Palestinian Arabic

Palestinian Arabic is a Levantine dialect, cousin to Syrian and Lebanese speech, and easy to recognise by the b- prefix on present-tense verbs: biktib, I write; btektib, you write.

It splits into registers: brisker urban speech, rural speech in the Galilee that keeps old feminine plural endings (ishmismik, “what is your name?”), and the southern speech of Gaza, which borrows happily from Egyptian.

Arabic	Transliteration	Meaning
مرحبا	marhaba	hello
صباح الخير	sabah el-kheir	good morning
كيف حالك	keef halak / keef halik	how are you (to a man / to a woman)
حبيبي / حبيبتي	habibi / habibti	my dear (m / f)
شكرا	shukran	thank you
يلا	yalla	let’s go, come on
بكرة	bukra	tomorrow
كتير	kteer	very, a lot
إن شاء الله	inshallah	God willing
منيح	mniḥ	good, fine
وين	wayn	where
زلمة	zalameh	man, guy

Poetry runs through daily life: Darwish is sung, quoted at weddings, and shouted at protests, often by people who can recite him before they can read him.