In Arabic, the city is called Dimashq (). The city is also known as  by the citizens of Damascus, of Syria and other Arab neighbors and Turkey ().  is an Arabic term for "Levant" and for "Syria"; the latter, and particularly the historical region of Syria, is called  ( / "land of the Levant"). The latter term etymologically means "land of the left-hand side" or "the north", as someone in the Hijaz facing east, oriented to the sunrise, will find the north to the left. This is contrasted with the name of Yemen ( ), correspondingly meaning "the right-hand side" or "the south". The variation  ('), of the more typical  (), is also attested in Old South Arabian,  (), with the same semantic development.