While loanwords typically adopt the phonology of the borrowing language, also semantic, syntactic morphological material from both languages may be present in the borrowed word. A word that has been borrowed by one language in the past can come in contact with a speaker that not only dominates the lending language that of which the loanword originates, but also the borrowing language itself.  Such is the case between Arabic and Portuguese in a Lebanese-Brazilian community in São Paulo.  In this research, social factors affecting variation in the perception and production of Portuguese words of Arabic origin are examined across three generations of Lebanese-Brazilians.