Thread by @oldlevantine

1- This rubric is my humble attempt at blasting out the fallacy about Lebanese being an Arabic dialect. In simple/simplistic terms Lebanese is the result of millennia of heteroglossia & convergence of multiple Semitic & Mediterranean linguistic syntactic & lexical constructions.

2- This of course includes Arabic. But saying that for this reason Lebanese is a dialect of Arabic ignores the language's overwhelming pre-Arabic grammatical and lexical features. It's like saying English is a dialect of Norman French, ignoring its Germanic substrates.

3- As a first step, this rubric will address only some lexical features, partially enumerating Syriac/Aramaic/Canaanite remnants in modern spoken Lebanese. I will rarely give the English translation, as those words are easily identifiable by native speakers of Lebanese.

4- Finally I wish to thank @Amineiskandar2 & one of his respondents, @JoyMikhaell, who instigated this thread. Again my wordlist is by no means exhaustive, but it should give an idea to what extent Lebanese is an evolved modern CanaanoSyroAramaic tongue & NOT an Arabic dialect

5- Syriac-Aramaic lexical remnants in modern Lebanese (partial 1):
shbiin, ba7ash, bajj, barra, bershéén, bar3at, baram, berraymé, bahlé, ta7t, takh (to rot out), tsaysar, tghandar, talmad, tannura, jarjar, ja33ar, juwwa, 7arbuu2, 7ashak, dabbur, da3ar, da2ar, dakash, dalaf...

6- Syriac-Aramaic lexical remnants in modern Lebanese (partial 2):
danna2, rass (as in pack tightly), zara3, zarak, zaghal (as in adulterate), zala3, zammar, zuum, zayya7 (ziyyéé7, the word by @Amineiskandar2 which instigated this exercise), sata7, safat (as in forfeiting rights)

7- Syriac-Aramaic lexical remnants in modern Lebanese (partial 3):
sha77 (as in addiflé pshii shakhtuuret jazar ballash yshi77 nazaré ;)) shabat, shaba2, shabshuul, sha77ar, sha7at, shakhat, sharbak, shargal, shataf, sha2al, shala7, sha2lab, shalhab (as in where @Fr_Geagea lives)

8- Syriac-Aramaic lexical remnants in modern Lebanese (partial 4):
shamat, showb, shawmar, samad (as in to display as fixture,) tarbuun, tarash, tartash, tammash (turn a blind eye,) 3arram, 3arkaj, fatfat, fajam, féésh, farraj/tfarraj/firjé, farfat, rarat, faram, farshakh, fashar

9- Syriac-Aramaic lexical remnants in modern Lebanese (partial 5):
fashkal, fa2a3, falaj, 2abat (as in sursauter,) 2aba3, 2ada7, 2ar2ad, 2ar2ash, 2ashshab, 2alat (surpass, or throw,) 2al3uut (as in Yassir Arafat,) ka7at (as in what the Lebanese will do with Hezbollah)...

10- Syriac-Aramaic lexical remnants in modern Lebanese (partial 6):
qéésh, labat, latash (as in to soil, but also has other semantic connotations in Lebanese,) la3wak, la2a7/tla22a7, laka7 (to lick,) duud, masha7 (to anoint,) ma3as, mayy (yes, not a corruption of ماء)
à suivre..