Wikipedia:Peer review/Levantine Arabic/archive2

Levantine Arabic

Previous peer review

I've listed this article for peer review in hopes of bringing it to featured article status. Together with @SarahFatimaK: we improved the article and after a first peer review we brought it to WP:Good article status.

I've already reviewed one FAC but this article would be my first FAC. So any and all feedback would be appreciated (copyediting, content, structure...).

FYI, the 4 other featured articles about a language (or language family) are: Black American Sign Language, Mayan languages, Nafanan language and Nahuatl.

Thanks, A455bcd9 (talk) 11:26, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Comments from delldot

Thanks for inviting me to review! Just getting started.

• I think for the intro it would be good to introduce the concept that there's not just one type of Arabic, there's x number of main ones, and Levantine is one of them. Then get into the list of places it's spoken. Maybe list the other main ones too if that's not too much detail.

I'm skeptical about this point. As explained in the article: The linguistic distance between Arabic vernaculars (including Levantine) is as large as that between the Germanic languages and the Romance languages (including Romanian), if not larger. So I don't think it makes sense to mention other Arabic varieties in the summary. Similarly, French and Spanish are not mentioned in the introduction of the Romanian language article. We already say that Levantine is one of several "vernacular Arabic varieties": I think it's enough as this point is only briefly mentioned in "Classification" A455bcd9 (talk) 16:03, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh, sure, I'm not telling you what to say, but rather that it may be necessary to be more introductory and to make the language more straightforward and less academic. We're trying to write for a wide variety of people, I mean we don't have to make it accessible to like children, but say someone who is writing a high school essay with no background on the topic. So I kind of imagine some of our readers might be today years old and learning that all Arabic speakers can't understand every other dialect. Which as you say, you do explain in the 'linguistic distance' sentence, so that's great. But I'm not sure everyone will know what linguistic distance is so I would put in plainer language. delldot ∇. 20:25, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

On making the language less academic: as my native language is French I realize that I use more words of French origin. These words sound "normal" to me but as the article explains they sound "posh, elaborate, sophisticated, or pretentious" and "colder, more technical, and more medical or scientific" in English... I need to pay more attention to that.

In this particular case, do you have any recommendation to make the language more straightforward? Because the status of Arabic vernacular varieties is controversial (is Levantine an accent, a dialect, a language or a group of accents, dialects, languages...) I simply used the same language as the one present in sources to avoid any problem. A455bcd9 (talk) 10:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• This sentence is kind of odd and hard to understand: ..."dominant (prestigeful) dialect centres of gravity for Spoken Arabic".

 Done

• I think it would help to simplify some of the language, e.g. " in the frame of the general diglossia status of the Arab world". IIRC even if you link a jargony term, it's recommended to define it in the article as well so people don't have to leave the page.

 Done

• You want the lead to summarize the whole article, so should add a sentence or something about each section, of course you'll need to use your judgement about the really detailed stuff like phonemes because you don't want much detail in the lead. But history for example should be summarized.

I've just edited the lead and it should now summarize the whole article. Regarding the history section, I'm still working it, it's quite hard as there's no consensus among scholars. Even worse, Lentin wrote in his conclusion of "Arabic Historical Dialectology: The Levant": "It has probably become clear from the preceding pages that the challenging project of writing even an outline history of the Levantine dialects is currently unachievable, and one fears that it will remain an elusive goal for some time to come for various reasons, some of which have been described in detail."... A455bcd9 (talk) 16:03, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes that's fine! If there's no consensus, that can be what the summary conveys. delldot ∇. 02:06, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm gonna have to run now and do this in installments. I'm not on here much these days but if you leave me a note on my talk I'll get an email about it. delldot ∇. 20:46, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Delldot makes good points all. Looking now Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:23, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Next installment!

• Is 'attested' jargon that could be defined more? Or what is meant by "It is attested that Aramaic was..." and "an unattested common ancestor"?

I removed "It is attested that" as it was useless. Regarding the "unattested" common ancestor that's what the source says: "Classical Arabic and all of the other varieties mentioned above developed from an unattested common ancestor conventionally called Proto-Arabic." I don't know what to do here. A455bcd9 (talk) 10:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• Could you define or use a simpler word for 'phonology'?

"pronunciation" works here and is simpler. A455bcd9 (talk) 10:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• I believe people in FAC object to overusing 'may' and 'can' in favor of more concise, less uncertain language. e.g. 'They may also simply call their spoken language...' and 'Alternatively, they may identify their language...'

I removed most 'may' and 'can'. A455bcd9 (talk) 10:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Oops gotta go, more later. delldot ∇. 02:06, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Comments from Cas Liber

Looking now:

• The article is very long - recommend trimming or moving some information to daughter or parent articles.

The prose size is currently 60kb, with 9,574 words, with seems to be the higher limit per WP:SIZERULE. Should I aim for 50k? A455bcd9 (talk)

Readable prose size now 57 kB (9183 words) (after I moved most of the classification section to Classification of Arabic languages. A455bcd9 (talk)

Now 53 kB (8530 words) A455bcd9 (talk)

Even less now: 52 kB / 8366 words ("readable prose size"). Is it still too long? A455bcd9 (talk) 19:46, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Readable prose size: 50kb/8k words after I created Levantine Arabic vocabulary. A455bcd9 (talk) 16:25, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

• Try to avoid 1-2 sentence paras if possible.

• In Lebanon, Said Akl led a movement... - you need a descriptor for this person to establish why we are reading his opinion and in what context. "Lebanese literary figure/playwright/poet"...?

 Done

• Same with Robert Hetzron

 Done

• Indeed, Semitic languages were confined - why "indeed" here?

 Done (the reason was: "The genealogical position of Arabic within the group of the Semitic languages has long been a problem" because "Semitic languages were confined in a relatively small geographic area".)

• Much of the Classification section is about Arabic's relationship as a whole with other semitic languages and would be more appropriate for the Arabic article, with a much smaller mention here, particlarly given the size of the article (Paragraph 2 down to (but not including) the para starting "The position of Levantine...". could be moved wholesale to parent article)

 Done

Comments from Onceinawhile

Thanks for your work on this A455bcd9 and SarahFatimaK. The section that needs the most work is the History section. The section needs to incorporate the nuances around the history of the language. Like all languages prior to the rise of (and construction of) modern nations, there was no single standarized Arabic, Aramaic or and other Semitic language. The whole world was one large dialect continuum.

The section is currently written to suggest that all these people used to speak Aramaic and then suddenly they switched to Arabic when the Muslims turned up, as if the language of Cyrus the Great was replaced overnight the language of Muhammad. The reality of course is that Arabic and Aramaic are cousins with many similarities, and that the Aramaic dialect of the Southern Levant (the southern dialect of Aramaic) and the Arabic dialect of the Southern Levant (the northern dialect of Arabic) would have had even more similarities. The transition into what is today called "Levantine Arabic" took place over a long period of time, as a descendent of both these wider Semitic language groups.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote an interesting (and controversial) essay on this a couple of years ago: "No, Levantine is not a “dialect of” Arabic". I don't particularly warm to his apparent anti-Arab undertones, but the points he is making are meaningful. It generated a lot of discussion, e.g. this thread with Marijn van Putten, this thread with Slavomír Čéplö and this this from Lameen Souag. There is little debate on the core arguments, just a semantic argument about what does the word "dialect" mean and what does the term "Arabic" mean, and an argument about what % of the substrate / superstrate is Aramaic / Arabic. Some deeper scholarly research on the topic:

• Ibrahim Bassal. “Hebrew and Aramaic Substrata in Spoken Palestinian Arabic.” Mediterranean Language Review, vol. 19, Harrassowitz Verlag, 2012, pp. 85–104, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13173/medilangrevi.19.2012.0085.
• Mila Neishtadt (2015-01-01). "The Lexical Component in the Aramaic Substrate of Palestinian Arabic". Semitic Languages in Contact. BRILL. doi:10.1163/9789004300156_016.
• Michael Erdman, 2017, From Language to Patois and Back Again: Syriac Influences on Arabic in Mont Liban during the 16th to 19th Centuries
• Lentin, Jerome (2018). "The Levant". Arabic Historical Dialectology: Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Approaches. Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics. OUP Oxford. pp. 170–205. ISBN 978-0-19-100506-0.
• Alexander Magidow, 2013, Towards a Sociohistorical Reconstruction of Pre-Islamic Arabic Dialect Diversity (PhD Thesis)

I apologize that this is not an easy comment to deal with, but it is a fascinating subject and almost certainly the most intriguing part of the overall topic. Onceinawhile (talk) 03:54, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Onceinawhile:,

Thanks a lot for your comment.

Yes, the History section needs some work.

However, I don't understand how you can say that: "The section is currently written to suggest that all these people used to speak Aramaic and then suddenly they switched to Arabic when the Muslims turned up" According to this section, Arabic (or more specifically a "colloquial language [] related to later Classical Arabic") cohabitated in the region with Aramaic before the Muslim conquest. And after the conquest, Aramaic "gradually declined and nearly disappeared" but that "the language shift from Aramaic to Arabic was not a sudden switch from one language to another, but a long process over several generations, likely with an extended period of bilingualism. Some communities, such as the Samaritans, retained Aramaic well into the Muslim period, and a few small Aramaic-speaking villages remained."

In the "Aramaic substrate" section there's also: "Aramaic is still spoken in some villages and the presence of Aramaic in the Levantine Arabic dialects increases the closer one gets to these villages."

The opposite of what you said is literally written ("suddenly they switched" vs "not a sudden switch"). I feel like it is exactly what you want to see. Did I misunderstand something?

Taleb's article is interesting. I initially cited him in the article but I removed him after the reviewer mentioned—rightly in my opinion—during the first peer-review that: "Taleb is fringe for linguistics and might be pushing a line designed to place Lebanese outside of Arabic, which somewhat recalls the attempts to argue for Phoenician origins for Maltese and Lebanese based, in reality, purely on shared Christian identities. The comparative illustration is not relevant to the topic, which is the position of Arabic generally within Semitic. I'd find a linguist who makes the same point or cut Taleb."

For what it's worth, we discussed this very Wikipedia article with Nassim two months ago: enjoy his prose! ;)

Among the five articles you mentioned, Neishtadt, Lentin, and Bassal are already widely cited in the article. I haven't read Erdman and Magidow: will do now, thanks for the recommendation. A455bcd9 (talk) 08:54, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi Antoine, that is excellent. Fascinating to see that you have engaged with Taleb... Boynamedsue is absolutely right that he is fringe for linguistics. I will revert in detail on your other points. Onceinawhile (talk) 14:33, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi,

Magidow was a great idea: thanks again! I used it (and other sources) to create two new subsections "Pre-Islamic antiquity" and "Muslim conquest of the Levant" to better explain the linguistic situation before and after the Conquest. Please let me know your opinion. A455bcd9 (talk) 15:32, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

While we are talking scholarly sources, you might also like to take a look at this reference work: Barbot, M. (1981). Évolution de l'Arabe contemporain: Bibliographie d'arabe moderne et du Levant. Publications de la Sorbonne: Série "N.S. Recherches." (in French). Librairie d'Amérique et d'Orient.

It might allow for a short section on the history of the study of the topic. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:10, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, doesn't seem to be available online or in a library near me though... A455bcd9 (talk) 20:16, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

I have written some more detailed comments below:

Classification

• This section includes three significant areas where we are stating there is no consensus amongst scholars (Arabic within Semitic, vernaculars within Arabic and how the diglossia came about). There should be sentence at the start of the section summarizing this across the piece, and a similar sentence in the lead.

I added in the lead The lack of written sources in Levantine makes it impossible to determine its history before the modern period.. I don't understand why we need a sentence at the start of the section to summarize it as well. Is it a common practice? What kind of sentence would you recommend? A455bcd9 (talk) 16:30, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• There is quite a lot of overlap between the history section and the classification section. Not sure how best to structure this to remove the overlap.

I don't know either...

The section is now shorter and I don't think it overlaps anymore with the history section. A455bcd9 (talk) 17:28, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• "There is no consensus regarding the genealogical position of Arabic within Semitic languages."

==> This needs further explanation, and ideally a cross-reference to the history section.

The article was long and Cas Liber recommended to move these explanations to a dedicated article: Classification of Arabic languages.

• "According to the Arabic linguistic and intellectual tradition, Classical Arabic was the spoken language of the pre- and Early Islamic period and remained stable to today's Modern Standard Arabic."

==> The words “remained stable” could be improved. CA and MSA are not the same thing.

==> We mention that the “tradition” is that “Classical Arabic was the spoken language of the pre- and Early Islamic period”. We should state that (assuming sourceable) we use the word tradition because it is unprovable / unknown what the actual spoken language was. And we should state the geographic locations that this sentence relates to

According to BIRNSTIEL: "Classical (or “High”) Arabic was long regarded as the language of the extant pre- and Early Islamic, orally transmitted literary corpora. These comprise pre-Islamic poetry, the ‘tales of the ancient Arabs’ (ʔaxbaːr al-ʕarab), the Qurʔaːn and the reports concerning Muhammad and the early Muslim community. In this view, the central feature of Classi- cal Arabic is its continuity and stability from the earliest attestation in pre-Islamic poetry to its modern-day manifestation in the shape of Modern Standard Arabic. It corresponds largely to the view espoused by the Arabic linguistic and intellectual tradition but has also found its share of adherents among Western scholars"

According to this view, Classical Arabic and MSA are the same thing. I added a note.

We don't use the word tradition because it is unprovable but because this is "the view espoused by the Arabic linguistic and intellectual tradition". Many scholars actually proved that this view was wrong as explained later in the paragraph. A455bcd9 (talk) 16:30, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• "This shows that these varieties of Arabic cannot have developed from Classical Arabic."

==> Are we saying that this is the view of modern scholarship, in contrast to the “tradition”. If so, this should be merged with the next sentence to make it clearer.

I modified, is it clearer now?

• "Classical Arabic is a sister language to other varieties of Arabic rather than their direct ancestor. Classical Arabic and all other varieties, including Levantine, developed from an unattested common ancestor conventionally called Proto-Arabic or Early Arabic."

==> Here we seem to be saying that Levantine (and others) did not descend from MSA/CA but they did descend (only) from “Arabic”. Whereas the previous sentences imply partial descent from other Semitic dialects (presumably Canaanite / Aramaic dialects). This should be made clearer.

==> You might mention the process of Koineization thought to have to led to this. Another Al Jallad source might be useful here: The Polygenesis of the Neo-Arabic Dialects

Al Jallad's article you cite is from 2009. In his 2020 manual he writes: "In the past, most scholars regarded Classical Arabic, the literary language of Arabo- Islamic civilization, as the ancestor of all other members of this family. Yet in the wake of epigraphic research beginning in the 19th century and the serious study of the modern vernaculars on their own terms, it is clear that Classical Arabic is a sister language to other forms of Arabic rather than their direct ancestor. Classical Arabic and all of the other varieties mentioned above developed from an unattested common ancestor conventionally called Proto-Arabic."

The current version of the article seems to clearly describe the consensus among scholars. A455bcd9 (talk) 17:05, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• "There is no consensus among scholars whether Arabic diglossia (between Classical Arabic, also called "Old Arabic" and Arabic vernaculars, also called "New Arabic" or "Neo-Arabic") was the result of the Islamic conquests and due to the influence of non-Arabic languages or whether is was already the natural state in 7th-century Arabia (which means that both types coexisted in the pre-Islamic period)."

==> This is an interesting point but I am not convinced it is directly related to Levantine Arabic as a topic. The sentence seems to be a very complicated way of saying “we don’t know whether the 7th century Hijazis spoke exactly the same language that they wrote the Quran in”.

You're right, I removed this paragraph. A455bcd9 (talk) 17:05, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

• You might bring out the comparison with Latin-European vs MSA-Levantine. This is widely made in scholarship [1][2][3]

I often discuss with Kamusella, when he (and others) makes this comparison it's about the status and usage of Latin, not about the genealogical relationship between Latin and Romance languages, as Levantine doesn't descend from MSA (whereas French does descend from Latin). I therefore added this comparison to "Status and usage > Diglossia"

• You might bring out the fact that some minor sources claim the language is not a form of Arabic but a Semitic language in its own right, but perhaps highlight that if that was the case then none of the vernaculars in the Arab world would be able to be classified as Arabic either as Levantine is the closest to the MSA / CA.

I prefer not to because as you say, these are minor sources (WP:UNDUE). Also, as this point concerns all vernacular varieties, it could be addressed in the parent article (Classification of Arabic languages).

Ethnicity and religion

• "Levantine Arabic is primarily spoken by Arabs."

==> This sentence is circular, since the primary identification of a person as an “Arab” is their first language being Arabic.

As explained in this section there are many people whose first language is Arabic and who do not define themselves as Arabs. So what would you recommend?

Pre-Islamic antiquity

• "Starting in the first millennium BCE, Aramaic was both the dominant spoken language and the language of writing and administration in the Levant."

==> Need to explain the relationship with the Canaanite languages. You also might mention somewhere that Aramaic literally means Syrian, and that there is scholarly uncertainty as to what Aramaic really was.

Shouldn't these points be addressed in the Aramaic article rather than here? This was not mentioned in centered sources I read.

• "In the early first century CE, Arabic was already spoken in the Levant, as attested by the Itureans or Roman Emperors of Syrian origin Philip the Arab and Elagabalus."

==> Needs an explanation of what the term “Arab” or “Arabia” meant in Roman writings; most of these attestations referred to people or places rather than language, and what the term meant then was not the same as in the modern day.

Centered sources I read did not mention this so it seems to be WP:UNDUE.

• The subsections Northern Old Arabic and Spread of Old Hijazi might be best merged within this subsection

I tried something here, not sure it's optimal though, feedback welcome. A455bcd9 (talk) 11:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Muslim conquest of the Levant

• "With the Muslim conquest of the Levant, the region became the new home of Arabic speakers originating from the Arabian Peninsula."

==> Two separate points here. (1) In the previous section we have stated that Arabic was first attested in the Syrian steppe. So how did this exact same language make its way down to Hijaz? (2) “the region became the new home of Arabic speakers” should not imply that they became the majority of the population in the Levant - ideally we would find a source which estimates a %age of the post-conquest Levantine population who originated from the Hijaz. It surely must have been a very small %.

==> This 2012 article by Edward Lipiński: Arabic Linguistics: A Historiographic Overview, pages 34-37, may be useful here.

I removed the part about the Syrian steppe being the first region where Arabic was attested because it was only present in Al Jallad's PhD thesis (which is not available online) and this doesn't appear in his more recent papers (unless I missed something!), and as you said it was contradicting the other statement.

Yes it was probably a small percentage. I rewrote the sentence to make it more clear. A455bcd9 (talk) 11:53, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

• "Greek speakers fled"

==> What proportion of the Greek speakers fled? Was this a significant movement? I have always understood that Greek continued to be used in the region among some groups for centuries after.

From Magidow, 2013: "The Arab conquests of the Levant would have primarily acted to wipe out the Greek speaking presence, as Greek speakers and those who had strong affiliations with the Byzantines, fled from the Islamic conquerers and moved into areas still held by the Byzatines." I understand "wipe out" as 80+% left? And yet as you said there are still Greeks in Syria so some may have stayed or come back later. I removed these three words as it's unclear and not necessary.

Agreed. See also Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem. All of these communities are "Arabs" today, almost certainly due to language shift. Plus there will undoubtedly be many within the Levantine Muslim community who were descendent from Greek converts. I think Magidow's language is loose and implies more than is known. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:38, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• "The language shift from Aramaic to Arabic was a long process over several generations, with an extended period of bilingualism, especially among non-Muslims."

==> Surely the shift was from Aramaic to an early form of Levantine Arabic, not to Classical Arabic. Perhaps worth making the distinction between spoken and written language here. The written language did of course shift to Classical Arabic. Regarding the spoken language, the key question, which I believe is subject to scholarly debate, is whether this “early form” of Levantine Arabic had a significant proportion of features that we would call Aramaic today.

I added "vernacular" to make it clearer. A455bcd9 (talk)

Modern History

• There should be a modern history section. Ideally it would discuss the creation of MSA, including the influence of Levantine’s (and Egyptian) on its formation and standardization, and therefore the inherent partial circularity when comparing Levantine and MSA.

Would be great, do you have sources on that point by any chance? A455bcd9 (talk)

Vocabulary

• "However, it also includes layers of ancient indigenous languages: Canaanite, classical Hebrew (Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew), Aramaic (particularly Western Aramaic), Persian, Greek, and Latin."

==> Only the first three here can be considered indigenous.

From the source you recommended (Bassal, 2012): "The Palestinian dialects include layers of ancient languages that belong to the earliest historical periods of culture of Palestine indigenous tongues: Canaanite, classical Hebrew (Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew), Aramaic (particularly Western Aramaic), Persian, Greek and Latin." But I still removed "indigenous" as Latin at least wasn't spoken natively in the region. A455bcd9 (talk)

==> We would do well to highlight how different this situation is from other language shifts. Most examples of language shift are from one language family to another (Celtic to Romance, Romance to Germanic, Tungusic to Chinese etc. Here we have Semitic to Semitic, from one standardized form to another.

Centered sources I read did not make this comparison => WP:UNDUE?

• "After the Arab conquest of the Levant, the area became a Muslim Arab region, and Aramaic survived only among Christian minorities, Jews, and Mandaeans."

==> What does it mean to “become an Arab region”. This needs to tie to the history section. It also brings up an important point about the relationship between shift of the Arabic language and the acceptance of Islam.

The term was used in (Bassal, 2012): "Linguistically and religiously, the area became a Muslim Arab region, and in the new era, Aramaic survived only among Christian minorities, Jews and Mandaeans." However, I removed the sentence (it's now in Levantine Arabic vocabulary). Regarding the relationship between shift of the Arabic language and the acceptance of Islam, Erdman, 2017 that you recommended wrote: "Although one might surmise that the draw of Arabic as a source of divine truth as well as secular prestige would have attracted Muslims to the language more quickly than Christians or Jews, any such hypothesis must remain exactly that for lack of definitive proof." Other sources (such as the Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics) say the exact opposite ("The religious minorities have tended to preserve the bilingual situation to a larger degree than the Muslim majority, which early on seems to have been Arabicized. [...] In general, it can be said that the Arabization process has been faster in cities and among Muslims than in the country- side and among religious minorities.") I'm not sure we can do anything from that... A455bcd9 (talk)

Aramaic substrate

• "Aramaic influence on Levantine is relatively minor but particularly prominent in vocabulary. Aramaic words underwent morphophonemic adaptation when they entered Levantine."

==> If Aramaic is a (now minor) parent of Levantine, then this description is the wrong way round. Surely it was both a parent and an ongoing influence.

The source you recommended ( https://www.academia.edu/14847276/_Hebrew_and_Aramaic_Substrata_in_Spoken_Palestinian_Arabic_Mediterranean_Language_Review_19_ ) says: "It is significiant to note that in grammar, Aramaic influence on the Arab dialects in Palestine is relatively minor, but it is particularly prominent in vocabulary." According to Behnstedt: "The substratal influence of Aramaic in Syrian Arabic proper (see below) is important and is present in phonology, morphology, lexicon, and syntax (􏰀 substrate)." So I changed to Aramaic influence on Levantine is important and particularly prominent in vocabulary.. What do you think? A455bcd9 (talk)

Onceinawhile (talk) 01:02, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Returning to the broader comments

I have been doing some more reading to understand the situation of Levantine Arabic after the Islamic conquest; i.e. on what can scholars base the judgement as to whether (a) the spoken "Levantine" language gradually evolved from being a "mostly-Aramaic" language to a "mostly-Arabic" language, or (b) the Levantine people gradually stopped speaking "Aramaic" and started speaking "Arabic". The difference between (a) and (b) underpins many of my comments above. It is the difference between the process of “language standardization” [i.e. movement towards prestige dialect, such as happened in each of the countries in Europe, perhaps first in France following the establishment of the Académie Française, and of course even earlier in Arabic with the publication of dictionaries such as Kitab al-'Ayn;] vs “language shift” [a similar process, but almost always from one language family to another (which is not the case here)]. My conclusion so far is that the scholarly research is simply not there to provide an answer; i.e. scholars simply cannot know. A couple of excerpts below from the same 2012 book:

• Johannes den Heijer (2012). "Introduction: Middle and Mixed Arabic, A new Trend in Arabic Studies". In Liesbeth Zack and Arie Schippers (ed.). Middle Arabic and Mixed Arabic: Diachrony and Synchrony. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics. Brill. p. 2-3. ISBN 978-90-04-22229-8. ……the H ('high') variety is known as classical Arabic (also dubbed literary or Standard Arabic)… the L ('low') variety of the language is Spoken or colloquial Arabic…the scholarly study of the Arabic language and literature has long addressed the H variety exclusively. This is understandable, since its tremendous prestige far transcends the boundaries of the Arab world… Until recently, the L variety of Arabic has received only limited attention, primarily from European and other non-native linguists and philologists. Over the last three decades, however, specialists in Arabic dialectology have significantly increased in number and, moreover, a fair proportion of these scholars now hail from the Arab world itself…. Along with the study of the classical or Standard language on the one hand, and colloquial Arabic on the other, a new sub-discipline within Arabic studies has arisen from the need to understand what actually goes on between these H and L varieties of Arabic. It has been known for some time that the structural differences between the H and L varieties, which have been a permanent reality throughout their history, resulted at some point in the creation and development of intermediate and mixed varieties that were written, and probably spoken as well, in the past as much as they are often used in oral speech today. Particularly with regard to pre-modern language situations, specialists conventionally use the term 'Middle Arabic' for these varieties. Following the publication of some pioneering research in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the study of Middle Arabic evolved into a research field in its own right, primarily due to the work of Joshua Blau which has been published over the last six decades… It was only in the first decade of the twenty-first century that they timidly but seriously started to meet and move towards what should, hopefully, one day result in a combined philological and sociolinguistic approach to pre-modern and modern, written and oral, manifestations of Mixed Arabic… In the last ten years, there has been remarkable progress in the collective effort to study these types of Mixed Arabic in a common framework. In May 2004, the first International conference on the Study of Middle Arabic and the Mixed Varieties of Arabic was held… For the first time, the Middle Arabic of mediaeval texts and the Mixed Arabic used in (recorded and transcribed) oral utterances in Arabic today were studied collectively within the same framework—including the creation of the Association Internationale pour l'étude du Moyen Arabe et des Variétés Mixtes de l'Arabe (International association for the Study of Middle and Mixed Arabic—AIMA)—and, most of all, with a shared awareness that what we are dealing with here are different manifestations of one and the same sociolinguistic phenomenon.
• Gunvor Mejdell (2012). "Playing the Same Game? Notes on Comparing Spoken Contemporary Mixed Arabic and (Pre)Modern Written Middle Arabic". In Liesbeth Zack and Arie Schippers (ed.). Middle Arabic and Mixed Arabic: Diachrony and Synchrony. Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics. Brill. p. 236. ISBN 978-90-04-22229-8. …the focus in studies of premodern middle arabic has been on documenting all forms deviating from the classical norm, not least in order to throw light on the development of the spoken dialects, as dialect features are assumed to be reflected in many of these forms.

Onceinawhile (talk) 15:21, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments and for taking the time to look at various sources. I won't have much time to contribute this week and the one after; I'll answer later. Yes, unfortunately, the sources I read either say that it's impossible to conclude, or say opposite things... That's why the "Classification" section (and the Classification of Arabic languages where I moved many paragraphs from that section) is full of "there is no consensus"... A455bcd9 (talk) 16:31, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Comment from Buidhe

Article looks promising but I think it could benefit from a copyedit before FAC. You can request one at WP:GOCE/REQ but unfortunately there's a considerable backlog at present. Although the sourcing overall looks quite good, I'd recommend consistent use of sfn referencing for all sources with page numbers. Headbomb's script marks the source "Levantine Arabic: A Surface Register Contrastive Study" as being from a junk journal. The article cites some theses below PhD which are generally not allowed per WP:SCHOLARSHIP, and Omniglot is not considered a reliable source. (t · c) buidhe 14:44, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

WP:SCHOLARSHIP states: Completed dissertations or theses written as part of the requirements for a doctorate, and which are publicly available (most via interlibrary loan or from Proquest), can be used but care should be exercised, as they are often, in part, primary sources. Some of them will have gone through a process of academic peer reviewing, of varying levels of rigor, but some will not. If possible, use theses that have been cited in the literature; supervised by recognized specialists in the field; or reviewed by independent parties.

Magidow's 2013 thesis has been cited by 30 papers per google scholar. Onceinawhile (talk) 14:55, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I wasn't objecting to Magidow's thesis because as the guideline says, PhD theses are sometimes OK. As I stated, the article cites some master's and bachelor's theses which are not generally not RS, such as Durand, Zoabi, Sullivan, and Sakr. (t · c) buidhe 18:20, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi buidhe, thanks for your comment.

Regarding copyedit, I'm not a native speaker, I used Grammarly but I guess it's not enough. Could you please point me to one section where copyedit is particularly necessary so that I can have a better understanding of what should be done?

Yes, I discovered sfn too late (while reviewing Armenian genocide...). Is there a way to "convert" harvnb to sfn automatically?

"Levantine Arabic: A Surface Register Contrastive Study": yes junk journal but I think the article is good and the author is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at Yasouj University so I thought it was okay (and I couldn't find a better source...).

7 theses are cited: 3 PhD theses, 3 master's theses, one bachelor's thesis.

• PhD theses: I think they are okay. Still, I removed Sa'aida2015 as we already had better sources for the same sentence.
• Master's theses:
  • Zoabi is cited by other papers, actually I didn't read Zoabi (couldn't get it) so what I wrote is based on what Abu Elhija ("A new writing system? Developing orthographies for writing Arabic dialects in electronic media") says about it. Should I remove Zoabi as a source and only keep Abu Elhija then?
  • Durand: her thesis was cited in 5 papers and the supervisor was Kristen Brustad—widely cited in the rest of the article—so I thought it was okay, but I found better sources.
  • Sakr: I found a better source about French loanwords. I should be able to find other sources for the examples as well (Lentin and Brustad cite a few examples).
• Bachelor's thesis: Sullivan. Cited by 5 papers (including by "Writing between languages: the case of Arabizi", which is also cited in the article) and the second reader was John Huehnergard so I thought it was okay again. But I can remove it as we have other sources for this information (the Arabizi table). Should I remove it?

Omniglot: I removed it. A455bcd9 (talk) 10:45, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I would avoid citing any sources you weren't able to access. WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT. I wouldn't say that 5 citations is "significant scholarly influence" as recommended by WP:SCHOLARSHIP, so I'd look for better sources that support the content.

I see you're asking above about the article length, IMO the current length (8372 words) is on the long end of what is likely to be promoted at FAC, especially considering that there are a lot of charts that increase the article's length without being counted in the prose size. I would be looking for opportunities to trim or use summary style but it's not absolutely necessary to reduce the length. (t · c) buidhe 09:35, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I removed Zoabi and Sullivan.

For the switch from harvnb to sfn, do you have any recommendation?

Regarding the length: what about creating a Levantine Arabic vocabulary article? Similar to Bengali vocabulary, Estonian vocabulary, Persian vocabulary, and Foreign language influences in English. We could then considerably cut the current "Vocabulary" section and for instance sum up in one paragraph the different foreign influences with some examples between brackets. Besides this Vocabulary section, I don't know where I should cut... A455bcd9 (talk) 10:53, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any automated tools for citation conversion, but I've converted some articles manually.

As for Levantine Arabic vocabulary, I think that would be a great idea for a split. (t · c) buidhe 11:58, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I recommend pasting the whole article into a word document editor, then doing a find-and-replace. e.g. find <ref>{{harvnb|'' and replace with {{sfn|; then do the same on the back end.

Onceinawhile (talk) 14:07, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Levantine Arabic vocabulary:  Done => Readable prose size: 50 kB (8000 words).

Now I'll do sfn... A455bcd9 (talk) 16:19, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

This regex does part of the job: <ref>\{\{harvnb([|\w– ,=-]+)\}\}<\/ref> (to {{sfn$1}})

But it doesn't work for <ref name="xxx">{{harvnb. For that one <ref name="[\w\. -]+">\{\{harvnb([|\w– ,=-]+)\}\}<\/ref> works. A455bcd9 (talk) 16:48, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

sfn:  Done A455bcd9 (talk) 17:51, 6 January 2022 (UTC)