Lebanon (Lubnān) in other languages: exonyms, Beirut and ISO codes

Lubnān, Libanon, Livan: three ways to say Lebanon

Arabic writes the country لبنان, Lubnān, and the state الجمهورية اللبنانية, al-Ǧumhūrīyâẗu l-Lubnānīyâ. The other languages fall into three groups. One keeps the Arabic u or its English e: Lebanon in English, Hausa and Indonesian, Lübnan in Turkish, Lebanoni in Swahili. A second follows the Latin and Greek Libanus with an i: Libanon in German, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages, Liban in French and Polish, Líbano in Spanish and Portuguese. Greek has Λίβανος, Lívanos, and Russian and most Cyrillic languages turn the b into v, Ливан, Livan.

Hebrew writes לבנון, Ləṿanōn, and Yiddish לבֿנון, Leṿonen; both keep the v heard in the Greek and Russian forms. Irish has two spellings, An Liobáin and An Leabáin.

Beirut is بيروت, Bayrūt, in Arabic, which is also the Turkish and Tagalog Beyrut. The French Beyrouth keeps the y of the Arabic diphthong; Polish, Croatian and Slovenian write Bejrut. Greek offers the widest range, from the ancient Βηρυτός and Βηρυττός (Vīryttós) to Βεϋρούτ and colloquial Μπερούτι, and Latin keeps Berytus.

Kullunā li-l-waṭan: the title line

The anthem takes its title from its first words, كلنا للوطن, kullunā li-l-waṭan, all of us for the homeland. The full refrain adds li-l-ʿulá li-l-ʿalam, for glory and for the flag, and closes each of the three stanzas.