Domari spoken by Dom communities across the wider Levant — the West Bank and Gaza beyond Jerusalem, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Documentation outside Jerusalem is uneven and largely lexical.
Levantine Domari is a dialect of the Domari language.
Levantine Domari is primarily spoken in Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria.
Levantine Domari is part of the Middle East region on DialectAtlas.
Domari also includes Jerusalem Domari, Turkish Domari, Egyptian & Sudanese Domari, Iranian Domari. Each variety has its own vocabulary, pronunciation, and cultural context.
Domari of Jerusalem · Nawari
The most thoroughly documented Domari variety, spoken by the Dom community of the Old City of Jerusalem. Severely endangered, with only a few hundred fluent speakers; the reference variety in Matras (2012), A Grammar of Domari.
Abdal
Dom communities in Türkiye (also known locally as Dom or Abdal), concentrated in southeastern Anatolia, with significant contact influence from Turkish and Kurdish.
Ghagar · Halebi
Dom communities across Egypt and Sudan, sometimes grouped under broader regional labels. Linguistic documentation remains limited.
Dom communities in Iran, historically referred to by various local names. Academic documentation of their speech is sparse.
66 km away
The most thoroughly documented Domari variety, spoken by the Dom community of the Old City of Jerusalem. Severely endangered, with only a few hundred fluent speakers; the reference variety in Matras (2012), A Grammar of Domari.
106 km away
A Northwest Semitic language, revived from a primarily liturgical use into a full living language between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries. Now the official language of Israel.
219 km away
The only surviving Western Aramaic vernacular, spoken in the Anti-Lebanon villages of Maaloula, Bakhʿa, and Jubbʿadin north of Damascus by both Christian and Muslim communities. Fewer than 10,000 fluent speakers remain after wartime displacement, most of them older adults.
235 km away
Spoken across Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan. Known for soft consonants and a shared cultural vocabulary.
428 km away
The Greek of Cyprus, distinct from Standard Modern Greek in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. Preserves a number of medieval features.
430 km away
The Turkish of the northern half of Cyprus. Preserves Anatolian features lost in standard Turkish and shows long contact with Cypriot Greek.
Data on Levantine Domari from open scholarly databases. Each link opens the source in a new tab.
Yaron Matras' Dom-language platform with audio + transcriptions, photo archive, narratives, and publications (Matras, with Kamal Kelzi and Moe Kitamura).
Bruno Herin's documentation of Beirut Domari: grammatical sketch, lexicon, multimedia dictionary, and annotated audio/video narrative recordings (Endangered Languages Archive, SOAS / Berlin).