In Palestinian Arabic, do they say ishi إشي instead of shi شي for "something"?

[Kenny-Alpha]

From interacting with Palestinians over the years, I notice that they often say إشي instead of شي.

I recall a time when talking to a Palestinian female at her family's shop, she kept saying ishi instead of shi, when she would say something, or a thing.

For example, when she said, "they are buying something", she didn't say: عم يشترو شي. Instead, she said: عم يشترو إشي.

By the way, she is from aree7a أريحية[Jericho]. So I don't know if this all depends on the city in which they are from.

 

[Finland]

In my experience, إشي is indeed one of the most typical features of Palestinian Arabic. There is regional variance of course, but at least from my travels in the West Bank and chatting with Palestinians, إشي is something I have encountered very often. You hear it in other dialects as well, Syrian and Egyptian and so forth, but not as stereotypically as in PA, I would say.

 

[Kenny-Alpha]

In my experience, إشي is indeed one of the most typical features of Palestinian Arabic. There is regional variance of course, but at least from my travels in the West Bank and chatting with Palestinians, إشي is something I have encountered very often. You hear it in other dialects as well, Syrian and Egyptian and so forth, but not as stereotypically as in PA, I would say.

Thanks Finland. I thought I was the only one who heard this pronunciation. However, I've never heard it in Syrian Arabic.

 

[wriight]

Your observation is right, and to help understand it we can mess around with the framing: rather than treating شي as the default Levantine word, we can say that شي is just the word most Syrians/Lebanese have for "something" and إشي is instead the word most Palestinians/Jordanians have. Hearing شي in a Levantine dialect is one way to help tell that it's probably North Levantine.

 

[Kenny-Alpha]

Your observation is right, and to help understand it we can mess with the framing: rather than looking at it as Palestinians saying إشي for شي, we can say that شي is just the word most Syrians/Lebanese have for "something" and إشي is instead the word most Palestinians/Jordanians have. Hearing شي in a Levantine dialect is one way to help tell that it's probably North Levantine.

Ok so you're saying that the entire Lebanon, does not use شي?

 

[wriight]

My phrasing might've come across backwards. What I was saying was that Lebanon/Syria mostly have شي and Palestine/Jordan mostly have إشي, so they're about on equal footing if you look at Levantine as a whole. But like Finland said, there's always fuzziness with dialect differences like this, especially e.g. around national borders.

 

[Kenny-Alpha]

My phrasing might've come across backwards. What I was saying was that Lebanon/Syria mostly have شي and Palestine/Jordan mostly have إشي, so they're about on equal footing if you look at Levantine as a whole. But like Finland said, there's always fuzziness with dialect differences like this, especially e.g. around national borders.

Ok, understood completely. I didn't know that Jordan uses إشي also.