Wiktionary:About Levantine Arabic

Welcome and thank you for contributing to Levantine Arabic on Wiktionary! There are two Levantine Arabic variants: North Levantine Arabic (mainly Lebanon and Syria) and South Levantine Arabic (mainly Palestine and Jordan).

Creating an entry
A standard entry for South Levantine Arabic should include a certain set of basic information, depending on the type of entry.

Preamble
Dividing line. Language name. Root box.

Alternative Forms
If applicable, describe the setting in which the form occurs (see, , ).

Etymology
Insert the MSA word to which the term is related, if applicable. Otherwise avoid this section, unless you know what you're doing.

Etymology
From.

Optionally the synchronic etymology (derivation within Levantine itself) can be specified by following templates: Derived from verbs: << active participle << passive participle << verbal noun << intensive adjective (ending in -ān such as عطشان (ʕatšān), حزنان (ḥaznān) etc.)

Derived from nouns: << nisba adjective (ending in -i)

Pronunciation
(Mandatory) Insert the transliterated word in the first blank and the phonemic transcription in IPA characters will be automatically generated. (Optional) In the second blank, the phonetic transcription is written; this is where the actual realization of the phonemes is specified. Don't employ this section altogether if you are unsure of the exact realization of the term. If there is just one mainstream realization of the word, no qualifier is needed (the generic Urban dialect of Jerusalem or Amman is assumed). If there is more than one mainstream realization (this is often the case with ق), specify the settings in which each pronunciation is encountered: Urban, Rural, Bedouin & Druze are acceptable qualifiers. (Note that "Bedouin" includes the adopted realization of ق as [ɡ] by men in Urban Jordan.)

Pronunciation

 * << minimum; mandatory
 * << optional; caution
 * << epenthetic vowel
 * << slight variants
 * << if multiple realizations are possible

Head Word (Verb)
Form, Transliteration, Present Tense (& Transliteration), Active Participle (& Transliteration). Previously we included the Subjunctive (& Transliteration), but this is now being discontinued from the entries; if you see it, remove it.

Verb
Page titles never include diacritics, including shadde. While we don't employ most diacritics for South Levantine entries, we do use shadde. Head words with shadde or other necessary diacritics should be formatted with "head=" (see ).

Sometimes the same term could be conjugated in two different ways; this is one case where diacritics would be used to distinguish between alternatives marked by "head=" (see ).

Definition
The actual definition is the bare minimum. However, the following — in this order — can help add detail to the entry: Label (intransitive, transitive, ditransitive, reflexive, reciprocal; formal, informal, slang, vulgar; by extension). DEFINITION. Gloss: further clarifies the definition. Preposition: usually after the definition, but written before if it changes the meaning of the term altogether (see ). Usage Example. Synonyms & Antonyms.
 * 1)  to do ...
 * << if you want the example in a single line
 * << if you want the example in a single line

Post-Definition
All optional, except for conjugations in the case of verbs. Write in this order: Usage Notes; Conjugation(s) (see ); Derived Terms, Related Terms.

Usage notes

 * If you want to mention any other Arabic term, always use . If you're mentioning the headword itself, use.

Alternative Forms
Alternative forms ideally should have their own entries, but the information they should contain is more limited, since most of the information should be supplied by the main entry. They should include: Pronunciation; Head Word; Definition (see below); Conjugation. See the following example, from.

Verb

 * 1)  << if it's just a different spelling
 * 2)  << if it's a variation of the word (e.g. zawwaj vs. jawwaz are variations of the same word)

Etymology
From.

Phrasal Verbs
Rare, but should be formatted according to this template:

Etymology
From + ; literally, "...".

Verb
<< make sure each individual term links to its main entry


 * 1) to ...

<< this ensures the entry is categorized with other verbs despite using the ajp|phrase tag.

Other Types of Entries (Adjectives, Nouns, etc.)
Using the Verb format above, creating other types of entries is even simpler. In addition to the minimum (the Etymology, if known; the Pronunciation; the Definition), the only difference is the documentation for the head word itself. Here are the most common ones:

Etymology
From.

Adjective
(f=feminine form; cpl=plural form; el=comparative form)


 * 1) definition

Etymology
From.

Noun
(g=gender, m/f; pl=plural) OR: (Singulative) OR: (Collective)

See ajp-noun for more complex cases.
 * 1) definition

Etymology
From.

Noun

 * 1)  < if the meaning of the plural is the exact same as the singular
 * : ... < if the meaning of the plural is derived from the singular, but the English translation is another word

or

Noun

 * 1) definition
 * 1) definition

Root

 * 1) Related to difference or change

Verbs and verb forms

 * Form I:
 * Form II:
 * Verbal Noun:
 * Form V:
 * Verbal Noun:

Multi-term entries
Some pages will have more than one term for South Levantine Arabic, namely when they are spelled the same without diacritics. Here is the correct hierarchy of entries: When you want to link to an entry on a page with more than one entry, it will be necessary to link the correct entry by marking the target as follows: ON TARGET PAGE:
 * 1) Function Word (Preposition, Conjunction, Determiner, Particle, Pronoun, Suffix)
 * 2) Verb << Form 1 first, Form 2 second, etc.
 * 3) Active Participle
 * 4) Passive Participle
 * 5) Noun << whether it may be an AP, PP or VN etymologically, if it's classified as a noun it should be here.
 * 6) Adjective << same thing.
 * 7) Interjection

Etymology 2
<< TARGET ENTRY

ON ORIGIN PAGE: << you can add id= virtually anywhere to link to the correct target.

VALID IDs: v1 = Form 1 v2 = Form 2 ... v10 = Form 10 ap = Active Participle pp = Passive Participle adj = Adjective noun = Noun << basically use the template name for the remaining parts of speech. —> if the existence of more than one headword is a matter of diacritics, you can id them according to their transliteration (e.g. id=mara for the headword meaning "woman" vs. id=marra for the headword meaning "instance")

Orthography
There is no standard for the orthography of Spoken Arabic. On Wiktionary, we try to represent widespread forms. Sometimes this means opting for phonetic spellings, while at other times it means opting for the MSA-influenced orthography that native speakers commonly use. For instance, it is rare for ق to be pronounced /q/, yet the letter tends to be written as such. On the other hand, ث is usually pronounced and written as ت. Again, what it important is that we use the most widespread and commonly-used forms.

Transcription
Transcription is the means by which we indicate the pronunciation of a term in the Latin script. It is not the same as transliteration, which indicates the orthographic value of a letter. For instance, a transliteration of قال would be "qāl"; however, the correct transcription is "ʔāl" because this is the mainstream pronunciation of this letter. While there is no single normative pronunciation of many different terms and letters in Levantine Arabic, the Wiktionary entries for South Levantine Arabic are featuring the mainstream urban dialect of Jerusalem, which is largely equivalent to that of Amman as well. On the other hand, several IPA transcriptions of a single term are permissible; here is where we can feature variations in pronunciation.