This Introduction to Levantine Arabic Pronunciation consists of two parts: The booklet presently in hand and approximately nine and one-half hours of accompanying tape recordings. The two are designed first to teach the student to recognize the major points of phonological interfer­ence between Levantine Arabic and (most of the more common dialects of) American English as well as the significant phonological contrasts within this dialect of Arabic itself and secondly to provide the student with a model for mimicry.

'Levantine Arabic' as used here refers to a dialect of educated Pales­tinians who have been long-term residents of Beirut. This dialect is mu­tually intelligible with most urban dialects of Lebanon Syria Jordan and Palestine. From a purely phonological point of view however most of the problems (for speakers of American English) that occur within this dialect also occur in most of the Arabic dialects from Iraq through North Africa as well as occurring also in Classical Arabic. Consequently this course can also be used for dialects other than Levantine Arabic.

It is to be noted at the outset that for the most part the words chosen in the drills are verbs and that these verbs were originally found as a matter of convenience from a fairly systematic searching of the roots of Wehr's dictionary.* This means that these words and lists have a fairly heavy literary (rather than purely colloquial) bias. However in as much as the purp

ose of this Introduction is not meaning or normal colloquial usage apart from pronunciation this bias has been considered to be of no great significance.

The materials themselves consist of nineteen 'sections'. These sec­tions are ordered so as to take the student from what he knows or has learned to what is new.