Resources for Palestinian Arabic
Palestinian varieties of Arabic can be difficult to find resources for, so I decided to put together a resource list and some basic info. I tried to find Palestinian specific things, but to be honest Jordanian Arabic resources will help you almost just as much, and Lebanese and Syrian resources aren’t bad either. Jordanian and Palestinian Arabic are often grouped together as “Southern Levantine Arabic,” but there are still many subtle local differences not just by country but by city, urban vs. rural setting, social class, etc.
Dictionaries
Lughatuna is the best online dictionary for Arabic dialects. Their Levantine dictionary contains plenty of examples from Palestinian varieties, although it’s all mixed in with Jordanian, Syrian, and Lebanese. Of course, the varieties are close enough that it’s usually still helpful to learn from those, especially Jordanian.
This book of proverbs may be a fun companion to the Arabic learner, but like many proverb collections it suffers from that it doesn’t reflect how common each proverb is.
Diwan Baladna: I’ve heard good things about this book but haven’t personally used it.
Textbooks
Colloquial Palestinian Arabic I used this textbook for my first-ever 3ammiyya class my first year of college with a teacher from Gaza. The textbook wasn’t great for me at my level at the time, because it’s really made for people with a more solid control of Fus7a. I came back to it a few years later and found it to be an excellent resource.
Hakini Arabic: I’ve heard good things about this book but haven’t personally used it. I’ve heard it’s better for beginners with less Fus7a, but isn’t great for self-study. It teaches Jordanian and Palestinian together, including urban and rural dialects.
Video Resources
The 5 Colleges CultureTalk page has a ton of videos and interviews with transcriptions in a bunch of different dialects, including Palestinian.
Playaling has some Palestinian videos under its Levantine category and is a great resource in general for developing listening skills.
This youtube channel has a ton of great videos specifically for Palestinian Arabic, and is great for beginners.
This older blog has a lot of great posts breaking down songs and tv show clips in different dialects, and includes a lot of Levantine.
Team Maha has a ton of Levantine content, from grammar explanations to song breakdowns, but it’s much more North Levantine (Syrian and Lebanese). They do have a great, long document called Fus7a to Shami which is a great reference for anyone who’s taken Fus7a classes and wants to dive into colloquial Arabic.
Courses
Natakallam: I personally used this as part of Levantine Arabic class in college and I highly recommend it. You get paired with a teacher/tutor/language partner who is a refugee or otherwise displaced person. They have options for a lot of dialects including Palestinian, and they can do more structured courses or less structured conversations.
I’ve also been creating Arabic dialect and other language learning resources which you can find here: https://northafricanlinguistics.blogspot.com/p/language-apps-and-resources.html