At this high-end organic farmer’s market in downtown Beirut, buyers and sellers speak a mishmash of languages, usually Arabic and English or French.

[…] But linguist Dimachki sees all this code switching in a different light. The way people codeswitch in Beirut is unique. It’s not necessarily determined by age or ethnicity, she says, and it’s not relegated to home or school or the juice stand at the market. Multilingualism really is everywhere. Street signs are in Arabic and French, government websites often include English. Menus in lots of restaurants or cafes are in all three languages, and you’ll hear people switching between them.

That’s what makes Beirut different from cities like Barcelona, Jerusalem or Los Angeles. A person in LA might speak Spanish at home and English at work. But in Beirut, “They’re all Lebanese, talking with Lebanese, so why all this code switching?” Dimachki asks. “You’ll never see two French speaking to each other in German or in Spanish or Chinese, unless maybe there is a reason. But here, it’s a way of speaking in a sense.” More.

See: PRI

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