North Levantine Arabic (ar|اللهجة الشامية الشمالية|al-lahja š-šāmiyya š-šamāliyya, North Levantine:) was defined in the ISO 639-3 international standard for language codes as a distinct Arabic variety, under the apc code. It is also known as Syro-Lebanese Arabic, though that term is also used to mean all of Levantine Arabic.[1]
It was reported by Ethnologue as stemming from the north in Turkey (specifically the coastal regions of the Adana, Hatay, and Mersin provinces)[2] to Lebanon,[3] passing through the Mediterranean coastal regions of Syria (the Latakia and Tartus governorates) as well as the areas surrounding Aleppo and Damascus.[4]
In 2023, South Levantine Arabic and North Levantine Arabic were merged into a single Levantine Arabic in the ISO,[5] based on the high mutual intelligibility between Arabic varieties spoken by sedentary populations across the Levant and the lack of clear distinctions between variants along national borders.[6]