Languages of Lebanon

In Lebanon, most people communicate in the Lebanese dialect of Levantine Arabic, but Lebanon's official language is Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Fluency in both English and French is widespread, with around two million speakers of each language. Furthermore, French is recognized and used next to MSA on road signs and Lebanese banknotes. Most Armenians in Lebanon can speak Western Armenian, and some can speak Turkish. Additionally, different sign languages are used by different people and educational establishments.

Lebanon exists in a state of diglossia: MSA is used in formal writing and the news, while Lebanese Arabic—the variety of Levantine Arabic—is used as the native language in conversations and for informal written communication. When writing Levantine, Lebanese people use the Arabic script (more formal) or Arabizi (less formal). Arabizi can be written on a QWERTY keyboard and is used out of convenience.

Mutual intelligibility between Lebanese and other Levantine varieties is high, while MSA and Levantine are mutually unintelligible. Despite that, Arabs consider both varieties of Arabic to be part of a single Arabic language. Some sources count Levantine and MSA as two languages of the same language family.