Syrian Jews
The Syrian pronunciation of Hebrew is similar to that of other Mizrahi communities and is influenced both by Sephardi Hebrew and by the Syrian dialect of Levantine Arabic. The Syrian pronunciation of Hebrew is less archaic than the Iraqi Hebrew of Iraqi Jews and closer to standard Sephardic Hebrew. That affects especially the interdentals. Nevertheless, Syrian and Iraqi Hebrew are very closely related because of their location and geographic proximity, as is the case with most eastern Jewish communities in the Arabic world other than Yemenite Jews. Particular features are as follows:The retention of distinct emphatic sounds such as and differentiates Syrian pronunciation from many other Sephardic/Mizrahi pronunciations, which have failed to maintain these phonemic or phonological distinctions, such as between and .
Middle East
Perhaps because of the influence of the Western press, the Arabic equivalent of "Middle East" (Arabic: الشرق الأوسط "ash-Sharq al-Awsaṭ") has become standard usage in the mainstream Arabic press, comprising the same meaning as the term "Middle East" in North American and Western European usage. The designation, "Mashriq", also from the Arabic root for "East", also denotes a variously defined region around the Levant, the eastern part of the Arabic-speaking world (as opposed to the "Maghreb", the western part). Even though the term originated in the West, apart from Arabic, other languages of countries of the Middle East also use a translation of it. The Persian equivalent for Middle East is خاورمیانه ("Khāvar-e miyāneh"), the Hebrew is המזרח התיכון ("hamizrach hatikhon") and the Turkish is Orta Doğu.