Language
Arabic is the mother tongue of some 90% of Syrians as well as the official state language. The Syrian dialect, which belongs to the same Eastern Mediterranean-Levantine family tree of dialects, varies little from Modern Standard Arabic; however it is uniquely different from the other Arabic vernaculars in that it is saturated with Aramaic, Syriac, Greek, Persian, and Phoenician words. However, the standardized form of Arabic, used in formal settings throughout the Arab world, contains the same vocabulary and grammar for all Arab countries. Kurdish, Turkish, and Circassian are also spoken in Syria by their respective minority communities. A direct descendant of the Aramaic of Jesus Christ, is still spoken in ancient Christian village of Ma'loula as well as widely understood within many other Syrian-Christian communities -- all of whom use Syriac as a liturgical language. English, and to a lesser extent French, is widely understood and used in interactions with tourists and other foreigners.
Read more about this topic: Syrian People
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Translate a book a dozen times from one language to another, and what becomes of its style? Most books would be worn out and disappear in this ordeal. The pen which wrote it is soon destroyed, but the poem survives.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Jargon: any technical language we do not understand.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The reader uses his eyes as well as or instead of his ears and is in every way encouraged to take a more abstract view of the language he sees. The written or printed sentence lends itself to structural analysis as the spoken does not because the reader’s eye can play back and forth over the words, giving him time to divide the sentence into visually appreciated parts and to reflect on the grammatical function.”
—J. David Bolter (b. 1951)