| Languages of Lebanon | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Official | Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) |
| Semi-official | French |
| Main | Lebanese dialect of Levantine Arabic |
| Minority | Western Armenian |
| Foreign | English |
| Signed | Levantine Sign Language |
| Keyboard layout | |
In Lebanon, most people communicate in the Lebanese variety of Levantine Arabic, but Lebanon's official language is Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). French is recognized and used next to MSA on road signs and Lebanese banknotes. Lebanon's native sign language is the Lebanese dialect of Levantine Arabic Sign Language. English is the fourth language by number of users, after Levantine, MSA, and French. Most Armenians in Lebanon can speak Western Armenian, and some can speak Turkish.
Lebanon exists in a state of diglossia: MSA is used in formal writing and the news, while Lebanese Arabic—the variety of Levantine Arabic—is used as the native language in conversations and for informal written communication. When writing Levantine, Lebanese people use the Arabic script (more formal) or Arabizi (less formal). Arabizi can be written on a QWERTY keyboard and is used out of convenience.
Mutual intelligibility between Lebanese and other Levantine varieties is high, while MSA and Levantine are mutually unintelligible. Despite that, Arabs consider both varieties of Arabic to be a part of a single Arabic language. Some sources count Levantine and MSA as two languages of the same language family.