Syria's culture: Arabic in public, many communities underneath

Which languages Syrians speak

The great majority of Syrians speak Arabic, the state's official language. The Arabic Language Academy in Damascus, founded in 1919, is the oldest such academy in the Arab world by Britannica's account. Britannica lists the other languages and where they are heard: Kurdish in the far north-east and north-west, Armenian in Aleppo and the other large cities, Turkish in villages east of the Euphrates and along the border with Turkey, and Circassian among a small minority. English and French are understood in the cities.

The Wikipedia account, citing The Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, ranks the languages after Arabic by number of speakers as Kurdish, Turkish, Neo-Aramaic in four dialects, Circassian, Chechen, Armenian and Greek. Western Neo-Aramaic survives in Maaloula, Jubbadin and Bakhah, about 56 kilometres north-east of Damascus. Assyrian communities in Homs, Aleppo, Qamishli and Hasakah keep other Neo-Aramaic dialects.

Kurdish gained official standing only in 2026. A decree of 16 January 2026, the first to grant Kurdish Syrians such rights, designated Kurdish a national language alongside Arabic, allowed schools to teach it, made Newroz a paid national holiday, banned ethnic and linguistic discrimination and restored citizenship to Kurds stripped of it by a census held in Hasakah in 1962, including those registered as stateless. The Kurdish administration of the north-east welcomed it as "a first step" and asked for the rights to be written into a permanent constitution.

Population shares for the minorities are estimates. Wikipedia's article on religion in Syria puts the Kurds at around 10% of the population in 2013 and the Turkmen at 4 to 5%; Kurds are a majority only in Hasakah governorate, where they make up about 60%. Britannica notes that much of the Kurdish population speaks Arabic, that the Armenians divide into early settlers who became largely Arabic-speaking and later arrivals after the First World War who kept their language, and that Assyrians who came from Iraq as refugees in the 1930s were quickly absorbed.

Which faiths Syrians belong to

Every count of Syria's religious make-up is an estimate, and none comes from a recent census. Britannica describes Sunni Muslims as about three-quarters of the Muslim population and in the majority in every governorate except Sweida and Latakia. Wikipedia's article on religion in Syria gives Sunnis about 74% of the whole population, Alawites about 11% and the Druze about 3%.

The Christian figure is the one that moves most between sources. Britannica keeps the older proportion of about a tenth and names eleven churches, among them Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic and Maronite. Wikipedia's article records estimates for 2022 ranging from under 2% to about 2.5%, after emigration during the war, and notes that emigration of Christians had already been heavy in the 1960s.

Britannica describes the family as the centre of social life. Marriage within one's own religion is the norm: a Muslim man may marry a non-Muslim woman but the reverse is prohibited, and a marriage between Christian denominations needs the permission of both churches. Neighbourly relations across religious lines are common in the cities.

How the holidays were rewritten after the transition

The calendar of public holidays is where the change of government shows most plainly in daily life. Decree No. 188 of 5 October 2025 set the official holidays, adding Liberation Day on 8 December, for the fall of the old government, and Syrian Revolution Day on 18 March, the date on which security forces first killed protesters at Daraa in 2011 by Britannica's account. North Press Agency noted that Syrians have long disagreed whether the uprising began on 15 or on 18 March.

The same decree dropped the Baathist anniversaries. The 8 March holiday for the coup of 1963, the 6 October holiday for the war of 1973, Martyrs' Day and Teachers' Day all went. Independence Day on 17 April, both Eids, the Hijri New Year, the Prophet's Birthday, Christmas, Mother's Day on 21 March and Easter by both the Eastern and the Western calendars stayed. Mother's Day falls on the same date as Newroz, which a Kurdish conference had asked in April 2025 to be made a holiday; the January 2026 decree did so.

What a Syrian meal is built on

A Syrian meal opens with meze, a spread of small dishes eaten with flat bread, and Britannica notes how much lemon, garlic, onion and spice the cooking uses. Kibbeh, shells of bulgur and minced lamb or beef filled with spiced meat and pine nuts, is made fried, baked, grilled or raw. Vine leaves are stuffed with meat and rice and simmered in lemon juice; stuffed courgettes and aubergines go by the name mahshi. Hummus, tabbouleh, fattoush, labneh and mujaddara of lentils and rice are everyday dishes, and manakish with zaatar or cheese is served as a starter.

Syrian cheeses include shanklish, a blue cheese of cow's or sheep's milk served under dried thyme and olive oil, and jibbneh mashallale, a string cheese pulled and twisted from curd, eaten with ring-shaped kaak biscuits. Wikipedia's article on the cuisine dates many of its recipes to at least the thirteenth century. Arabic coffee is served to guests and after meals. Arak is poured on special occasions. Food as a catalogue of dishes belongs to the sister site RECIPESpec.

Which crafts UNESCO has listed

Syria ratified UNESCO's convention on intangible heritage on 11 March 2005. By 2025 nine Syrian elements were inscribed, and the list leans toward the crafts of Aleppo and Damascus.

Two of the nine, shadow play and glassblowing, are on the list of heritage in need of urgent safeguarding. A Syrian nomination of the craft traditions of Al Saafiyat and plant fibres was before the committee in 2026. UNESCO's fund supported an emergency programme for Syrian heritage from 2014 to 2018 with $140,700, a survey of the heritage of displaced Syrians in 2016, and in June 2026 a $99,700 project to pass glassblowing skills on.

What Syrian writers and musicians have made

The scribes of Ugarit wrote a cuneiform alphabet in the fourteenth century BC. In modern Arabic letters Syrian writers took part in the nahda, the literary revival of the nineteenth century, and the twentieth century produced the poets Nizar Qabbani and Adonis, Muhammad al-Maghout, Haidar Haidar, Ghada al-Samman and Zakariyya Tamer, and the novelist Hanna Mina. Wikipedia's account traces two turns in that writing: a literature of political commitment after 1948, and a literature of defeat after 1967. Saadallah Wannous, who died in 1997, wrote plays known outside the Arab world for their politics.

Damascus founded an Eastern music institute in 1947, a music school in 1961 and a High Institute of Music in 1990. Aleppo is known for the muwashshah, sung poetry in the Andalusian form associated with Sabri Moudallal and Sabah Fakhri, and the singers Farid al-Atrash and his sister Asmahan reached audiences across the Arab world. Folk music is played mostly on the oud and the ney over lap-held drums, with little singing. In the nomadic regions Bedouin music, played on the mizmar and the rababa, is the popular form. Syrian chant, among the earliest Christian hymn traditions, is still sung in the liturgy of several Syrian churches.

Syrian television began in 1960, when Syria and Egypt were one state, and broadcast in black and white until 1976. Its serial dramas sold across the eastern Arab world, and Durayd Lahham's comic character Ghawwar became familiar far beyond Syria.

How the arts and the press were run

What the state taught and showed

Islamic convention discouraged the depiction of people and animals, and Britannica records that until the First World War public art in Syria kept to geometric and plant designs, arabesque and calligraphy, which cover most palaces and mosques. Drawing entered the school curriculum after the war and a generation of painters followed. Sculpture stayed mostly decorative, carved in white marble, a Damascus speciality visible in its palaces and public buildings.

The state built the institutions. Damascus holds the National Museum, a museum of folk traditions and museums of agriculture and military history, and there are archaeological museums in Aleppo and at the main sites. The Zahiriyya library and the library of the University of Damascus hold the main collections. The Ministry of Culture set up an Arab institute of music and courses in the fine and applied arts.

How the press and broadcasting worked

Most Syrian publishing is in Damascus. Britannica describes newspapers that were subject to government restriction and run mostly by official or semi-official bodies, with the government daily Al-Hurriyyah, formerly Tishrin, and the state news agency SANA at the centre. Radio began in 1945 and reached almost every home; the first private station, Al-Madina FM, opened in 2005. As satellite dishes spread, Syrians gained a wider choice of Middle Eastern and European programmes, and in June 2012 the Arab League asked the Arabsat and Nilesat operators to stop carrying Syrian state media.

The 2026 report of Freedom House records more room for journalists and civil society after December 2024 and a more permissive climate for private expression than under the old government.

How the old houses are laid out

The traditional town house of Damascus, Aleppo and other old cities turns inward on one or more courtyards, usually with a fountain fed by spring water in the middle and citrus trees, vines and flowers around it. The Azm Palace in Damascus, built in the eighteenth century for the Ottoman governor Asad Pasha al-Azm, divides the type into three wings: the harem or family quarters, with baths built as a smaller copy of the city's public baths, the selamlek or guest wing with its reception halls, and the khademlek or service wing. Village houses outside the big cities are often centuries old and passed down through families, and Wikipedia's account notes that newer village building is in unpainted concrete and block, grey and brown.

Dress varies as much as faith. Britannica describes women in current European fashion beside women fully veiled, and older men in the traditional black baggy trousers beside young men in Western clothes.

Which dances and games Syrians keep

Weddings are where folk custom is most on show. The dabke, a line and circle dance led by one dancer who turns between the audience and the line, is danced at weddings and other celebrations; the arada is performed with swords, and the al-Samah is another of the traditional dances. Football is the most followed sport. The national team played its first international on 20 November 1949 and has qualified for four Asian Cups. The Syrian Premier League has played since 1966, Damascus hosted the fifth and seventh Pan Arab Games and Latakia the tenth Mediterranean Games, and Syria won its first Olympic medal in men's heavyweight freestyle wrestling at the 1984 Games.