Jordanian Arabic
Encyclopedia
Jordanian Arabic is a set of dialect
s of Levantine Arabic
that are originated in the Jordanian Kingdom
and are spoken by Jordanians
. Jordanian Arabic has a Semitic language
structure, with lexical influence of English, Turkish and French. It is spoken by more than 6 million people, and understood in the Levant
as well as the rest of the Arab World
. As all other Arab countries, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
lives in a state of diglossia
, where Modern Standard Arabic is the official language used in most written documents and the media, while daily conversation is held in different varieties of Jordanian Arabic.
Jordanian Arabic falls into thrree varieties
Note: Rural Jordanian is also spoken in small towns and most of the villages in the Badia region east of Jordan's mountain heights plateau, such as Al-Azraq oasis.
koine . As in many countries English
is being used to substitute many technical words, even though these words have Arabic counterparts in modern standard Arabic.
There is no standard way to write Jordanian Arabic. The sections below use an author-devised transliteration code that could interestingly be replaced with either the IPA or the alphabet used in standard Arabic dialect studies.
There are some phonemes of the Jordanian language that are easily pronounced by English speakers; others are completely foreign to English, making these letters difficult to pronounce.
One syllable of every Jordanian word has more stress than the other syllables of that word. Much meaning is communicated in Jordanian by the location of the stress or the tone of the vowel. This is much truer than in other Western languages. In general, Jordanian has a strong tonal undertone, and vowels transact without any consonants between them, and vice versa; making non-natives find a certain level of difficulty in learning it. For example, the word auaêi (clothes) has 5 vowels without a consonant, it can even be harder once one says my clothes and..., then it becomes auaêií'u", making the speaker pronounce seven vowels in a row with one slightly swallowed vowel. For reference, auaêi is pronounced a-wah-eh-i and auaêií'u" is pronounced: a-wah-eh-i-yi-ew
.
Â, Ê, Û, Î, Ô (â, ê, û, î and ô)* :(while there are different methods of transliterating or pronouncing this difficult character, the best way to pronounce it is to swallow the vowel slightly. Try pulling your tongue back while saying a, as in father in order to achieve Â/â.)
Ā (ā): like 'aa' in "back"
Ä (ä) and Ë (ë)*: a glottal stop
Á (á): Like the 'o' in God
B (b): like 'b' in "bed"
C (c): like 'th' in "think"
Ç (ç): like 'Ch' in "Church"
D (d): like 'd' in "dog"
Ḍ (d)*: This sound has more force than an English 'd'; commonly referred to as "heavy d", hardly spoken in Jordanian.
Ð (đ)*: As the Dh in Abu Dhabi, this is a different sound in Arabic than in Jordanian, most Jordanians will pronounce it as Tz, Z or D."
E (e): like "e" in "Wreck"
É (é): like "é" in Café
F (f): like 'f' in "fox"
G (g): Like 'g' in "Grand"
Ğ (ğ)*: there is no English equivalent of this bizarre letter; the best example could be the French, Hebrew and German 'r'. Another way of pronouncing it is simply not pronouncing it at all and extend the vowels around it, this manner of silent pronunciation is usually found in the İstanbul dialect of Turkish and not in Levantine, but remains as an alternative if one cannot pronounce it. It should be noted that it's never pronounced as G in grand or J in Jam.
Ħ (ħ): There is no English equivalent, this sound is created by tightly constricting the throat muscles as you force air through; commonly referred to as "heavy h". It can be achieved by mimicking blowing a candle wit one's throat.
H (h): like 'h' in "help"
I (ı): Like 'i' in "sit"
İ (i): Like 'ee' in "Feel"
J (j): like 'j' in "jump"
K (k): like 'k' in "kitten"
L (l): like 'l' in "lamb"
M (m): like 'm' in "mother"
N (n): like 'n' in "noon"
O (o): like 'o' in "Pot"
Ö (ö): like 'i' in "bird"
Ō (ō): like 'Oh' in "Oh"
P (p): like 'p' in "pot"
Q (q): this letter is somewhat tricky; western dialects treat it as a glottal stop, an example being the Uh in Uh-Oh, eastern dialects pronounce it as a hard g, similar to G in Grand, while some words that still haven't lost their Arabic meaning pronounce it as a hard K on both dialects; these words are usually religious, similar to the words Qurän or Kaniset ıl Qiamé
.
R (r)*: like 'r' in "red"; this letter unlike the English R, it is slightly rolled; it resembles the R in English in Southern England and that of certain Irish English dilaects. In a few instances it is pronounced as the rolled R in the beginning of many Spanish words but it's not a necessity to roll it in general.
S (s): like 's' in "sing"
Ş (ş): like 'sh' in "sheep"
Ś (ś)* : like 'sc' in the British English word "Fascinating" (this sound has more force than an English 's'; commonly referred to as "heavy s," this is not stressed in Jordanian as in other dialects.) It involves the movement of the back of the tongue.
T (t): like 't' in "top"
Ţ (ṭ)* : like 't' in "taught"; this sound has more force than an English 't'; commonly referred to as "heavy t". This isn't very stressed in Jordanian.
Ü (ü)*: similar to the ew part in Jew, it's produced by rounding the lips as in oo in soon in and saying ee as in see.
U (u): as in OO in "Loose"
W (w): like 'w' in "wow"; there is a slight interchanging between the W and the V in some cases, but in general, most people can distinguish clearly between them due to the English language influence.
V (v): like 'V' in video
X (x)*: like like 'Ch' in Scottish "loch" or German "nach" (this sound is similar to a gargled exasperation, as if someone were clearing his throat)
Y (y): like 'y' in "yes"
Ž (ž): like 'th' in "that"
Z (z): like 'z' in "haze"
by heart but the many influences that developed over the years altered that. Turkic
appears to be one of the main influences on the syntax and structure of the language itself, with many affixes and suffixes attached to a stem-word in order to create the meaning of the noun or the verb; in many cases that means that one written Jordanian word could translate into a big sentence in English.
Il bāb or Il port meaning the door.
è: è in words that start with T, Ţ, D, Ḍ, R, Z, Ž, S, Ş, Ś, and N. L and J varies depending on the dialect.
This è is pronounced as in a rounded short backward vowel or as in an e followed by the first letter of the word that follows the article.
For example: è desk meaning the desk, è Jakét meaning the Jacket, è seks meaning the sex or hāda'è téléfón meaning that is the telephone.
L': This is used when the word starts in a vowel. For example: l'yüniversiti meaning the University, l'üniform meaning the uniform or l'êyen meaning the eye.
'l: In sentence structure, the article definition in Jordanian follows the word usually, so if a word ends in a vowel and the word following it starts with a constant that doesn't require an è then an l is attached to the end of the word. For example: Lámma'l kompyütar pıştağel means when the computer works
ente: You (singular)(male) (Urban Amman Dialect)
enti: You (singular)(female) (Urban Amman Dialect)
entu: You (plural)(male) (Urban Amman Dialect)
enten: You (plural)(female) (Hardly used any more)
huwwe: He (Standard Dialect)
hiyye: She (Urban Amman Dialect)
hiyya: She (Eastern and Southern Dialect)
humme: They (singular)(male) (Urban Amman Dialect)
henne: They (plural)(female) (Hardly used any more)
ıħna: We (Urban Amman Dialect)
Note : The urban Amman dialect is understood by almost everyone in the country and the entire region.
ktāb: book
ktāb-i: my book
ktāb-ak: your book (singular, male)
ktāb-ek: your book (singular, female)
ktāb-kom: your book (plural, male)
ktāb-ken: your book (plural, female, rural or bedouin)
ktāb-o: his book
ktāb-ha: her book
ktāb-hom: their book (plural, male)
ktāb-hen: their book (plural, female rural or bedouin)
ktāb-na: our book
In present perfect and participle with a verb that starts with a consonant Ana becomes ba, Inta becomes 'Pt', Inti becomes Pıt and so-on.
For example: The verb hıb means to love, Pahıb means I love, Pthıb means you love, Pahıbo means I love him, Pıthıbha means she loves her, Pahıbhom means I love them, Pahıbhālí means I love myself.
Qdar is the infinitive form of the verb can. Paqdar means I can, I can't is Paqdareş, adding an eş or and ış to the end of a verb makes it negative; if the word ends in a vowel then a ş should be enough.
An in-depth example of the negation: Paqdarelhomm figuratively means I can handle them, Paqdarelhommeş means I cannot handle them, the same statement meaning can be achieved by Paqdareş l'ıl homm
has a great influence on Jordanian Levantine, depending on the region, English can be a de facto language among many regions, especially the western regions of the country. English also affects many of the vocabulary that Jordanian Levantine originally burrowed from Standard Modern Arabic, in the process, omitting many original Arabic words and replacing them with the English variant. Literary Arabic
is spoken in formal TV programmes and in Modern Standard Arabic classes, it is used to quote poetry and historical phrases. It's also the language used to write/read in formal manners if English wasn't being used. However, Arabic's never spoken during regular conversations, and can prove to be difficult because it removes loan words from English or French origins and replaces them with a proper Standard Arabic derived word/verb. Modern Standard Arabic is taught in most schools and a large number of the Jordanian citizens won't have trouble reading it or listening to it. However, many of the British or the Americans
who reside in Jordan will find it difficult and not understandable compared to Levantine, especially if they didn't attend a school that teaches MSA.
Other influences include: French, Turkish
and Persian.
Their loan words are scattered around, but they're not as frequent as the English ones. Spanish influence is limited with the only influence on Jordanian Levantine being informal words spoken in a casual fashion, such as "Amigo" or "Señorita."
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s of Levantine Arabic
Levantine Arabic
Levantine Arabic is a broad variety of Arabic spoken in the 100 to 200 km-wide Eastern Mediterranean coastal strip...
that are originated in the Jordanian Kingdom
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
and are spoken by Jordanians
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
. Jordanian Arabic has a Semitic language
Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
structure, with lexical influence of English, Turkish and French. It is spoken by more than 6 million people, and understood in the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
as well as the rest of the Arab World
Arab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...
. As all other Arab countries, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
lives in a state of diglossia
Diglossia
In linguistics, diglossia refers to a situation in which two dialects or languages are used by a single language community. In addition to the community's everyday or vernacular language variety , a second, highly codified variety is used in certain situations such as literature, formal...
, where Modern Standard Arabic is the official language used in most written documents and the media, while daily conversation is held in different varieties of Jordanian Arabic.
Sub-dialects of Jordanian Arabic
Although there is a common Jordanian dialect mutually understood by most Jordanians, the daily language spoken throughout the country varies significantly through regions and socio-economical origin. These variants impact altogether pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.Jordanian Arabic falls into thrree varieties
- Urban Jordanian - belonging to the urban variety of the Levantine ArabicLevantine ArabicLevantine Arabic is a broad variety of Arabic spoken in the 100 to 200 km-wide Eastern Mediterranean coastal strip...
language - Rural Jordanian - belonging to the southern rural varieties of the Levantine ArabicLevantine ArabicLevantine Arabic is a broad variety of Arabic spoken in the 100 to 200 km-wide Eastern Mediterranean coastal strip...
language - Bedouin Jordanian - with strong influence of Peninsular arabicPeninsular arabic- Generalities :Peninsular Arabic or arabian arabic is the set of Arabic dialects spoken throughout the Arabian Peninsula. This includes Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, as well as large parts of Iraq, Syria and Jordan....
.
Rural Jordanian
Is spoken by Jordanian villagers and many of the small-city or village-born city dwellers. There are two sub-types of Rural Jordanian:- HauranHauranHauran, , also spelled Hawran or Houran, is a volcanic plateau, a geographic area and a people located in southwestern Syria and extending into the northwestern corner of Jordan. It gets its name from the Aramaic Hawran, meaning "cave land." In geographic and geomorphic terms, its boundaries...
Arabic, spoken in the area north of AmmanAmmanAmman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
between es-SaltSalt, JordanSalt is an ancient agricultural town and administrative centre in west-central Jordan. It is on the old main highway leading from Amman to Jerusalem. Situated in the Balqa highland, about 790–1100 metres above sea level, the town is built in the crook of three hills, close to the Jordan River...
and the Syrian border. It is also spoken in the remaining part of the Hauran area southern Syria. It is part of the southern Levantine ArabicLevantine ArabicLevantine Arabic is a broad variety of Arabic spoken in the 100 to 200 km-wide Eastern Mediterranean coastal strip...
dialect.
- MoabMoabMoab is the historical name for a mountainous strip of land in Jordan. The land lies alongside much of the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by numerous archeological findings, most notably the Mesha Stele, which describes the Moabite victory over...
Arabic, spoken in the area south of AmmanAmmanAmman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
, in cities such as KarakKarakThe term Karak can refer to:* Karak, Pakistan, a city in Pakistan.* Karak District, a district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa previously called , Pakistan....
, TafilahTafilahAt-Tafilah is a town with a population of 39,000 people in southern Jordan, located southwest of Amman. It is the capital of Tafilah Governorate. It is well-known for having green gardens which contain olive and fig trees, and grape-vines...
, Ma'anMa'anMa'an is a town in southern Jordan 218 km away from the capital Amman. It is the capital of Ma'an Governorate. Ma'an has a population of around 50,000. The city had a population of 22,989 in the 1992 census and is estimated as being about 50,000 as of 2007 according to the Ma'an Municipality...
, ShoubakShoubakShoubak is a municipality that lies at the north western edge of the Ma'an Governorate, bordered with Tafilah Governorate and Aqaba Governorate. It has a population of 12500...
and their countrysides. Named so after the antique MoabMoabMoab is the historical name for a mountainous strip of land in Jordan. The land lies alongside much of the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by numerous archeological findings, most notably the Mesha Stele, which describes the Moabite victory over...
kingdom southern JordanJordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, this dialect belongs to the outer southern Levantine ArabicLevantine ArabicLevantine Arabic is a broad variety of Arabic spoken in the 100 to 200 km-wide Eastern Mediterranean coastal strip...
.
Bedouin Jordanian
Is spoken by Jordanian Bedouins mostly in the desert east of the Jordanian mountain heights plateau. Although being that of the royal family, this dialect is not widely used in the urban and rural regions and is considered sometimes hard to understand by most residents there. It is often considered as much truer to the Arabic language, but this is a subjective view that has no scientific background, as can be exemplified by the word stress pattern that is closer to classical Arabic in the urban dialects than in Bedouin Arabic, or the pronounciation of /k/.Note: Rural Jordanian is also spoken in small towns and most of the villages in the Badia region east of Jordan's mountain heights plateau, such as Al-Azraq oasis.
Urban Jordanian
This variety was born after the designation of Amman as capital of the Jordanian kingdom early in the 20th century. It is the result of the merger of the language of populations who moved from Hauran (northern Jordan), Moab (southern Jordan) and Palestine into the new founded city. For this reason, it mixes features of the Arabic varieties spoken by these populations. The emergence of the language occurred under the strong influence of the Rural Jordanian Hauran Arabic.. It is now driven by the influence of the urban Levantine ArabicLevantine Arabic
Levantine Arabic is a broad variety of Arabic spoken in the 100 to 200 km-wide Eastern Mediterranean coastal strip...
koine . As in many countries English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
is being used to substitute many technical words, even though these words have Arabic counterparts in modern standard Arabic.
Pronunciation
The following sections focus on the Urban Jordanian.There is no standard way to write Jordanian Arabic. The sections below use an author-devised transliteration code that could interestingly be replaced with either the IPA or the alphabet used in standard Arabic dialect studies.
There are some phonemes of the Jordanian language that are easily pronounced by English speakers; others are completely foreign to English, making these letters difficult to pronounce.
One syllable of every Jordanian word has more stress than the other syllables of that word. Much meaning is communicated in Jordanian by the location of the stress or the tone of the vowel. This is much truer than in other Western languages. In general, Jordanian has a strong tonal undertone, and vowels transact without any consonants between them, and vice versa; making non-natives find a certain level of difficulty in learning it. For example, the word auaêi (clothes) has 5 vowels without a consonant, it can even be harder once one says my clothes and..., then it becomes auaêií'u", making the speaker pronounce seven vowels in a row with one slightly swallowed vowel. For reference, auaêi is pronounced a-wah-eh-i and auaêií'u" is pronounced: a-wah-eh-i-yi-ew
.
Alphabets
Characters marked by an asterisk (*) are the ones that may prove difficult for English speakers.Â, Ê, Û, Î, Ô (â, ê, û, î and ô)* :(while there are different methods of transliterating or pronouncing this difficult character, the best way to pronounce it is to swallow the vowel slightly. Try pulling your tongue back while saying a, as in father in order to achieve Â/â.)
Ā (ā): like 'aa' in "back"
Ä (ä) and Ë (ë)*: a glottal stop
Á (á): Like the 'o' in God
B (b): like 'b' in "bed"
C (c): like 'th' in "think"
Ç (ç): like 'Ch' in "Church"
D (d): like 'd' in "dog"
Ḍ (d)*: This sound has more force than an English 'd'; commonly referred to as "heavy d", hardly spoken in Jordanian.
Ð (đ)*: As the Dh in Abu Dhabi, this is a different sound in Arabic than in Jordanian, most Jordanians will pronounce it as Tz, Z or D."
E (e): like "e" in "Wreck"
É (é): like "é" in Café
F (f): like 'f' in "fox"
G (g): Like 'g' in "Grand"
Ğ (ğ)*: there is no English equivalent of this bizarre letter; the best example could be the French, Hebrew and German 'r'. Another way of pronouncing it is simply not pronouncing it at all and extend the vowels around it, this manner of silent pronunciation is usually found in the İstanbul dialect of Turkish and not in Levantine, but remains as an alternative if one cannot pronounce it. It should be noted that it's never pronounced as G in grand or J in Jam.
Ħ (ħ): There is no English equivalent, this sound is created by tightly constricting the throat muscles as you force air through; commonly referred to as "heavy h". It can be achieved by mimicking blowing a candle wit one's throat.
H (h): like 'h' in "help"
I (ı): Like 'i' in "sit"
İ (i): Like 'ee' in "Feel"
J (j): like 'j' in "jump"
K (k): like 'k' in "kitten"
L (l): like 'l' in "lamb"
M (m): like 'm' in "mother"
N (n): like 'n' in "noon"
O (o): like 'o' in "Pot"
Ö (ö): like 'i' in "bird"
Ō (ō): like 'Oh' in "Oh"
P (p): like 'p' in "pot"
Q (q): this letter is somewhat tricky; western dialects treat it as a glottal stop, an example being the Uh in Uh-Oh, eastern dialects pronounce it as a hard g, similar to G in Grand, while some words that still haven't lost their Arabic meaning pronounce it as a hard K on both dialects; these words are usually religious, similar to the words Qurän or Kaniset ıl Qiamé
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also called the Church of the Resurrection by Eastern Christians, is a church within the walled Old City of Jerusalem. It is a few steps away from the Muristan....
.
R (r)*: like 'r' in "red"; this letter unlike the English R, it is slightly rolled; it resembles the R in English in Southern England and that of certain Irish English dilaects. In a few instances it is pronounced as the rolled R in the beginning of many Spanish words but it's not a necessity to roll it in general.
S (s): like 's' in "sing"
Ş (ş): like 'sh' in "sheep"
Ś (ś)* : like 'sc' in the British English word "Fascinating" (this sound has more force than an English 's'; commonly referred to as "heavy s," this is not stressed in Jordanian as in other dialects.) It involves the movement of the back of the tongue.
T (t): like 't' in "top"
Ţ (ṭ)* : like 't' in "taught"; this sound has more force than an English 't'; commonly referred to as "heavy t". This isn't very stressed in Jordanian.
Ü (ü)*: similar to the ew part in Jew, it's produced by rounding the lips as in oo in soon in and saying ee as in see.
U (u): as in OO in "Loose"
W (w): like 'w' in "wow"; there is a slight interchanging between the W and the V in some cases, but in general, most people can distinguish clearly between them due to the English language influence.
V (v): like 'V' in video
X (x)*: like like 'Ch' in Scottish "loch" or German "nach" (this sound is similar to a gargled exasperation, as if someone were clearing his throat)
Y (y): like 'y' in "yes"
Ž (ž): like 'th' in "that"
Z (z): like 'z' in "haze"
Grammar
The grammar in Jordanian is quite the mixture. Much like Hebrew and Arabic, Jordanian is a Semitic languageSemitic languages
The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...
by heart but the many influences that developed over the years altered that. Turkic
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
appears to be one of the main influences on the syntax and structure of the language itself, with many affixes and suffixes attached to a stem-word in order to create the meaning of the noun or the verb; in many cases that means that one written Jordanian word could translate into a big sentence in English.
Article Definitions
IL: is used in most words that don't start with a vowel in the beginning of a sentence.Il bāb or Il port meaning the door.
è: è in words that start with T, Ţ, D, Ḍ, R, Z, Ž, S, Ş, Ś, and N. L and J varies depending on the dialect.
This è is pronounced as in a rounded short backward vowel or as in an e followed by the first letter of the word that follows the article.
For example: è desk meaning the desk, è Jakét meaning the Jacket, è seks meaning the sex or hāda'è téléfón meaning that is the telephone.
L': This is used when the word starts in a vowel. For example: l'yüniversiti meaning the University, l'üniform meaning the uniform or l'êyen meaning the eye.
'l: In sentence structure, the article definition in Jordanian follows the word usually, so if a word ends in a vowel and the word following it starts with a constant that doesn't require an è then an l is attached to the end of the word. For example: Lámma'l kompyütar pıştağel means when the computer works
Pronouns
ana: I (singular)(male)(female) (Urban Amman Dialect)ente: You (singular)(male) (Urban Amman Dialect)
enti: You (singular)(female) (Urban Amman Dialect)
entu: You (plural)(male) (Urban Amman Dialect)
enten: You (plural)(female) (Hardly used any more)
huwwe: He (Standard Dialect)
hiyye: She (Urban Amman Dialect)
hiyya: She (Eastern and Southern Dialect)
humme: They (singular)(male) (Urban Amman Dialect)
henne: They (plural)(female) (Hardly used any more)
ıħna: We (Urban Amman Dialect)
Note : The urban Amman dialect is understood by almost everyone in the country and the entire region.
Possessiveness
Similar to ancient and modern semitic languages, Jordanian adds a suffix to a word for possession.ktāb: book
ktāb-i: my book
ktāb-ak: your book (singular, male)
ktāb-ek: your book (singular, female)
ktāb-kom: your book (plural, male)
ktāb-ken: your book (plural, female, rural or bedouin)
ktāb-o: his book
ktāb-ha: her book
ktāb-hom: their book (plural, male)
ktāb-hen: their book (plural, female rural or bedouin)
ktāb-na: our book
General Sentence Structure
In a sentence, the pronouns change into prefixes to adjust to the verb, its time and its doer.In present perfect and participle with a verb that starts with a consonant Ana becomes ba, Inta becomes 'Pt', Inti becomes Pıt and so-on.
For example: The verb hıb means to love, Pahıb means I love, Pthıb means you love, Pahıbo means I love him, Pıthıbha means she loves her, Pahıbhom means I love them, Pahıbhālí means I love myself.
Qdar is the infinitive form of the verb can. Paqdar means I can, I can't is Paqdareş, adding an eş or and ış to the end of a verb makes it negative; if the word ends in a vowel then a ş should be enough.
An in-depth example of the negation: Paqdarelhomm figuratively means I can handle them, Paqdarelhommeş means I cannot handle them, the same statement meaning can be achieved by Paqdareş l'ıl homm
Legal Status and Writing Systems
The Jordanian Levantine isn't regarded as the official language even though it is completely different from the actual official languages of English, French and Arabic, or even the colloquial Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). A large number of Jordanians however will call their language "Arabic" while they will refer to the original Arabic Language as Fusħa. This is almost the case in many countries that speak languages or dialects derived from Arabic and can prove to be quite confusing. The writing system varies, whenever a book is published, it's usually published in English, French, or in Eloquent Arabic and not in Levantine. There are many writing systems of Levantine, the most common would be the scholastic Jordanian Latin alphabet system which uses many accents to distinguish between the letters and has been used in this article. However, the fact that other Levant countries use their own alphabet and transliteration causes many inconveniences.External Influences
British EnglishBritish English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
has a great influence on Jordanian Levantine, depending on the region, English can be a de facto language among many regions, especially the western regions of the country. English also affects many of the vocabulary that Jordanian Levantine originally burrowed from Standard Modern Arabic, in the process, omitting many original Arabic words and replacing them with the English variant. Literary Arabic
Literary Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic , Standard Arabic, or Literary Arabic is the standard and literary variety of Arabic used in writing and in most formal speech....
is spoken in formal TV programmes and in Modern Standard Arabic classes, it is used to quote poetry and historical phrases. It's also the language used to write/read in formal manners if English wasn't being used. However, Arabic's never spoken during regular conversations, and can prove to be difficult because it removes loan words from English or French origins and replaces them with a proper Standard Arabic derived word/verb. Modern Standard Arabic is taught in most schools and a large number of the Jordanian citizens won't have trouble reading it or listening to it. However, many of the British or the Americans
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
who reside in Jordan will find it difficult and not understandable compared to Levantine, especially if they didn't attend a school that teaches MSA.
Other influences include: French, Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
and Persian.
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
Their loan words are scattered around, but they're not as frequent as the English ones. Spanish influence is limited with the only influence on Jordanian Levantine being informal words spoken in a casual fashion, such as "Amigo" or "Señorita."
See also
- Jordan Academy of ArabicJordan Academy of ArabicThe Jordan Academy of Arabic is one of the Arabic language regulators based in Amman, Jordan. Besides the Jordan Academy of Arabic, there are 10 other Arabic language and literature regulators in the world...
- JordanJordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
- AmmanAmmanAmman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
- English-based creole languagesEnglish-based creole languagesAn English-based creole language is a creole language that was significantly influenced by the English language...