Lebanese Language Institute

I came across a small article on Dakota Student, which was a review of the Lebanese movie Caramel. What struck me as odd and somewhat interesting, is that the writer made a very peculiar remark:

After a while I did realize that subtitles aren’t always the most fun to read, but if you have never heard the Lebanese language spoken, it’s definitely a treat. It’s sounds like a mixture of Spanish and French.

Somewhat interesting!

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Did you know that the verb “ija” (came), is a unique verb?

A couple of reasons for its uniqueness is the fact that it is the only verb of its form, that is, made out of 3 letters, with the first letter “i” and last letter “a”. the “j” is unique to this combination. There is no other letter other than the “j” that produces a meaningful verb.

On top of that, its imperative form is also unique. For example, the verb “Harab” (Escaped), becomes “Hrob” in the imperative form, “Baram” (Turned), becomes “Brom”, whereas “Ija” becomes “Taxa”, a totally different word!

So, if you are saying he came yesterday you would say “Ija mberiḣ”, but if you are asking someone to “Come here”, you would say “Taxa la hon”.

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The Shapes: This documents is in Pdf format and it contains a list of some of the basic shapes.

Click on the image below to download the file.

Teachers

The Lebanese language Institute has been cited as the resource to properly learn the Lebanese language on ehow.com.

http://www.ehow.com/way_5498512_learn-lebanese-online.html

News

Today, most people that use the Latin letters to write the Lebanese language on the web insert letters in the words they use to substitute for sounds that exist in the Lebanese language and that are lacking in the Latin alphabet. I am mainly writing this post to encourage anyone who want to write Lebanese, to use the Lebanese Latin Letters, and to download and install the keyboard to type them.

The most commonly used substitutions are the “3” for the “x”, the “7” for the “ḣ”, and the “2” for the “`”. This system started on chat rooms in the early 90’s and people just got used to it, and still use it. The problems that this system presents outweigh its convenience by far. The first problem is that it does not allow for proper spelling of words as they are actually pronounced in Lebanese. On the other hand, people are at a loss how to represent the sound of a word using such a system, because it lacks much more in terms inclinations that exist in the Lebanese language.

Because of this, additional numbers were introduced to supplement the primary 3 numbers, but it never gained popularity, and thus, the system remained defunct.

On the other hand, there are no spelling standards when you use such a system, and consequently, you cannot actually search for any information using search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and others. There is a lot of information, but it is scattered all around, and misspelled. This means that you can never find it.

Using the LLL system overcomes all these problems because of its convenience. The LLI has been using this system for years to teach people the proper Lebanese language, and the general public can use this system since all its tools are provided for free. So learn your alphabet, download the keyboard, and start typing.

If you have any questions or inquiries, we’ll be more than glad to help.

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There are two genders in the Lebanese language when it comes to identifying words. Masculine and Feminine only. Each noun in the Lebanese language is categorized as either one of these two genders.

A general rule is that all singular nouns ending with an “a” are Feminine.  Some other nouns that have feminine properties and do not end with “a” are also feminine such as “”Imm” (Mother) or “Iḱit” (Sister).

Try to identify which words are Feminine and which are masculine:

Siyyara (Car)

Xaṡfur (Bird)

Maṫaar (Airport)

Ḋayxa (Village)

Gender

The Lebanese language has 2 types of letters, the sun letters also called solar ( L aḣrof ccamsiyye) and the moon letters also called lunar (L aḣrof l amariyye). The reason these letters are called like this is because of the two words sun (camis) and moon (amar), and the properties of their first letters.

This characteristic affects the spelling of the words in relationship with the article “the” in Lebanese. The identifier “the” comes in two forms depending on the first letter of the word following it. There are two rules that govern this property in the Lebanese language.

1- If the first letter of this word begins with a solar, then the first letter is stressed, and it is spelled as double.

Cams means sun. To say “The sun”, you would say “ccamis”, because the “c” is a solar letter

Amar means moon. To say “The moon”, you would say “l amar”, because the “a” is a lunar letter. “L” means “the”.

Refer to the alphabet table to learn which are the sun letters and which are the moon letters.

Try to use the article “the” with the following words:

Dikken (Shop)

Ṫiyyara (Plane)

Banadura (Tomato)

Piano (Piano)

Namle (Ant)

Letters

Below is a list of 150 common Lebanese Phrases. The Lebanese Language Institute has an extended list of thousands of Phrases that will be published in a book in the very near future, with a plural form added to the list and categorized by situations and places.

Phrases

This is a link to an interview with a Danish woman that is married to a Lebanese and has been living in Lebanon for the past 7 years. The interview is interesting, but one part of it is a specifically interesting remark about language:

3. What is difficult/easy about learning and speaking the Lebanese language?
Well, after 7 years in Lebanon, I still don’t speak Lebanese fluently. The letters are very different, but once one gets to know some words, it is ok. The Lebanese language is different from Arabic, personally I find it more simple and easy to understand, especially because Lebanese has French and English words blended in, a bit like in Danish.

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