Lebanese people
الشعب اللبناني

Estephan El Douaihy · Bashir Shihab II · Youssef Karam · Charbel · Elias Peter Hoayek · Gibran Khalil Gibran · Camille Chamoun · Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah · Fairuz · Rafic Hariri · Michel Suleiman · Amin Maalouf · Mario Kassar · Rabih Abou-Khalil · Haifa Wehbe · Youssef Mohamad · Myriam Fares · Nancy Ajram
Total population
Lebanon: 4,017,095 (All ethnic groups)[1] Total worldwide: 15–22 million[2][3][4]
Regions with significant populations
Brazil 7 million(Lebanese Embassy in Brasilia)[5] ~ 10 million [6]  Lebanon 4,017,095 (July 2010 est) [1]  Argentina 1,500,000 [dead link][7]  Colombia 700,000 [8]  United States 440,000 [9]  Canada 250,000 [10]  Australia 181,000 [11]  Chile 90,000 [12]  Uruguay 70,000 [13]  Nigeria 31,000  Senegal 30,000 [14]  Cyprus 20,000  United Kingdom 10,459  Liberia 4,000 [15]  Israel 2,500 [dead link][16]
Languages
Spoken Vernacular Lebanese Arabic & Cypriot Maronite Arabic Spoken Traditional Phoenician, succeeded by Western Aramaic[17] Second Languages French, English
Religion
Maronite Christianity1 and Islam y2 (mostly Shi'a3 and Sunni) Greek Orthodox and Protestant. Alawites and Druze4.
Related ethnic groups
Other Levantines Arabs, Assyrians and other Semites
Footnotes
#Lebanese Christians comprise a majority of all Lebanese, but represent only a large minority within Lebanon. Lebanese Muslims of all denominations represent a majority within Lebanon, but comprise only a large minority of all Lebanese. Lebanese Shi'ite Muslims hold the plurality among religious groups within Lebanon. In Lebanon, Druzism is officially categorized as a Muslim denomination by the Lebanese government.

The Lebanese people (Arabic: الشعب اللبناني‎ el shaab el libnene, Lebanese Arabic pronunciation: [eʃˈʃaʕb ellɪbˈneːne]) are a nation and ethnic group of Levantine people originating in what is today the country of Lebanon, including those who had inhabited Mount Lebanon prior to the creation of the modern Lebanese state.

The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Lebanese people is a rich blend of both indigenous elements and the foreign cultures that have come to rule the land and its people over the course of thousands of years.

Lebanon does not collect official census data on ethnic background and therefore is difficult to have an exact demographic analysis of Lebanese society, with the last census conducted by the French Mandate government in 1932.^[18] The largest concentration or people of Lebanese ancestry is in Brazil having an estimated population of 6 to 7 million. As with their predecessors, the Lebanese have always travelled the world, many of them settling permanently, most notably in the last two centuries.

Religiously, descendants of Lebanese Christians comprise the overwhelming majority^[19] of Lebanese people worldwide, according to some estimates, outnumbering Lebanese Muslims (both Sunni and Shi'a) at a 3:1 ratio,^{[citation needed]} and concentrated principally in the diaspora.^[20]

Reduced in numbers and estimated to have lost their status as a majority in Lebanon itself, largely as a result of their emigration,^[19] Christians still remain one of the principal religious groups in the country.

Identity[link]

Cultural and linguistic shifts[link]

Aramization transformed the ancient Levant into an Aramaic-speaking and identifying region, making the population abandon their indigenous Canaanite language and cultural norms. Most of the population would also abandon the polytheistic Canaanite religion in favour of Christianity.

Aramaic cultural norms would remain dominant until the commencement of the era of Arabization (often, but not always, in conjunction with Islamization), which transformed the Levant and most of the Middle East and North Africa during the Arabian Muslim conquest. Thus, it is from the Arabization of the Levant that the people receive the strongest cultural and linguistic imprint to date, although most would remain Christian. As a result of this, in modern discourse, the Lebanese people (as is also the case with Syrians, Palestinians, Egyptians, Moroccans, etc.) are now often referred to as Arabs, or as forming part of the Arab world, albeit all with their own separate and distinct ancestral origins and ancient histories.

Immediately prior to Arabization, the people residing in the Levant—both those who would become Muslim and the vast majority who would remain Christian, along with the tiny Jewish minority—still spoke Aramaic,^[21] or more precisely, a Western Aramaic language.^[17] However, since at least the 15th century, the majority of people of all faiths living in what is now Lebanon have been Arabic-speaking,^[22][23] or more specifically, speakers of Lebanese Arabic, although up until the 17th century, travellers in the Lebanon still reported on several Aramaic-speaking villages.^[24]

Among the Lebanese Maronites, Aramaic still remains the liturgical language of the Maronite Church, although in an Eastern Aramaic form (the Syriac language,^[25] in which early Christianity was disseminated throughout the Middle East), distinct from the spoken Aramaic of Lebanon, which was a Western Aramaic language. As the second of two liturgical languages of Judaism, Aramaic was also retained as a language in the sphere of religion (in the Talmud) among Lebanese Jews, although here too in an Eastern Aramaic form (the Talmud was composed in Babylonia in Babylonian Aramaic). Among Lebanese Muslims, however, Aramaic was lost twice, once in the shift to Arabic in the vernacular (Lebanese Arabic) and again in the religious sphere, since Arabic (Qur'anic Arabic) is the liturgical language of Islam.

Identity Shifts[link]

Some Lebanese, mainly Christians, identify themselves as Phoenician rather than Arab, seeking to draw "on the Phoenician past to try to forge an identity separate from the prevailing Arab culture".^[26] They argue that Arabization merely represented a shift to the Arabic language as the vernacular of the Lebanese people, and that, according to them, no actual shift of ethnic identity, much less ancestral origins, occurred. Their argument, based on the premise of ancestry, has recently been vindicated by some emerging genetic studies as discussed below. Thus, Phoenicianists emphasize that the Arabs of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Iraq, and all other "Arabs", are different peoples, each descended from the indigenous pre-Arab populations of their respective regions, with their own histories and lore, and that therefore they do not belong to the one pan-Arab ethnicity, and thus such categorisation is erred or inapplicable. Lehe nationals in particular tend to stress aspects of Lebanon's non-Arab history as a mark of respect, to encompass all Lebanon's historical stages, instead of beginning at the Arab conquests, an attitude that prevails in the rest of the Arab world.

Among the Arabists, most don't dispute the differing ancestral origins of not only the Lebanese, but every other "Arab" group, nor do they disagree with acknowledging those roots. However, they do contest the Phoenicianists' assertion that a shift to an Arab identity did not occur, whether from a Phoenician or later pre-Arab identity. Arabists argue such a shift did in fact occur, if not for the population as a whole and for generations up until the rise of modern Phoenicianism, then at the very least for the larger part of the population, up to and including today. Further, they contend that this was the case for the Lebanese even in light of the differing Lebanese religious communities, especially pointing to the fact that most of the leading Arabists in recent Lebanese history were in fact Christians. The Arabists' point of contention is that Phoenicianists and Phoenicianism disregards and often altogether seems to relegate the reality of the Arab cultural and linguistic heritage of Lebanon and the Lebanese, given the extent to which the culture and customs of today's Lebanese people are indebted to that period of Lebanon's history. This is argued especially when the Arab cultural elements are quantified against the elements that can be attributed to have originated prior to, and survived, the Arab period into the modern time and culture. Therefore, they see the notion of deriving a Lebanese identity based on Arabism as valid, and thus many Lebanese, whether Muslim, Christian or other, do identify as Arabs.

In light of this "old controversy about identity",^[26] some Lebanese prefer to see Lebanon, Lebanese culture and themselves as part of a "Mediterranean" or "Levantine" civilization, in a concession to Lebanon's various layers of heritage, both indigenous, foreign non-Arab, and Arab. Arab influence, nevertheless, applies to virtually all aspects of the modern Lebanese culture.

Population numbers[link]

The total population of Lebanese people is estimated at 18 million. Of these, the vast majority, or 15 million, are in the diaspora (outside of Lebanon), and less than 4 million resident citizens of Lebanon itself.

Lebanon[link]

There are approximately 4 million Lebanese in Lebanon. In addition to this figure, there are an additional 1 million foreign workers and about 400,000 Palestinian refugees in the nation.^[27]

Diaspora[link]

Felipe Sapag, Paulo Maluf, Carlos Slim, Jamil Mahuad
Salma Hayek, Shakira, Jenna Dewan and Mika.

In 1994, the Lebanese government estimated there were 15.4 million Lebanese immigrants worldwide with 43.2% living in Brazil(1996) and 26.1% of these residing in the USA.^[28]

The Lebanese diaspora consists of approximately 14 million, both Lebanese-born living abroad and those born-abroad of Lebanese descent. The majority of the Lebanese in the diaspora are Christians,^[29] disproportionately so in the Americas where the vast majority reside. An estimate figure show that they represent about 75% of the Lebanese in total.

The largest number of Lebanese is to be found in Brazil, where there is an estimated 10 million people of Lebanese descent. The Lebanese government claims there are 7 million Brazilians of Lebanese descent.^[5] Large numbers also reside elsewhere in the Americas, most notably in the United States and Mexico with close to half a million in both countries. In the rest of the Americas, significant communities are found in Argentina^[30], Chile^[12], Colombia, Mexico^[31]), and Venezuela, with almost every other Latin American country having at least a small presence.

In Africa, the Ivory Coast is home to over 100,000 Lebanese.^[32] There are significant Lebanese populations in other countries throughout Western and Central Africa.^[33][34] Australia hosts over 180,000 and Canada 250,000. In the Arab world, the Gulf States harbour around 400,000 Lebanese.^[35] Lebanese also reside in the countries of the European Union. At the present time more than 2,500 ex-SLA members remain in Israel.^[36]

Currently, Lebanon provides no automatic right to Lebanese citizenship for emigrants who lost their citizenship upon acquiring the citizenship of their host country, nor for the descendants of emigrants born abroad. This situation disproportionately affects Christians. Recently, the Maronite Institution of Emigrants called for the establishment of an avenue by which emigrants who lost their citizenship may regain it, or their overseas-born descendants (if they so wish) may acquire it.^[37]

Religion[link]

Ethnic Groups[link]

Genetics[link]

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In recent years efforts have been made by various genetic researchers,^[who?] both in Lebanon and abroad, to identify the ancestral origins of the Lebanese people, their relationship to each other, and to other neighbouring and distant human populations. Like most DNA studies that attempt to identify a population's origins and migration patterns in the region that may have influenced the genetic make-up—these studies have focused on two human genome segments, the Y chromosome (inherited only by males and passed only by fathers) and mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA, which passes only from mother to child). Both segments are unaffected by recombination, thus they provide an indicator of paternal and maternal origins, respectively. According to the 2011 census in January 27, 78% of the Lebanese are whites, 12% are ethnic Arabs, 5% are blacks and 5% consists of Asian and mixed races. ^{[dubious – discuss]}

A Druse family of the Lebanon, late 1800's

Theories from some studies propose to corroborate that the Lebanese trace genetic continuity with earlier inhabitants, including the Phoenicians, regardless of their membership to any of Lebanon's different religious communities today. "The genetic marker which identifies descendants of the ancient Levantines is found among members of all of Lebanon's religious communities"^[38] as well as some Syrians and Palestinians. By identifying the ancient type of DNA attributed to the Phoenicians, geneticist Pierre Zalloua was also able to chart their spread out of the eastern Mediterranean. These markers were found in unusually high proportions in non-Lebanese samples from other parts of the "Mediterranean coast where the Phoenicians are known to have established colonies, such as Carthage in today's Tunisia."^[26] The markers were also found among samples of Maltese and Spaniards, where the Phoenicians were also known to have established colonies. However, the particular marker associated by some studies with the historical Pheonicians, haplogroup J2, actually represents a complex of mosaic of different demographic processes which affected the Mediterranean in prehistoric and historic times.^[39]

Beyond this, more recent finds have also interested geneticists and Lebanese anthropologists. These indicate foreign non-Levantine admixture from some unexpected but not surprising sources, even if only in a small proportion of the samples. Like a story written in DNA, it recounts some of the major historical events seen in the land today known as Lebanon.

Among the more interesting genetic markers found are those that seem to indicate that a small proportion of Lebanese Christians (2%) and a smaller proportion of Lebanese Muslims are descended, in part, from European Crusader Christians and Arabian Muslims respectively. The author states that the "study tells us that some [European Crusaders] did not just conquer and leave behind castles. They left a subtle genetic connection as well."^[40] In much the same manner, some of the Arabian Muslims did not just conquer and leave behind mosques.

Christian men from Mount Lebanon, late 1800s

It was during a broader survey of Middle Eastern populations conducted for the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society that the findings were stumbled upon. "We noticed some interesting lineages in the dataset. Among Lebanese Christians, in particular, we found higher frequency [2%] of a genetic marker — R1b — that we typically see only in Western Europe."^[40]

The lineage was seen at that "higher" frequency only in the Christian populations in Lebanon, even though among the Muslims it was not altogether absent. "The study matched the western European Y-chromosome lineage against thousands of people in France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom."^[41] On the other hand, in the Lebanese Muslim population a similar pattern, this time associated with genetic markers from Arabia, was also observed in "higher" preferential frequencies, although they too were not altogether absent in the Christian population. "We found that a lineage that is very common in the Arabian Peninsula — Hg J*— is found in slightly higher frequencies preferentially in the Muslim population."^[40] The author of the study added that the findings "certainly doesn't undermine the similarities among the various Lebanese communities, but it does agree with oral tradition."^[40]

Other unrelated studies have sought to establish relationships between the Lebanese people and other groups. At least one study by the International Institute of Anthropology in Paris, France, confirmed similarities in the Y-haplotype frequencies in Lebanese, Palestinian, and Sephardic Jewish men, identifying them as "three Near-Eastern populations sharing a common geographic origin."^[42] The study surveyed one Y-specific DNA polymorphism (p49/Taq I) in 54 Lebanese and 69 Palestinian males, and compared with the results found in 693 Jews from three distinct Jewish ethnic groups; Mizrahi Jews, Sephardi Jews, and Ashkenazi Jews.

See also[link]

• Lebanese diaspora
• Arab diaspora
• Levant
• List of Lebanese people
• Lebanese nationality law
• Lebanese American
• Lebanese Australian
• Lebanese Brazilian
• Lebanese British
• Lebanese Canadian
• Lebanese Mexican
• Lebanese immigration to Jamaica
• Lebanese Colombian
• Lebanese Argentine
• Ecuadorian of Lebanese origin
• Sierra Leonean-Lebanese

References[link]

v t e Lebanese people and diaspora Countries Americas Argentina Brazil Canada Chile Colombia Ecuador Jamaica Mexico Paraguay United States Uruguay Venezuela Europe Bulgaria France Italy Sweden United Kingdom Greece Africa Côte d'Ivoire Senegal Sierra Leone Asia Israel Turkey Oceania Australia Personalities Americas Argentina Brazil Canada Chile Colombia Cuba Curaçao Dominican Republic Ecuador Guatemala Haiti Jamaica Mexico Puerto Rico United States Uruguay Venezuela Europe Bulgaria Cyprus Denmark France Germany Italy Monaco Netherlands Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom Africa Egypt Ghana Sierra Leone South Africa Oceania Australia