This ~bonus post~ is a list of the most commonly used conjunctions in Shami. Some of them are probably not by any technical definition conjunctions (and some of them have e.g. prepositional uses that I’ve included here for completeness’s sake), so if you prefer the term ‘linking words’ you can go with that too. احسن ما a7san ma Means ‘in case’ or more precisely ‘lest’ (but obviously English stylistic concerns prevent us from translating it that way): ...

This ~bonus post~ is for common prepositions that are (etymologically) nouns. This is a much more distinct category in fuSHa than it is in 3aammiyye, but to keep the lists manageably short I decided to do it this way. قدام ‭2éddaam Literally ‘in front of’: قدام البيت ‭2éddaam élbeet – in front of the house لا تفضحونا قدام الاجانب laa téfDa7uuna 2éddaam él2ajaaneb – don’t make us look bad in front of the foreigners! ...

Bonus post! This is a list of the most common ‘basic’ prepositions (i.e. not the ones that are combinations of a preposition and a noun or an obvious derivation from a noun). ب b- or bé- b- perhaps most commonly expresses static location and lines up with English ‘in’, ‘at’ or fuSHa في. بالبيت bi-lbeet – at home بالسيارة bi-ssiyyaara – in the car It is also used to express the instrument or means by which something is done: ...

You’ve probably already encountered the idea of the causative (make someone do something) in fuSHa with reference to forms II (fa33ala) and IV (2af3ala) of the verb. In many ways causatives work similarly in fuSHa and in colloquial, but the structures are a bit different and causatives are perhaps more common in dialect. Unlike English, which distinguishes compulsorily between ‘make’ and ‘let’ (both kinds of causative), Arabic combines the two under one basic causative. The causative can be formed with خلّى khalla plus a verb or with an independent verb form – both can mean either ‘let X do’ or ‘make X do’, or related meanings. ...

The fuSHa internal passive (e.g. دُرِسَ) is not productive in Shami, although it exists in a number of commonly used set expressions and classicisms and may be used when someone is speaking in elevated language, fuSHa-style. This may seem like good news, but in fact it is not; the passive in Shami is actually much less regular than fuSHa as a result and not all verbs have a passive form. ...

MaSdars (مصادر) or verbal nouns are very common in fuSHa. Cursory treatments of 3aamiyye (usually the same ones that claim that all 3aamiyye sentences are subject-verb-object or that the grammar is ‘very simplified fuSHa’) usually claim that the maSdar simply isn’t used in colloquial. There is an element of truth to this in that certain very common uses of the maSdar in fuSHa are usually or always replaced by structures with conjugated verbs: ...

Anybody who has studied fuSHa will probably have torn at least a little bit of hair out over the uses and abuses of أنّ إنّ and أنْ. You’ll be happy to know that in colloquial there is only one ‘that’, إنّو énno/inno, which is used in place of all of these. إنو can take other pronoun suffixes in place of the -o, like fuSHa anna, but the form with -o can stand in for other pronouns as well. ...

Definites As in fuSHa, relative clauses require a relativising particle when attached to a definite noun and no particle if attached to an indefinite noun. Unlike fuSHa – where this particle declines for case, gender, and number – in colloquial it is invariable, either élli/illi or yalli (depending on speaker and region): الرجال اللي بعرفو érréjjaal élli ba3rfo – the man I know البنت يلي شفتها فايت عالبناية élbén@t yalli shéfta faayte 3a-lbinaaye ‘the girl you saw going into the building’ ...

Note: this page is a handy summary, but for more detail and more examples see the FuSHa to Shami PDF. In Levantine إن is restricted to classicisms and dialectalisms, but the distinction between اذا iza and لو law that fuSHa has is largely maintained. The syntax, however, is a bit different. Open conditionals: iza As in fuSHa, iza is used for ‘open conditionals’ like ‘if it rains, we can go’ or ‘if he’s not happy, let him come and see me’. Unlike fuSHa, any tense form can appear in the conditional clause: ...

As we all know from fuSHa, two or more nouns can be put into a possessive structure by simply sticking them alongside one another in iDaafe (اضافة), literally ‘addition’ and fiddling about with the case and tanwiin suffixes. The absence of case suffixes and tanwiin makes this much simpler in Shami. Nouns that do not end with the suffix ـة do not typically change at all when placed into iDaafe with another noun, other than predictable addition of helping vowels: ...