Palestinian Arabic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Palestinian Arabic is a Levantine Arabic dialect subgroup spoken by Palestinian Arabs. Palestinian rural dialects exhibit several distinctive features (particularly the pronunciation of qaf as kaf) which distinguish them from other Arabic varieties, but Palestinian urban dialects more closely resemble northern Levantine dialects, i.e., those of Syria and Lebanon.
The pronunciation of qāf serves as a shibboleth to distinguish the three main Palestinian dialects: it becomes a glottal stop in most cities, a uvular k in smaller villages and the countryside, and g in the far south and among Bedouin speakers. In addition, a feminine suffix -a rather than the more common Levantine -i or -é is fairly widespread, particularly in the south of the area. In dialects where qāf is pronounced as k, a true kāf is often pronounced /tʃ/, as in some dialects of Gulf Arabic. This is generally a feature of more conservative idiolects. In general, the rural dialects are somewhat stigmatised and urban pronunciations are gaining ground, as is the case in other Arabic dialect groups. This pronunciation of kāf also happens in the northern West Bank (Samaria) and adjacent Palestinian populated areas in Israel, known as "the triangle". This pronunciation is often stigmatised by urban Palestinians and some villagers who refrain from that pronunciation.
The pronunciation of hamzated verbs with an 'o'-like vowel in the imperfect is typical of Palestinian dialects. For example, in Fuṣḥa the imperfect of اكل akala 'eat' is آكل 'ākulu: the common equivalent in Palestinian dialect is بوكل bokel (the b is an imperfect tense marker common to most Mashriqi dialects).
Palestinian Arabic also shares some features with Egyptian and other southern Levantine dialects. In addition to vocabulary differences (for example 'like' (prep.) is زي zayy in Palestine and Egypt, مثل mitl in Syria and Lebanon), the Palestinian dialects typically suffix (ش -sh, IPA: /ʃ/) to form the negative of verbs and pseudo-verbal prepositional pronouns.
Palestinian Arabic, especially in its rural dialects, shows some traces of influence from classical Hebrew, in particular in second and third person plural pronouns (hemme 'they' resembles Hebrew hēm as against Classical Arabic hum). There are also borrowings from modern Israeli Hebrew, for example:
- maħsom מחסום (barrier)
- ramzor רמזור (traffic light)
- pelefon פלאפון (cellphone)
- shamenet שמנת (sour cream)
- mazgan מזגן (air-conditioner)
- beseder בסדר (O.K)
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- P. Behnstedt, Wolfdietrich Fischer and Otto Jastrow, Handbuch der Arabischen Dialekte. 2nd ed. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1980 (ISBN 3-447-02039-3)
- Haim Blanc, Studies in North Palestinian Arabic: linguistic inquiries among the Druzes of Western Galilee and Mt. Carmel. Oriental notes and studies, no. 4. Jerusalem: Typ. Central Press 1953.
- J. Cantineau, "Remarques sur les parlés de sédentaires syro-libano-palestiniens", in: Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 40 (1938), pp. 80-89.
- R. L. Cleveland, "Notes on an Arabic Dialect of Southern Palestine", in: Bulletin of the American Society of Oriental Research 185 (1967), pp. 43-57.
- Yohanan Elihai, Dictionnaire de l’arabe parle palestinien: francais-arabe. Jerusalem: Typ. Yanetz 1973.
- Yohanan Elihai, The olive tree dictionary: a transliterated dictionary of conversational Eastern Arabic (Palestinian). Washington, DC: Kidron Pub. 2004 (ISBN 0-9759726-0-X)
- Moin Halloun, A Practical Dictionary of the Standard Dialect Spoken in Palestine. Bethlehem University 2000.
- Arye Levin, A Grammar of the Arabic Dialect of Jerusalem [in Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Magnes Press 1994 (ISBN 965-223-878-3)
- M. Piamenta, Studies in the Syntax of Palestinian Arabic. Jerusalem 1966.
- Frank A. Rice and Majed F. Sa'ed, Eastern Arabic: an introduction to the spoken Arabic of Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. Beirut: Khayat's 1960.
- Frank A. Rice, Eastern Arabic-English, English-Eastern Arabic: dictionary and phrasebook for the spoken Arabic of Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine/Israel and Syria. New York: Hippocrene Books 1998 (ISBN 0-7818-0685-2)
- Kimary N. Shahin, Palestinian Rural Arabic (Abu Shusha dialect). 2nd ed. University of British Columbia. LINCOM Europa, 2000 (ISBN 3-89586-960-0)
[edit] External links
- The Arabic dialect of central Palestine
- Arabic in Jordan (Palestinian dialect)
- "Phonological change and variation in Palestinian Arabic as spoken inside Israel", Dissertation Proposal by Uri Horesh, Philadelphia, December 12, 2003 (PDF)
- The Corpus of Spoken Palestinian Arabic (CoSPA), project description by Otto Jastrow.ar:لهجة فلسطينية
de:Palästinensisch-Arabisch he:ערבית פלסטינית
