Arabic in Iraq, Syria, and southern Turkey

This chapter covers the Arabic dialects spoken in the region stretching from the Turkish province of Mersin in the west to Iraq in the east, including Lebanon and Syria. The area is characterized by a high degree of linguistic diversity, and for about two and a half millennia Arabic has come into contact with various other Semitic languages, as well as with Indo-European languages and Turkish. Bilingualism, particularly with Aramaic, Kurdish, and Turkish, has resulted in numerous contact-induced changes in all realms of grammar, including morphology and syntax.