The Negev desert was under the rule of the Nabatean Kingdom for the greater part of Classical antiquity, and included settlements such as Mahoza and Ein-Gedi where Judean and Nabatean populations lived in alongside each other, as documented by the Babatha archive which dates to the second century.

Additionally, occasional Arabic loanwords can be found in the Jewish Aramaic documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

After the Early Muslim Arabians took control of the area, so as to maintain their regular activity, the upper classes had to quickly become fluent in the language of the new rulers who most probably were only few.

The hikaye, a form of women's oral literature inscribed to UNESCO's list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Palestine, is recited in both the urban and rural dialects of Palestinian Arabic.

Urban dialects are characterised by the [ʔ] (hamza) pronunciation of ق qaf, the simplification of interdentals as dentals plosives, i.e. ث as [t], ذ as [d] and both ض and ظ as [dˤ].

In borrowings from Modern Standard Arabic, these interdental consonants are realised as dental sibilants, i.e. ث as [s], ذ as [z] and ظ as [zˤ] but ض is kept as [dˤ].

The Druzes have a dialect that may be classified with the Urban ones,[dubious – discuss] with the difference that they keep the uvular pronunciation of ق qaf as [q].

The urban dialects also ignore the difference between masculine and feminine in the plural pronouns انتو ['ɪntu] is both 'you' (masc.

As Sephardic Jews were expelled after the conclusion of the Reconquista, they established communities in Ottoman Palestine in Jerusalem and Galilee under the invitation of Sultan Bayezid II.

It peaked at 10,000 speakers and thrived alongside Yiddish among Ashkenazis until the widespread adoption of Modern Hebrew among the Yishuv following its revival in the late 19th century.

The three rural groups in the region are the following: The Bedouins of Southern Levant use two different ('badawi') dialects in Galilee and the Negev.

The Negev desert Bedouins, who are also present in Palestine and Gaza Strip use a dialect closely related to those spoken in the Hijaz, and in the Sinai.

The Negev Bedouins, who ended up around Hebron and Jerusalem after the 1948 Palestine War have a specific vocabulary, where they maintain the interdental consonants, do not use the ش- [-ʃ] negative suffix, always realise ك /k/ as [k] and ق /q/ as [g], and distinguish plural masculine from plural feminine pronouns, but with different forms as the rural speakers.

On the other hand, the individualisation that comes with urbanisation make people feel more free to choose the way they speak than before, and in the same way as some will use typical Egyptian or Lebanese features as [le:] for [le:ʃ], others may use typical rural features such as the rural realisation [kˤ] of ق as a pride reaction against the stigmatisation of this pronunciation.

as an influence of ancient Hebrew מי [miː] on Classical Arabic من [man], but it could be as well an analogy with the long vowels of the other interrogatives.

In Palestinian Arabic, the Indirect Object marker is still based on the consonant /l/, but with more complex rules, and two different vocal patterns.

For instance The most often cited example of vowel harmony in Palestinian Arabic is in the present tense conjugations of verbs.

[19] Examples: The Ancient peoples of Palestine, as well as their Palestinian successors, have either retained words from the original languages spoken in the land, or borrowed them from other cultures and various imperial rulers they contacted or interacted with throughout history.

According to sociolinguist David Mendelson from Givat Haviva's Jewish-Arab Center for Peace, there is an adoption of words from Hebrew in Arabic spoken in Israel where alternative native terms exist.