At this site, Nassim Nicholas Taleb argues, in section 165, that what is considered the Levantine dialect of Arabic is really the Levantine dialect of Aramaic. That is, we are used to having historians say that with the conquests by the Arabs, their language replaced others in its wake, but Taleb is saying that at least in Lebanon, that didn’t necessarily happen. Instead, Aramaic had been there before, and it stayed, except with a few changes resulting from having Arabic as its neighbor.
I know some Arabic, and I know some of the Levantine dialect, but I don’t know anything about Aramaic, so I can’t judge his argument. I do know that Levantine has a weird habit of adding a b in front of a lot of verb forms, so “I know” in Arabic is ‘araf, but in Levantine it is b‘araf. He also says that “I am in Amioun” in Levantine is “ana bi-Amioun,” while in Arabic it is “Innani fi-Amioun.” I don’t know where he gets that because it is in fact just “ana fi-Amioun.” Since his point is that it changes from bi in Levantine to fi in Arabic, I suppose it does not matter what the first word is, but he makes it seems as though they are different when actually they are the same.
Anyway, I imagine lots of people who have pride in their Arab background will resent what he’s saying. I hope he’s done his homework and can back it up strongly.
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