A Dictionary of Syrian Arabic: English-Arabic (Richard Slade Harrell Arabic Series) [Paperback]

Karl Stowasser (Editor), Moukhtar Ani (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0878400109 | ISBN-13: 978-0878400102 | Publication Date: December 1964

A Dictionary of Syrian Arabic provides Syrian terms for the language spoken in everyday life by Muslims primarily in Damascus, but understandable throughout Syria as well as in the broader linguistic areas of present-day Lebanon, Jordan, and among the Palestinians and the Arabic-speaking population of Israel. Entries include examples, idioms, and common phrases to illustrate usage. The Arabic terms are presented in transcription. It is useful for students of Arabic, scholars wishing to train in the Syrian dialect, and visitors and travelers to Syria and other nations where the dialect is spoken. A thorough introduction outlines the sociolinguistic situation in Syria and covers phonology, morphology, syntax, grammar, and vocabulary. Alongside the other Arabic language-learning and reference works published by Georgetown University Press, this dictionary is yet another invaluable volume on spoken Arabic, belonging at the side of travelers and scholars, and on the shelves of research and reference libraries.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English
Original Language: Arabic

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

"The dictionary is an expressive dictionary; that is, its format and presentation are geared exclusively to the needs of the native speaker of American English. Its corpus of approximately 15,000 main and subentries represents an essentially colloquial vocabulary intended for a fairly wide range of conversational usage." -- from the Introduction

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 269 pages
• Publisher: Georgetown University Press (December 1964)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0878400109
• ISBN-13: 978-0878400102
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 6.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,983,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WOW!, January 5, 2006

By 

Ashwin Kishore Shirale "The Book Worm" (Kuwait) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Dictionary of Syrian Arabic: English-Arabic (Georgetown Classics in Arabic Languages and Linguistics series) (Arabic Edition) (Paperback)

I refer to this book once in a while.Its really neat that I can just think of a word, look it up and voila!....there it is in perfect syrian colloquial arabic.The entries also have example sentences to give you an idea of the context and grammatical syntax with which this word is used.I have noticed however that some very common arabic expressions/words that I hear spoken by Syrians and Lebanese are not included as synonyms for the meanings.Im not sure if this is because this book was compiled in the 1960s and the colloquial slang could be slightly different now in 2005....this sort of thing is very rare, though.I wonder how on earth they compiled such a detailed exhaustive list.This is a lifetime keepsake, if you are as crazy about learning levantine arabic as I am!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Your guide to Syrian Arabic, March 27, 2003

By 

Ilan Yavor (Tel Aviv, Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Dictionary of Syrian Arabic: English-Arabic (Richard Slade Harrell Arabic Series) (Paperback)

This book is superb. Its biggest plus is that it uses thousands of real-life examples of sentences in Syrian Arabic and demonstrate how words are used. It is designed to be a guide to speaking Arabic on a conversational level, and is replete with colloqualisms, figures of speech, and idioms. It is well worth the money.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great book, March 29, 2002

By 

"jwimbo" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Dictionary of Syrian Arabic: English-Arabic (Richard Slade Harrell Arabic Series) (Paperback)

This is a very good dictionary for the Syrian dialect. It includes broken plurals and it uses most of the words in sentences. Some might complain that it is not written in the Arabic script, but I thought the notation chosen was helpful for pronounciation. One downside is that it is not totally comprehensive, but it contained almost all of the words I wanted to look up.