Palestinian vs. Lebanese Dialects

Member najla asked me to tell her some differences between Palestinian & Lebansese dialects. I did what I could for her; I know I'm not an expert in Lebanese, but I gave it a shot. So don't kill me if I made any mistakes. Please correct my attempt & elaborate on the discussion!


forgive me, i don't have an arabic keyboard.

in palestinian arabic, there are two main dialects:
Fala7i & Madani.

-fala7i is usually used by the older generations. fala7i replaces arabic letter ﻙ's sound, k, to ch.
ex.: madani: keef 7alik? fala7i: cheef 7alich?
younger generations generally try to stay away from the "ch."
the fala7i dialect orginated from the fala7een, the real, hardcore palestinians from back in the day. (:

-madani is closer to the lebanese dialect. madani does not change the k to ch. but, unlike lebanese, speakers usually leave the letter ﻕ as it sounds.
ex.: pali: qahwa (coffee) leb: 2ahwa
*keep in mind that madani speakers also sometimes use the ﺀ in place of ﻕ

both fala7i and madani* keep the sound of ﺙ as TH. whereas lebanese replace the sound of ﺙ with the sound of (t) ﺕ or sound of ﺱ (s)
ex.: fala7i/madani: ethnaan (two) leb/madani: etnaan
ex.: fala7i/madani: thawani (seconds) leb/madani: sawani

-for the word "like", palestinians use mithil as well as zay; zay is used more often.

-usually in lebanese, when a word ends with "ﻡ," (you plural) the lebanese replace the "ﻡ" with the "ن" wheras palestinians leave the "ﻡ."
ex: leb: 3andkon (by you all) pali: 3andkom

-when you are talking about the present, in leb/madani dialect they use the word 3am (عم) for is & are. in fala7i/madani dialect they omit they عم and add b (ب) to the front of the verb. ب is used to mean is & are, also.

ex.:
leb/madani: howi 3am yil3ab (bil3ab). (he is playing)
fala7i/madani: howi bl3ab. (he is playing)

leb diaclect sometimes replaces damma on a word with a kasra.
ex.:
fala7i/madani: kolich/kolik/2olik (telling you)
leb only: 2ellik (telling you)

i cant really explain this one, but for the word eat:
-fala7i/madani say bochel/bokel (i eat, he eats)
-leb/madani say bakol (i eat)

-fala7i/madani: bnochel/bnokel (we eat)
-leb/madani: bnakol (we eat)

-fala7i/madani: btochel/btokel (she eats)
-leb/madani: btakol (she eats)

i'll try to think of some more cases like this later.

im not too sure about this next one but:
also, the leb put a y in front of a verb in the present tense. (i'm not sure if this goes hand-in-hand with the word عم[is & are]. i don't think it does)

fala7i/madani: bi7koole (they tell me)
leb/madani: byi7koole (they tell me)

now, when you want to say you are going to do something (future), leb/madani use the word ra7 (رح) and conjugate the verb accordingly, or use the letter (ﺡ) in front of the conjugated verb. whereas fala7i/madani use different forms of the word رح and conjugate the verb accordingly.

fala7i/madani:
-ray7een nitla3 (we're going to go out)
-ray7a titla3 (she's going to go out)
-rayi7 yitla3 (he's going to go out)

leb/madani using رح:
-ra7 nitla3 (we're going to go out)
-ra7 titla3 (she's going to go out)
-ra7 yitla3 (he's going to go out)

leb/madani using ﺡ

7a nitla3 (we're going to go out)
-7a titla3 (she's going to go out)
-7a yitla3 (he's going to go out)
*in arabic, the letter ﺡ is connected to the verb

reply with your critique

we'll basically they are same except for few things when we look at the lebanese (city) accent they are more modern and sometimes you'll find people that pronounces "R" as an "AGH" they make it sound french, but if you go to the villages they speak just like palestinians except for "ch" sound which we use a lot but when it comes to the "ق" they pronounce the same "ك" so they are similarities and difference which are like nothing.

Here are some words Lebanese use
إيمتين (Aimteen): means when and Palsetinans say Mata
يتساءب (Yetsa2ab): means coincide and Palestinias say Yesadif
عوينات it's (3weinat): means eyeglasses and Palestinians say Nath-tharat or Naddarat
كوزلوك: (Kozlouk) and this is from Turkish word same meaning as the above, eyeglasses
مفرص (Mfarras): means went on a vaccation and Palestinians say A5ad ejaze or Ra7 ejazeh...

we also say (مفرص) & (عوينات ) & (يتساءب ) most of the time so the only difference is (إيمتين) which no other country but lebanon use and honestly it sounds so wrong to say Em-teen ( the mother of fig ).

In fact I only heard yetsa2ab and mfarras from Lebanese I've never heard them before, even 3wenat actually. So tell me from which city you are dear

from ramallah but the terms are used through out the country.

In fact I met Palestinian nearly from all areas, and aslo went to Palestine and still going, but I've never ever in my life heard any Palestinian uses these words.

Well, that's not my fault that you haven't heard anyone using them maybe cause you been talking to people from GAZA which basically speak Egyptian or may be you been talking to village folks who still use (يا كشلي ) all the time. I don't know about you home boy but I know for a fact that we use those terms all the time without any exception. and let not create a controversy here about three words.

Great, informative posts!!! Thank you! Its no wonder I got different words from Gazans than my folks from Ramallah on how to say certain words/phrases.

Does anyone here know an Arabic idiom that would mean the same thing as the english "If the shoe fits (wear it)?"
This would be Ramallah guy, but lives in Lebanon...

Even if palestinians say k for both k and q, you still can notice the difference. The k is more palatalized.

In the cities they say T instead of T.

Palestinians in Northern Israel pronunciation (near the border) is very close to the Lebanese ones. Not only accent but also the vocabulary. For example, they say "badde" as lebanese instead of "bedde".

About the 3ankom/n. Actually, they drop the final m. So they say 3endko instead. I heard in Jerusalem they say 3endkom. They also say 3endhom when in north they say mostly 3endhen ( as bedhen -they want vs. bedhom Jerusalem vs. badon Lebanese). Even the word structure is different. for example "I saw them" - there's shofthen, shoftihom and shofthom.
About the "when". In Jerusalem they say emta, others they wenta.

That's it by now.

All this is in addiction to the city/village/Beduin/ religion accent distinction. Palestinians speak so many different accents so it's difficult to make a general rule for all of them.

vivianne's answer is spot on!

Originally Posted by Rhonda9080

Does anyone here know an Arabic idiom that would mean the same thing as the english "If the shoe fits (wear it)?"
This would be Ramallah guy, but lives in Lebanon...

3ala kad efrashak med rejlayk

Originally Posted by LOUIE

3ala kad efrashak med rejlayk

LOL they say that? hmm lets turn that lebanese (or falastini madini )

3ala 2ad farshtak mid rijlek

Originally Posted by Oriee

Here are some words Lebanese use
إيمتين (Aimteen): means when and Palsetinans say Mata
يتساءب (Yetsa2ab): means coincide and Palestinias say Yesadif
عوينات it's (3weinat): means eyeglasses and Palestinians say Nath-tharat or Naddarat
كوزلوك: (Kozlouk) and this is from Turkish word same meaning as the above, eyeglasses
مفرص (Mfarras): means went on a vaccation and Palestinians say A5ad ejaze or Ra7 ejazeh...

Also lebanese say 2ali, whereas Palestinians say 7akali
3aytila for lebanese, nadiha for Palestinians...there are so many small words I think the Palestinian accent is split up into smaller sectors so its harder to make consistent evaluations. Like for pen, some Palestinians would say qalam, some galam and some 2alam. Madanis are perhapst the closest to lebanese, and falahis are...closer to Jordanians

Hi all,

I just remembered or noticed, whatever or maybe both, that both Palestinians and Lebanese differ in expressing present time,
Palestinian express it as قاعد (with all the diviations of letter ق) while
Lebanese express it as عم
For example:
He goes to school
Palestinians: قاعد بروح على المدرسة
Lebanses: عم بروح عالمدرسة

I'm ironing
Palestinians: قاعدة اكوي
Lebanses: عم اكوي/ عم بكوي

Originally Posted by Oriee

Hi all,

I just remembered or noticed, whatever or maybe both, that both Palestinians and Lebanese differ in expressing present time,
Palestinian express it as قاعد (with all the diviations of letter ق) while
Lebanese express it as عم
For example:
He goes to school
Palestinians: قاعد بروح على المدرسة
Lebanses: عم بروح عالمدرسة

I'm ironing
Palestinians: قاعدة اكوي
Lebanses: عم اكوي/ عم بكوي

As far as I know:


اليوم قاعده اكوي

قاعد is used in Gulf Accent (for present tense

ٍSalaam

In my opinion, Lebanese/ Syrian & Palestinian/Jordanian, differes in the way of pronounciation, I mean if a text is written in dialect, Arabic Font ofcourse, everyonen will read it according to his dialect without telling the dialect.
For example:
شو بدك تعمل؟
Is a fair sentece

Beside that
Lebanese and Syrians, both tend to use "Sokoon ْ " & " Kasra ِ "

While;
Palestinians & Jordanians tend to use "Damma ُ " & "Fat7a َ " instead

For example:
Brush:
Leb/ Syr.: el firshayeh
Pale/Jor.: el forshayeh

Shoes:
Leb/ Syr.: El kin-dra*
Pale/ Jor.: El kondara

Capboard:
Leb/ Syr.: El 5-zaneh*
Pale/ Jor.: El 5azaneh

* (-) sign is added where sokoon should be placed.

Ummmmmmm
y'know ??
we mustn't be telling about alot of accents of arabic... that'll make the learners confused.
we havta be agreeing on one accent to tell about or teach

why??!!!
coz in The Arabian World , there're hundreds of accents.
in fact , in every country there're 3 different accents as an average
so it's difficult for the non-Arabs to join data that they learned and use it for arabic

and if we agreed on the standard arabic ( Fo97a\Fos-ha ) , it won't be an achievement ,, coz standard arabic is seldom to be used .

i think we can use a middle accent .. i see that the average syrian OR Palestinian accent is good .

we can hardly say Egyption , for many reasonings :
1- it has lots of vocabulary .
2-it has a lot of idioms ( Idioms: phrases that hardly can be translated or explained literally )
3-it has a special voice .. and the Non-Arabs can't move that move from their accent-voice to the egyption-voice . in fact , even the arabians hardly can sound egyptions .

and we can't say Lebanese , for many reasons:
1-it has a lot of Tendencies .
2-sometimes it's not understandable .

we can't say Badawi , Falla7i nor 5aleeji
they're often not understandable

i see it must be Palestinian ( madani not falla7i ) , or syrian ( normal syrian .. not the accents of 7alab " Halab" city , or Elladqeyyeh "ellad2eyyeh" ...etc )

so what're your perspectives ??!

Looool I loved your post mahhorizon

I've heard from non native speakers that egyptian is quite easy to learn to be honest, so maybe you shouldnt dismiss it so quickly

And even thought you might think that classical (fus7a) arabic is not used, its knowledge is elementary and vital, most dialect words are derived from fus7a. Also, news and books are written in fus7a, there can be no substitution for fus7a arabic

Lebanese is actually quite similar to syrian, its only the inflection of tones that varies to be honest, but many words are similar, and are shared between all levantine speaking countries (bilad ilshaam).

I find Khaliji arabic to be quite close to fus7a too

You've left out the maghreb dialects But in this case, I would definately not suggest a non native to begin trying to learn morrocan/algerian because its influenced by other languages like french and berber!

Just thought I'd contribute to the discussion. I still think fus7a is the most vital of all, and once you start understanding fus7a you would be able to pick up the other accents easily!

Good luck to all learners