ABSTRACT

English is poverty-stricken by comparison with Arabic in terms of address and reference. In the Levant one can ring the changes in everyday communication on a great range of titles for people (coupled with a vocative ‘O…!’) depending on whether they are young, old, male or female, venerable, known or unknown, superior or inferior in station, single or in a group, and even according to religious denomination: a priest has a different title from a mufti, a Druze elder from a young Druze in modern dress. The terms which follow are a mere selection of those it is possible to hear in the Levant on a typical day between town and village, between home and souq, school and office.