The “Arab Spring” and the Christian Linguistic Minorities in Syria

Abstract

Syria has a heterogeneous population. It reflects the complicated history of the region and constitutes evidence for many migratory waves, that have been coming to Syria for centuries.The linguistic situation of Syria is less complicated, however also here the heterogeneity is observable. The official language of Syria is Modern Standard Arabic. Nevertheless, because of the diglossia being a common state in Arab countries, this language has no use in a daily communication. This role is performed by vernacular dialects of Arabic. In western Syria are spoken the Levantine and in al-Jazira the Mesopotamian dialects. The Kurds usually speak Kurmanji, which belongs to the Iranian languages. Moreover other small linguistic communities (e.g. Adyghe, Kabardian, Turkish) exist. As far as the Christian non-Arab linguistic minorities are concerned, in 2011 it was possible to indicate speakers of four main languages: Western Aramaic, Suret, Turoyo, Armenian.