Notes on Language Change and Standardization in Damascus Arabic

. This paper attempts to point out some linguistic changes observed in Damascus and its tendency towards standardization. The objective is to provide new material to update the sociolinguistic state of Damascus Arabic. Because the main studies focused on this variety were written some years ago, they generally do not reflect the changes and trends in the language produced by the contemporary social context. This study examines eleven types of morphological and morpho-syntactical variants from a corpus of texts gathered in Damascus between 2007 and 2010, and produced almost wholy by young informants. Results are compared to the data available in previous grammars and papers, and demonstrate a rapid standardization taking place mainly through variant reduction (koineization), the decline or disappearance of traditional features (variety shifting), and the spreading of variants previously assigned to particular collectives to others (homogenization). Finally, new tendencies in Damascus Arabic observed in our data which merit further sociolinguistic research are indicated.


Introduction
This study will point out some linguistic changes observed in Damascus, the Syrian capital, in the years previous to 2011. 2 It analyzes, from a sociolinguistic perspective, a variety of morphological and morpho-syntactical features to show that Damascus Arabic is in continuous permutation trending toward standardization. The results here presented are based on a corpus of texts gathered between 2007 and 2010 and consisting of about 8 hours of interviews (totaling some 63,350 words) produced by 50 informants. 3 Our findings will be compared with the data available in previous works focusing on Damascus Arabic, particularly the grammars of Cowell 4 , Grotzfeld 5 , and Ambros 6 , and the compilation of texts of Bloch & Grotzfeld 7 . The sociolinguistic studies of Lentin 8 based on fieldwork at the end of the 1970s have been the most valuable sources of comparison for this study.
This paper discusses the following eleven variants: (1) 1 st person pronoun for the plural nәḥna ~ lәḥna; (2) 3 rd person pronoun for the plural hǝnne ~ hǝnnen; (3) -h-in the 3 rd person feminine and plural pronominal suffixes; (4) Relative pronouns; (5) 2 I owe a debt of gratitude to Stephan Procházka for his kindness, expertise, and thoughtful comments. He is of course not responsible for any shortcomings. 3 The data-gathering was initially intended for a description of the dialect of the youth in Damascus. Therefore the fieldwork was carried out following the methodology required for a linguistic study and not for a sociolinguistic one. It consists of about eight hours of interviews totaling approximately 63,350 words. In these interviews the informants mainly described different places in Damascus, traditions of the society, and personal experiences. Some other interviews, fewer in number, narrated different general or personal events in the past. The data used for this study do not include any conversations nor draw from any sociolinguistic questionnaires. The entirety of the corpus has been published in BERLINCHES  Indefinite pronoun ḥada ~ ḥadan; (6) Particles for the non-verbal negation māl-~ mān-; (7) Particle ma in non-verbal negations; (8) Verbal modifiers for the future tense; (9) Verbal modifiers expressing the progressive aspect; (10) Distal locative demonstrative; (11) Temporal conjunction lamma ~ lamman.
These variants were selected for different reasons. First, we recognized that some variants which had not been listed in the Syrian Arabic grammars, or mentioned only as secondary variants, in fact appear very frequently in our data, which implied that they have increased in use. Second, our data did not show any occurrences of some variants that were registered in older sources, which could mean that they have today disappeared. Third, and in line with the previous one, we wanted to check the status of those variants which Lentin (at the end of the 1970s) had considered to be in decline and determine whether they are still in use or if their use is now limited to certain sectors of the population. Fourth, we wished to find out if variants formerly considered characteristic of traditional areas of the city were still used by the youth or used in newer areas of the city. Finally, we wanted to determine if those linguistic features formerly attributed to the Christian community are still characteristic of this community or have spread to others. 9 In the analysis, we first state what older sources on Damascus Arabic record about each of the variants selected. Then, wherever possible, show the results obtained by Lentin at the end of the 1970s. Finally, we present our results and state our conclusions and perspectives.
This study is based on two facts: First, the main sources on Damascus Arabic were published more than fifty years ago and therefore do not reflect all the nuances of the language today. Second, in the past few decades the city of Damascus has experienced important social changes which have had an impact on the language of its citizens. Perhaps the most important of these changes is the increase in urbanization, which, with the high degree of urban primacy in the Middle East, constitute the common causes of dialect change in the region. 10 During the 19 th century, particularly in Damascus, urbanization rapidly increased, 11 resulting in a considerable increase in population during the past century, due mainly to significant internal migration, especially during the 1970s, which drove the expansion of the urban suburbs. 12 Another important social event in the Middle East which has contributed to language change is the increasing proportion of youth since 1980. In Syria this trend peaked in 2005, when youth (15-24 years old) constituted 25.8% of the population. 13 These data are relevant because youth, especially teenagers, are considered the most active initiators of language change. 14 9 Concerning this matter, see fn. Standardization is defined by Ferguson 15 as: [T]he process of one variety of a language becoming widely accepted throughout the speech community as a supradialectal norm -the 'best' form of a languagerated above regional and social dialects, although these may be felt to be appropriate in some domains.
Ferguson 16 mentions at least three tendencies involved in the process of language standardization: koinization, variety shifting, and classicization. Koinization implies the reduction of dialect differences, both by dialect leveling and by simplification. According to Palva 17 dialect contacts favour a centralizing tendency and give growing prominence to the speech-form of the central town of a region, often the capital, which thus tends to become the model dialect. Concerning variety shifting, Ferguson explains that specific linguistic features are viewed as marking identity with particular social groups and particular communicative functions or occasions of use. Standardization occurs when variety shifting tends toward the spread of the supradialectal norm. Finally, classicization refers to the adoption of features considered to belong to an earlier prestige norm.
Damascus Arabic is considered a prestige variety and even the national standard. 18 It is a very well established dialect, and therefore successive waves of migration have not seriously affected its development. 19 Since a decade ago, as this paper will show, Damascus Arabic exhibits many signals of standardization, among them the significant reduction of variables (koineization), the decline or disappearance of traditional features 20 (variety shifting), and the reduction of differences among different communities or collectives (homogenization). All these tendencies have been previously detected but seem to be more active today. We have also identified a few new tendencies requiring further research.

Informants
Our informants were 25 men and 25 women, at the time the study all of them young  Forty five informants, and their parents, were from Damascus. Two of the parents came from other areas of the country. Three of the informants were born and raised abroad, but their parents were from Damascus. Two of them, and their parents, did not originally come from Damascus, but they had lived and studied in the capital for a considerable time. 22 All the informants except two had only one native language, Damascus Arabic.
At the time of the recording, 34 of the informants were studying at the University or had already graduated, 23 eleven had finished secondary school, three had finished primary school, and two of them -the two eldest -had no formal schooling. 24 Twenty-three were working (for the state, for private companies, or self-employed), twenty were still students, four were housewives, two were unemployed, and one was retired. Concerning the areas of the city in which the informants lived, eighteen came from traditional areas (Bāb ә Mṣalla, Bāb Srīže, Rǝkn ǝd-Dīn, Sārūža, Šēx Muḥyәddīn, Kafarsūse, Mazze Basatīn, and Mīdān); 24 came from newer areas (ʔAṣāʕ, ʔUṣūr, Barāmke, Tižāra, ǝž-Žǝs ǝ r ǝl-ʔAbyaḍ, Ḥalbūni, Ṭәlyāni, Mazze Šarʔiyye, Mazze Ġarbiyye, Mazze Žabal, Mazze ʔŌtōstrād, Mazraʕa, Mālki, Maysāt, Mḥāžrīn, Šāreʕ Baġdād and Ṭәlyāni); and eight came from peripheral areas (Žōbar, Ḥarāsta, Dūma, and Mašrūʕ Dummar). 25 22 They come from Swēda in the south of the country, and Salamiyye in the center. These two informants were selected as examples of the migrants coming from other regions of the country who have lived and studied for a long time in the capital and have accommodated their native varieties to the dominant one (in this case Damascus Arabic). As for those born and raised abroad, the aim was to detect any particularity due to their language isolation. 23 Since 2000 Syria had instituted numerous reforms to its system of higher education, which caused an increase of youth university enrollment, up to 26% in 2009 in urban areas (BUCKNER, Elizabeth S. and SABA, Khuloud, "Syria's next generation", 93). In 2009 there were 6,763 students in Damascus and in 2011 17,322 (Central Bureau of Statistics http://cbssyr.sy/index-EN.htm).

24
Education as a variable has not been considered in this paper. A study of this and the influence of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) on Damascus Arabic is planned. 25 These peripheral areas are the result of the expansion of the city during the past century (cf. MILLER, Catherine, "Arabic urban", 8). A precise map of the different neighborhoods in Damascus is available in LENTIN, Jérôme, "Quelques données", 167.

Traditional areas Newer areas Peripheral
Men 12 11 2 Women 6 13 6 Total 18 24 8 Of the informants, 44 were Muslims 26 and 6 were Christians. 27 In Damascus the Christians are mostly concentrated in Christian neighborhoods. 28

Total 44 6
Finally, although the interviews were spontaneous, informants were aware of the presence of a recorder, of the purpose of the study, and of the fact that they were talking to a non-native speaker. Perhaps this was the reason some of them began their speeches in a formal register, relatively close to MSA, but then relaxed and switched to their native variety. This might have slightly altered the results.

1 st person plural pronoun nәḥna ~ lәḥna
nәḥna is the only variant for the 1 st person plural pronoun that appears in Grotzfeld, 29 Ambros, 30 and Stowasser & Ani. 31 Cowell 32 mentions both variants, characterizing lǝḥna as stylistic and dialectal. 33 26 One woman is officially Muslim because her father belongs to that religion and in Syria the father passes religious affiliation on to the children; but she was raised by her Christian mother as a Christian.

27
Christians constituted 10% of the total population of Syria, most of them living in the capital (cf. GUIA PAIS SIRIA, Economic and Commercial Office of Spain in Damascus, March 2008, 5). Our data also includes Christian informants because they represent a certain percentage of Damascene society, and also because minor linguistic differences between Muslim and Christian communities have been detected before (LENTIN, Jérôme, "Damascus Arabic", 546) and we wished to check if those differences still existed and/or how they evolved. But in the event we observed no differences in dialect among the many Muslim and Christian groups in Damascus. 28 The main are: ʔAṣāʕ, ʔUṣūr, Bāb Tūma, and Tižāra (partially). Lentin labels a number of forms as Christian or Lebanese: they could be loans from (Christian) Lebanese (LENTIN, Jérôme, "Quelques données", 117). However, it is also possible that Lebanese and Damascene Christians have preserved in these forms features lost by the Muslims in Damascus. 29 GROTZFELD, Heinz, Syrisch-arabische Grammatik, 18.  In our study two variants were detected: nәḥna (170 instances) and lәḥna (34 instances): Nәḥna is by far the predominant variant, being used 170 times by eighteen informants (though one informant used it 54 times). Lǝḥna was used by four informants, and eight informants combined both variants.
Of the four informants who used lǝḥna exclusively, two are the eldest, one of whom used it 10 times, almost a third of the total instances. The third informant was a young man from a traditional neighborhood, and the fourth a young woman born and raised abroad.
The eight informants who used both variants did so approximately equally, except for two (mother and daughter) who mainly used lǝḥna. All were Muslims.
Finally, the variant lәḥna seems to predominate in traditional parts of the city, since seven of the twelve informants who used it came from these areas (Kafarsūse, Sārūža, Šēx Muḥyәddīn (x2), Mīdān, Mazze (Basatīn), and Bāb Srīže). The eighth informant was the woman who was raised abroad and whose speech showed other traditional features.
Thus at the time of the study the variant nǝḥna clearly predominated. The use of lǝḥna had been declining (Lentin registers only 3 informants) 35 and, according to our number of instances, seems to be still in decline. It is used in all areas of the city (traditional, new, and peripheral), but has not been detected among the Christian community.
The variant naḥna appears in Grotzfeld,36 but not in his 1965 grammar. 37 It is the most frequent variant in Lentin, 38 but, surprisingly, does not appear in our data.

3 rd person plural pronoun hǝnne ~ hǝnnen
Hǝnne was given as the personal pronoun for the 3 rd person plural in Grotzfeld In our research 34 informants used hǝnnen 161 times, whereas only two informants used hǝnne (3 instances), and then just in combination with hǝnnen. No informant used hǝnne exclusively. 47 -especially in Lebanon -after long vowels. Grotzfeld 50 shows both -h-and '-h-less' variants after a consonant, adding that -h-is commonly elided in the latter. After vowels he lists only variants with -h-. Ambros 51 has the same information as Grotzfeld. The presence or absence of -h-in Damascus Arabic has been previously investigated. 52 These studies indicate that the decline of -h-has been significant in the past few decades, and detect a tendency to elide -h-after consonants and after vowels other than a. 53 Our findings confirm such results.
To present our findings more clearly, we first focus on the number of informants who used each variant, and then on occurrences. Among the 36 informants who used -h-pronominal suffixes after a vowel, seven did it exclusively after ā, which means that only 29 informants (58% of the total) used it after another vowel. Only five informants (10%) used -h-after a consonant. One of them was the male elder informant. The other four were young women, two of whom belonged to neighboring traditional areas (Rǝkn ǝd-Dīn and Šēx Muḥyәddīn) and used it several times (12 and 7 instances, respectively). These two women also used other traditional features in their speech. 54 The other two women came from a newer neighborhood (Mazze Žabal) and used the -h-after a consonant once and three times, respectively. All four women were Muslim and had attended the University.

b) Occurrence
The data contain a total of 1253 cases of -h-and '-h-less' pronouns: Of the 146 instances of -h-pronouns occurring after vowels, 40 occurred after ā, 55 26 after ē, 78 after another consonant, and 2 took place in religious contexts. 56 Moreover, the elision of -h-after ī and ū causes the insertion of a y or a w, respectively, to avoid a hiatus. 57 For instance: fīha > *fīa/fiya > fīya/fiyya, ʔabūha > *ʔabūa/ ʔabuwa > ʔabuwwa. In our data this phenomenon happens quite frequently, particularly after ī: We have not found any of these cases in Bloch & Grotzfeld,58 where -h-is always retained. This could mean that the tendency to drop it after ī and ū has recently increased. Cowell, however, registers it. 59 We have also noticed a few cases of -h-dropping after ē, which also causes a hiatus. The examples concern the two prepositions ʕala (> ʕalē-) and ḥawāli (> ḥawālē-): These results indicate that the cases with hiatus were used more frequently than those in which y is inserted between the preposition and the suffix. Because the data of Ismail shows -h-occurring nearly invariably after ē, 60 this could be a new tendency meriting further research.
Finally, the types of words to which -hpronouns were suffixed in our data were:

Prepositions 65
Verbs 56 Nouns The only example of this kind was baʕ ǝ ḍha, which acted as a reciprocal pronoun in the context where it appeared: ǝn-nās ʕalāqāta maʕ baʕ ǝ ḍha kīf 'how is the relation between the people'.
-hpronouns were suffixed with more frequency to prepositions and to verbs with a vowel ending, the prepositions fī-and ʕala being by far the most often treated. 62 The -h-appears most often with defective verbs (e.g. sāwa, bisāwi > mәnsāwīha) and with those conjugated in the 3 rd person of the plural (e.g. ḥәṭṭ, biḥәṭṭ > biḥәṭṭūhon).
One last issue concerns the preposition maʕ when -h-suffixes were inserted: The old variant maʕāha/hon was the one most used in the data (9 instances). The old-fashioned reciprocal assimilation maḥḥa/on is still in use, though appearing just 3 times. 63 Also appearing only 3 times in our data were examples of suffixation to form maʕ > maʕha/hon.

Relative pronouns
The variants for relative pronouns given in the main sources are: halli, yalli, yәlli, and ә lli (Cowell); 64 yәlli, (ә)lli, halli and yalli (Grotzfeld); 65 lli, (ʔ)ǝlli, and halli (Ambros, considering yalli and yәlli free variants). 66 The variant halli 67 appears in all three main sources for Syrian Arabic above, none of which consider it old-fashioned. In Bloch & Grotzfeld it appears frequently and therefore seems to have been in regular use. 68 Only Lentin claimed that halli probably was an old form, frequent in old sources. 69 The variants appearing in our corpus are yәlli and its shorter version (ә) lli, yalli, and halli, with a total of 405 occurrences: The results indicate that at the time of our study yәlli, used by 46 informants (92%), was by far the predominant variant. Only 3 informants (6% of the total) used halli. Two of them were the elder informants and one a woman, age 45, native to a very traditional neighborhood (Bāb ǝs-Srīže). The three combined halli with (ә) lli, but only one also used yǝlli (though seldom). halli was not used by any young informant. For all these reasons, it can be considered obsolete and probably soon to disappear. In our corpus the variant yalli 70 was used by only 2 informants (4%). In both cases they, but not their parents, were originally from Damascus. 71 Both combined it with (ә) lli, but only one also used yǝlli (once). However, yalli is registered in Grotzfeld, 72 Lentin,73 and Aldoukhi, Procházka and Telič. 74 The last source presents yalli as the most common variant, but halli, yǝlli, hǝlli are also mentioned.

Indefinite pronoun ḥada ~ ḥadan
The variant ḥadan for the indefinite pronoun is not found in the main sources of Syrian Arabic. 75 Barthélemy links this variant to Lebanon and Jerusalem. 76 In Lentin's study there is a section dedicated to both variants, revealing the following use: 77 No informant used ḥadan exclusively. The three informants who combined both variants were Muslim women, two of whom belonged to two traditional neighborhoods (Rǝkn ǝd-Dīn and Šēx Muḥyәddīn) and used ḥadan more often than ḥada. 78 70 According to Grotzfeld, yalli is a hybrid of yәlli and halli (GROTZFELD, Heinz, Syrisch-arabische Grammatik, 24).

71
The parents of the first informant were from Maʕlūla (56 km northeast of Damascus); the father of the second informant came from the Golan Heights and his mother was from Palestine. 72 GROTZFELD, Heinz, Laut-und Formenlehre, 51 and GROTZFELD, Heinz, Syrisch-arabische Grammatik, 24. In the former he stated that he rarely heard yalli clearly articulated, his informants always slurring yǝlli and yalli. The same two informants displayed other traditional features in their speech. 79 The third informant was a woman born and raised abroad who learnt the dialect from her parents, and who used other traditional features. 80 She nevertheless employed ḥadan less frequently than ḥada. 81 Given these results, it would be fair to assert that ḥadan continues in a state of decline, as before observed, and seems to be relegated to traditional areas of the city or to speakers who show a traditional or conservative style. Its extinction in the future would not be a surprise.
We will focus on the relation of the variant mān-to the Christian community.  Probably the result of the assimilation l > n, starting from the 1 st person singular mālni > manni. 84 A tendency to use these particles with active participles has also been observed (cf. LENTIN, Jérôme, "Quelques données", 140). Another variant, mann-, is considered by Lentin as unusual (LENTIN, Jérôme, "Quelques données", 141); it is associated by Cowell with Lebanon (COWELL, Mark W., A Reference Grammar, 388). However, it does not appear in our data. 85 Grotzfeld claims that mān-is used in other dialects but does not mention which (GROTZFELD, Heinz, Lautund Formenlehre, 130). 86 LENTIN, Jérôme, "Quelques données", 141.
The data show that mān-is alive in the Christian community 87 : among the six Christian informants who participated in our study, four used it. By contrast, mālcontinues to be the most common variant in use within the city, and Muslims generally opted for that. However, among this second group mān-also seems to be used frequently (more than half of the Muslim participants used it), possibly more than previously. 88 Also, it seems that mān-has spread, at least partially, among traditional Muslim neighborhoods, since three informants from Mīdān, Kafarsūse, and Bāb ǝ Mṣalla used it. The informant from Bāb ǝ Mṣalla was nevertheless Christian.

The particle ma in non-verbal negations
Although, as was stated in the previous section, the particles most frequently used in Damascus Arabic for the non-verbal negation are mu, māl-, and mān-, there are cases in which the particle ma -which usually appears in verbal negations -is used instead. 89 This phenomenon has already been documented by Lentin, who designated it an old-fashioned minority use characteristic of the Christian community. 90 In our corpus we found: (1) Among our 50 informants, twelve (24%) used ma in non-verbal negations. The particle negated participles (active and passive), prepositional phrases, adverbs, adjectives, and nouns. 91 (2) ma is in current, though limited, use by the young generations. Only three young informants from the Christian community used it, but it was also used by two young Muslims living in neighborhoods where Christians predominate (ʔAṣṣāʕ and Šarʔi Tižāra). (3) It was used by three informants from traditional neighborhoods (Rǝkn ǝd-Dīn, Mīdān and Kafarsūse), seven -all Christians -from newer areas (Mazze, Šarʔi Tižāra, ʔAṣṣāʕ, Šāreʕ Baġdād, and Quṣūr), and two from the suburbs (Mašrūʕ Dummar and Dūma).  Unfortunately it has not been possible to find data about the number of Muslims and Christians who previously used these particles. 89 According to Lentin, this particle could be the abbreviated form of maw or may, or the particle used in verbal negations (ma). In some cases it is the only possible negation, particularly in pseudo-verbal constructions (LEN-TIN, Jérôme, "Quelques données", 142 These findings suggest that non-verbal negation with ma is in regular use and with a higher frequency among the Muslim community. It is used in widely-scattered areas of the city. On the other hand, other variants for non-verbal negations that were documented some time ago, like mau and mai, 92 mau and mō, 93 have now disappeared.

Informants
Rāyeḥ, the second most used variant after raḥ in Lentin's study, does not appear in our data at all. Laḥ is seldom used in our data: only two informants combined it with ḥa. No informant used the variants raḥ and laḥ in combination. This could be due to the few examples of laḥ in the corpus, 100 or, because raḥ and laḥ have the same value for the future, speakers opt for one or the other. But ḥa does include connotations for the future which makes its use necessary in certain contexts. 101 Unfortunately, as it can be seen in the following table, it is not possible to determine in which areas of the city each variant predominates: Perhaps ḥa could be regarded as the most traditional variant at the time of this study, since it prevails in traditional areas and is almost absent from the suburbs. However, this assertion must be taken as applicable only to the time of the study, and needs further investigation.
In conclusion, the number of variants for verbal modifiers expressing future tense have been significantly reduced recently. Most of them seem to be obsolete (rāyeḥ, raḥa, laḥa); and laḥ, considered typically Damascene, is seldom used.

Verbal modifiers expressing the progressive aspect
For a long time ʕam has been regarded as the main modifier for expressing the progressive. However, the following variants have also been registered: ʕam, ʕamma, and sometimes ʕamm, ʔam, and ʕammāl (Cowell); 102 : ʕam and ʕamma (Grotzfeld); 103 ʕam and (variant) ʕamma (Ambros). 104 In our study only two variants were detected: ʕam (286 instances) and ʕamma (7 instances). The two informants who used ʕamma combined it with ʕam, the latter being by far the most used. 105 The sister of one of the two informants who combined both variants was also interviewed, and exclusively used ʕam. The speech of the second of these two informants showed other features that may be regarded old-fashioned 106 ; but her mother and her grandmother, who also participated in this study, stuck to ʕam.

Informants
This data suggests that ʕamma is in deep decline. Other variants (ʕamm, ʕammāl) registered in older sources were not used by a single informant and do not seem to be part of the speech of the new generations, for whom ʕam is the only particle in general use for expressing the progressive aspect.

Distal locative demonstrative
We noticed an important change regarding the use of the variants for the distal locative demonstrative. In older sources we find the following:: hnīk, the main one, hnīke used sometimes, and hunīk, Cowell relates it to Lebanon (Cowell); 107 hnīk(e), the main one, and hunīk(e) (Grotzfeld); 108 hnīk(e) (Stowasser & Ani); 109 hnīk (Ambros). 110 Bloch & Grotzfeld show hnīk(e) but state that the variant hunīke is not rare. 111 At the end of the 1970s Lentin recorded the following: 112 Thus at present variants with u seem to be significantly more employed than in the past. Accordingly, one each of the elder and of the middle-aged informants used variants without u. Surprisingly, the variants honīk and hǝnīk(e) did not appear at all in our data, hence can at present be considered marginal.
The variant hunīk(e), related to Lebanon, may be characteristic of the Christian community. 115 However, we cannot state this categorically because only three of our six Christian informants used it. 116 Finally, apart from the apparently more frequent use of variants with u than in the past, we once again find a reduction in variants because honīk, hǝnīk(e), and henīk do not appear in our study.

Temporal conjunction lamma ~ lamman
The sources register the following variants for the temporal conjunction meaning 'when': lamma and lamman (Cowell); 117 lamma and lammen (Grotzfeld); 118 lamma (Stowasser & Ani ). 119 In Bloch & Grotzfeld the variant lammen often appears. 120 Finally, in the text provided by Ambros only lamma is used. 121 Lentin's study gives us the following results: 122 Informants lamma 20 lamman 11 Our corpus contains only the variants lamma (55 instances) and lamman (4 instances): Lamma is obviously the predominant variant in our study. The informants who used lamman include a young man who used it exclusively, and one of the eldest participants, who used both variants indifferently. It is clear that the decline of the latter during the past few decades has been significant. The variant lammen, cited in older sources, did not appear once, confirming its extinction. Therefore, lamman will probably disappear from speech, leaving the variant lamma as the only one in use. 123

Conclusion
Although Damascus Arabic has remained notably stable over the past two centuries, 124 updated data show visible changes reflecting the new social circumstances of the city, especially urbanization and a higher percentage of youth. At the time of this study (2008)(2009)(2010), the dialect of the capital exhibited a noticeable decrease in the number of variants 125 and the disappearance of the most dialectal or traditional features, resulting in linguistic homogeneity among the various communities and neighborhoods. All of these are clear signs of standardization, a process which takes place when variety shifting tends toward the spread of a supradialectal norm. 126 We have detected several cases of reduction of variants, a sign of language koineization through language leveling and simplification: (1) Personal pronouns: The variant lǝhna for the 1 st person plural pronoun seems to be old-fashioned, relegated to older informants and used mostly in traditional areas.
(2) Relative pronouns: The variant halli is in clear decline: none of the young informants used it, implying its total extinction is imminent. The variant yalli seldom appeared in our corpus, and only in informants whose parents are not from the capital. 127 (3) Indefinite pronouns: The variant ḥadan was used only by informants who showed other traditional features, and it too could soon be extinct.
(4) Particles for non-verbal negation: Some variants for negation mentioned in older sources (mau, mai, and mō) have been completely lost, with only ma and mu remaining. 128 (5) Verbal modifiers: Older variants of the verbal modifier for the future tense (raḥa-, laḥa-, and rāyeḥ) were not used in our corpus and might be 123 Lentin stated that lamma and lamman could be on the way to extinction; but our findings suggest that, at least at the time this study was carried out, it was still alive and in use (LENTIN, Jérôme, Remarques sociolinguistiques, 145). 124 LENTIN, Jérôme, "Damascus Arabic", 546.

125
"The adoption of preferred variants is the essence of standardization, as indeed is the essence of all language change" (FERGUSON, Charles. A., "Standardization as", 75). 126 FERGUSON, Charles. A., "Standardization as", 70. 127 However, this merits further research because other sources consider it to be in current use (see section 1.4).

128
In addition to the particles māl-, mān-, with the same function. considered obsolete, only raḥ, ḥa-, and laḥ remaining. Similarly, older variants for the progressive marker did not appear in our corpus (ʕamma-, ʕamm-, and ʕammāl-): the only one in current use is ʕam. The variant ʕamma can still be heard, though seldom. (6) Distal locative demonstrative: The variants honīk, hǝnīk(e), and henīk, registered in older sources, do not appear in our data, suggesting near disappearance. (7) Temporal conjunction: The variant lamma seems to be the only one in current use. The variant lamman is in decline, being heard only occasionally. Lammen is definitely extinct.
The decline or disappearance of those variants traditionally considered typically Damascene or mainly heard in traditional areas of the city is a sign of variety shifting, and therefore of standardization. This paper has shown the decline or near-extinction of several such variants, including the pronouns ḥadan and lәḥna, the modifiers for the future laḥa and laḥ (showing l), the relative pronoun halli, and the -h-in 3 rd person feminine and plural pronominal suffixes, all of which have been mostly detected in traditional areas, in elder informants, or in informants showing traditional speech. Informants who usually used traditional features in their speeches were all Muslim, which suggests that Christians are linguistically more progressive.
Another sign of variety shifting and homogenization, and therefore of standardization, is the spreading of variants assigned to particular religious groups (Muslim or Christian) associated with certain neighborhoods to other areas of the city of mixed or of different religious persuasion. This is the case of the variants mā-and mān-for non-verbal negation, formerly characteristic of the speech of the Christian community in Damascus but now apparently of higher use among Muslims.
On the other hand, although most of our findings are consistent with previous socio-linguistic studies, we have found three cases of what could be considered new tendencies: (1) In the 3 rd person plural pronoun (hǝnne ~ hǝnnen) we have detected a higher presence of variants showing the -n ending. This contrasts with the tendency of other variants, like ḥadan and lamman, to drop the final -n. However, the final -n has a different origin in each case: many scholars, as was mentioned, relate the final -n in hәnnen to an Aramaic substratum 129 ; but in ḥadan, according to Grotzfeld, the final -n comes from ʔaḥdā = ʔaḥadan and therefore is an old tanwīn. 130 As for lamman, Barthélemy indicates that it is the contraction of the particle lamm and the conditional conjunction ʔәn. 131 (2) Secondly, there seems to be a greater presence of the hiatus -ēa-originated after the dropping of -h-in the 3 rd person feminine and plural pronominal suffixes and registered in the prepositions ʕalēa and ḥawālēa (quite frequently in the first case). (3) Finally, it seems that variants for the distal locative demonstrative with u in the first syllable (hunīk, hunīke) are in more frequent use and in the future might become the most used variants.
The variants selected for this study do not show any gender differences. 132 Several studies indicate that young women's speech has more locally prestigious features 129 See fn.41. The analysis registers three women who have shown traditional features, which could merely be a coincidence or due to the fact that two of them come from two neighboring traditional neighborhoods. In any case, they are both young, educated, and Muslims. Third one was born and raised in a non-Arabic speaking country and learned the dialect from her parents at home -which could be the reason for her conservative style. than men's speech. 133 This will be examined in a future paper on MSA features in Damascus Arabic.
Our findings, although at times based on a limited number of instances, show that at the time of the study standardization in Damascus was well in progress. Moreover, the changes seem to be occurring much more rapidly than in the past.
More data from the field and further study of these and other, thus far uninvestigated, variants would give us a better understanding of the process of standardization and the development of Damascus Arabic. Also, the nine years of political instability has surely had an impact on the language situation in the capital (for example, by putting different varieties in contact, leveling the language, etc.). We hope to be able to return to Damascus soon to visit our friends and informants and resume our study of the city's complex language. 133 IBRAHIM, Muhammad H., "Standard and prestige language: a problem in Arabic sociolinguistics", in Anthropological Linguistics 28 (1986), 124, and ABU-HAIDAR, Farida, "Are Iraqi women more prestige conscious than men? Sex differentiation in Baghdadi Arabic", in Language in Society 18/4 (1989), 479.