were already spoken in other parts of the Levant prior to the 7th century AD, which gradually supplanted Aramaic (a language from the Aram (region) which already supplanted indigenous Phoenician before that) to become the regional lingua franca. As a result of this prolonged process of language shift, Lebanese Arabic possesses a significant Aramaic substratum, along with later non-Semitic adstrate influences from Ottoman Turkish, French, and English. As a variety of Levantine Arabic, Lebanese Arabic is most closely related to Syrian Arabic accents and shares many innovations with Palestinian and Jordanian Arabic.

Due to multilingualism and pervasive diglossia among Lebanese people (a majority of the Lebanese people are bilingual or trilingual), it is uncommon for Lebanese people to code-switch between or mix Lebanese Arabic, French, and English in their daily speech. It is also spoken among the Lebanese diaspora.