Languages
Native
Arabic (Lebanese)
95%
Secondary languages
French
45%
English
40%
Language Samples
مرحبا، كيفك؟
Marhaba, kifak?
Hello, how are you?
منيح، شكراً كتير.
Mnee7, shukran kteer.
Fine, thank you very much.
واحد، تنين، تلاتة، أربعة، خمسة، ستة، سبعة، تمانية، تسعة، عشرة.
Wahed, tnein, tleta, arba'a, khamse, sitte, sab'a, tmene, tis'a, 'ashara.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Linguistic History
Lebanese Arabic is a Levantine dialect with heavy French influence — a legacy of the French Mandate (1920–1943). Lebanon is unique in that its educated population routinely code-switches between Arabic, French, and English within the same conversation, a phenomenon known locally as 'Arabizi'. Ancient Phoenicia occupied the same territory, and the Phoenician alphabet — developed in cities like Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre — is the ancestor of Greek, Latin, and through Arabic script, the broader Semitic writing tradition. Aramaic was spoken here before Arabic arrived in the 7th century.
Similar Languages
Hebrew
58%
Aramaic
35%
French
12%
Amharic
22%
Media
The Temple of Bacchus at Baalbek, one of the best-preserved Roman temples in the world
Photo: Jan Hilgers · CC BY-SA 3.0
Did You Know
01
Lebanon's Byblos (Jbeil) is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and gave the Greek word 'Byblos' — the origin of the word 'Bible'.
02
The Phoenician alphabet invented in ancient Lebanon is the ancestor of virtually every alphabet in use today, including Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew.
03
Lebanese Arabic is distinct in that numbers 11–19 are often said in French ('onze', 'douze'...) in everyday speech.