From Nablus to Gaza: Exploring the Structure and Identity of Palestinian Arabic
Keywords:
Palestinian Arabic, Levantine dialects, phonology, morphology, syntax, dialect standardization, diglossia, spoken Arabic, Arabic sociolinguistics, language teachingAbstract
This article offers a comprehensive linguistic overview of the Palestinian
dialect of Arabic, a major variety within the Levantine dialect group. The study examines
its phonological system, morphological patterns, and syntactic structures, with a focus on
authentic examples drawn from everyday speech. Special attention is given to the
interaction between colloquial and formal Arabic in Palestinian usage, and to morphological
features such as vowel shortening when suffixes are added to verb roots (e.g., baqūl →
baqul-lak). In the final section, the article addresses a pressing issue in Arabic dialectology:
the absence of a standardized grammar or writing system for Palestinian Arabic. The author
proposes a foundational model for standardization based on central urban varieties,
supported by corpus development and community-informed documentation. This approach is intended to support future educational use and technological applications such as
automatic translation and voice recognition.
References
Al-Deaibes (Phonological aspects of Jordanian Bedouin Arabic)
Erwin Tschirner, Karin C. Ryding. Palestinian Colloquial Arabic: A Course in Spoken
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Brustad, Kristen. (2000). The Syntax of Spoken Arabic: A Comparative Study of
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Maha Abdel-Fattah, Spoken Arabic (Palestinian Dialect) Georgetown University Press.
J. Elihay - English translation: Carol Sutherland, Susan Fogg «Speaking Arabic: A
Course in Conversational Eastern (Palestinian) Arabic» Book 1, Second edition, Minerva
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