Levantine

The Levantines, or Shamis, are the Arabic-speaking population of the eastern Mediterranean shore and its hinterland: Damascus and Aleppo, the Lebanese mountains, and the Palestinian and Transjordan highlands. Their Levantine Arabic, self-styled Shami, grew from the shift of Aramaic-speaking villagers to Arabic after the Muslim conquest of Syria in the seventh century and still keeps Aramaic vocabulary.

In 1337 the region belonged to the Mamluk sultanate of Cairo, which ruled through Damascus and Aleppo until the Ottomans defeated the Mamluks at Marj Dabiq in 1516. Istanbul then organized Syria into the eyalets of Damascus, Aleppo, Tripoli and Sidon, while the Mount Lebanon emirate gained autonomous status in 1667.

Long a mosaic of Sunni and Shia Muslims, Druze, Alawites and Christians, the region lived from Mediterranean trade, textile crafts and the overland pilgrimage to Mecca until 1833, when the Convention of Kutahya handed Syria to Muhammad Ali of Egypt and opened a decade of Egyptian rule under his son Ibrahim Pasha.