In Syriac, in the Jacobite pronunciation which was that of the Syriac in Lebanon, the passage from a to o is unconditional: all a's are transformed, whatever their position, whatever the consonnatic context, the phenomenon is general. In North-Lebanon, it is not the case: the passage of a to o occurs only in determined cases, it is conditioned. A good example to make feel the difference between the Syriac and the usage of dialectal Arabic in North-Lebanon is the treatment of the Arabic word "kitab" ( meaning "book"): in Syriac: "ketob"; in Kfarsghab: "ktib"; elsewhere in the North, "ktéb".