Lebanonese advocates are sometimes astounding. I was reading Ilia Issa's Glossaire Des Mots Syriaques dans le Dialectre Libanais. The author is incredible--just as Jesuit Orientalist, Louis Cheikho (sic), made most of the Arab poets (during Jahiliyyah and Islam) to be Christians in his well-known books, Issa wanted to trace many Arabic words to Syriac. But the problem is that what are known as Semitic languages share words and roots of words. So the word "tarabba`a" (p. 20) for example can also be easily traced to an Arabic root. Some Lebanese have deep seated problems of complexes of insecurity and inferiority. Those will never be happy except in Western countries where they trace their mythical and imaginary "roots".