Languages of Syria

Languages of Syria
Languages of Syria
	Road sign in Syria in Arabic and English
Official	Modern Standard Arabic
Vernacular	Levantine Arabic and Mesopotamian Arabic
Minority	Najdi Arabic, Kurdish, Turkish, Neo-Aramaic and Classical Syriac, Circassian, Chechen, Armenian, Greek, Domari
Foreign	English and French
Signed	Syrian Sign Language
Keyboard layout	Arabic keyboard;

Arabic is the official language of Syria and is the most widely spoken language in the country.^[1]^[2] Several Arabic dialects are used in everyday life, most notably Levantine in the west and Mesopotamian in the northeast. According to The Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, in addition to Arabic, the following languages are spoken in the country, in order of the number of speakers: Kurdish, Turkish, Neo-Aramaic, Circassian, Chechen, Armenian, and Greek, none of which are official.^[1]

Historically, Aramaic was the lingua franca of the region before the advent of Arabic and is still spoken among Assyrians, and Classical Syriac is still used as the liturgical language of various Syriac Christian denominations. Most remarkably, Western Neo-Aramaic is still spoken in the village of Maaloula as well as two neighboring villages, 56 kilometres (35 mi) northeast of Damascus.

Syrian Sign Language is the principal language of the deaf community.

^ ^a ^b Behnstedt, Peter (2008), "Syria", in Versteegh, Kees; Eid, Mushira; Elgibali, Alaa; Woidich, Manfred; Zaborski, Andrzej (eds.), Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, vol. 4, Brill Publishers, p. 402, ISBN 978-90-04-14476-7
^ Etheredge, Laura (2012), Middle East Region in Transition: Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, Britannica Educational Publishing, p. 9, ISBN 978-1615303298