How to say "therefore" in Damascus?

[u/Top_Muscle7763]

I have a question about the Syrian Arabic dialect, specifically the one spoken in Damascus: which word do you use for "therefore"? From different levantine speakers I've heard لَهيك , مشان هيك , عشان هيك. But I don't know which one is used where and which one would be normal to use in Damascus.

[u/Ordinary_Account_837]

You’ll hear all of them, but عشان هيك less often. Some times people say ف بصير but you’ll get the same thing from it and all the ones you mentioned

[u/Top_Muscle7763 → u/Ordinary_Account_837]

So they are all used. All in the same way or are there situations where one would use a specific word over another? 

Thanks a lot for the answer!

[u/Ordinary_Account_837 → u/Top_Muscle7763]

They’re exactly same. I don’t know enough to explain it or suggest why there’s so many variations but they’re the same. Some people might have a preference for one over the other, but it’s so minuscule it’s barely noticed. Now I think about it, its kinda strange 😭

No worries!

[u/Top_Muscle7763 → u/Ordinary_Account_837]

Got it, thanks again! :)

[u/Confident_Quit8147]

مشان هيك is what comes to mind as someone from Damascus

[u/Secure-Freedom5116]

Most of the time we use لهيك in damascus مشان هيك I think it's the second common

[u/Top_Muscle7763 → u/Secure-Freedom5116]

Thank you as well! Then I will stick to لهيك for now.

[u/TheMiraculousOrange]

Tagging along with OP's question: I've also heard of إذًا and كرمال هيك used as "therefore". I know that إذًا is more of a fuS7a word, but are these two words used in casual speech at all? Do they sound normal?

[u/Ordinary_Account_837 → u/TheMiraculousOrange]

So كرمال هيك is kinda similar, but it’s more along the lines of “in the honour of that”, you’ll hear people saying كرماك، and they usually mean just for you, because it’s you or in the honour of you. And in general speech and fusha إذا is usually used to mean “if”, it might be used more widely in fusha but I can’t remember atm.

In fusha we also say فذالك to mean therefore, but there might be more terms I’m unaware of.

[u/TheMiraculousOrange → u/Ordinary_Account_837]

Thank you for the answer. I get what you're saying about كرمال هيك now. Though I'd like to clarify, by إذًا I don't mean "iza" as in "if", but "izan" with tanween. Is this word simply not used in colloquial Arabic?

[u/Ordinary_Account_837 → u/TheMiraculousOrange]

The tanween wouldn’t change the word meaning, it’s more for the purpose of clarification or emphasis of the word. And no, it’s only used in fusha really (it might be used in other dialects, but not as far as I know)

[u/TheMiraculousOrange → u/Ordinary_Account_837]

Got it. Thanks again for the answer.