Syrian Arabic transcripts from Al-Kitaab
Update 2023-04-21 — All 3ms possive pronouns now consistently ـه instead of ـو.
Update 2022-12-21 — Reference to article A parallell text-based appoach added.
Update 2022-02-01 — Linenumbers have been added in margins.
Update 2020-01-14 — The longer texts for all 13 chapters now added to the repository.
Update 2020-04-11 — A description of the procedures I use when teaching this material has been added to the
updates
README linked in the post.
UPDATE: 2022. For an account of the theoretical/pedagogical underpinnings of these transcripts and of how they are used practically in the classroom, see my Open Access article A parallel text-based approach for teaching Standard and Vernacular Arabic in Orientalia Suecana (2022).
I am currently teaching a course in Syrian Arabic using material from the Al-Kitaab textbook, 3d edition, by Brustad, Al-Batal, Mahmoud, and al-Tunsi. The course runs parallel with a course covering the Standard Arabic part of the same material. The dialectal material in this book is excellent. It is carefully designed to rely on vocabulary and grammar from the chapter at hand while still having an authentic feel to it and being slightly challenging. The material is, however, only available as videos. In my view, having these dialogues as text facilitates classroom discussion of the dialogues. I have therefore transcribed most the Syrian Arabic material, namely the longer dialect dialogue found in each chapter. The transcripts can be found here.