Your friend's mom spends all afternoon on a maqlooba and sets it down in front of you. The polite reflex, the thing you say back, has the word for "hands" buried inside it. tislam 'iydeek, you tell her: bless your hands.
That's the thing about body words. They live in expressions and greetings, way more than they live at the doctor. Learn six of them and you've got a foot in a dozen everyday phrases. Here they are, head to chin.
The six, at a glance
| English | Singular | Gender | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| head | raas | m | roos |
| hand / arm | 'eed | f | 'iydeen |
| eye | 3een | f | e3yoon |
| heart | qalb | m | qloob |
| tooth | sinn | m | 'asnaan |
| chin / beard | daqen | f | — |
One heads-up before you go further. Both 'eed and 3een are feminine, even though neither ends in the usual feminine -a. A lot of the paired body parts work that way, so don't let the spelling fool you.
raas: the head
raas is the head, masculine, and its plural is roos. You'll meet it the first time you have a headache and need to point and complain.
But the head earns its keep in one phrase above all. When someone asks you for a favor and you want to say "of course, gladly," you answer 3a raasi w 3eeni, literally "on my head and my eye." It's warm and a touch old-fashioned, and you'll hear it everywhere. Two body parts in one breath, and you've already met both of them in the table.
'eed: hand and arm
Here's a small gift: 'eed covers both the hand and the whole arm. No separate word to learn. Context sorts out which you mean, and most of the time nobody cares about the difference anyway.
It's feminine, and the everyday plural is 'iydeen. That brings us back to the opening. When someone cooks for you, fixes something, carries your bags, the set response is tislam 'iydeek, "may your hands stay safe." It's the hands that did the work, so it's the hands you bless. You'll hear it traded back and forth at every table, right alongside the other host-and-guest phrases.
3een: the eye, and the spring
3een is the eye, feminine, plural e3yoon. It opens with that throat sound written 3, the one that has no English letter. If it keeps tripping you, the romanization guide lays out exactly what 3 and 7 are asking your throat to do.
Here's a nice one to file away: the same word, 3een, also means a spring of water. That's why so many Palestinian place names start with it. A town built around a spring is an 3ein-something, and once you notice the pattern you spot it on road signs everywhere.
The eye is also pure affection. Call someone ya 3eeni ("oh my eye") and you're being tender, the way English reaches for "sweetheart." And it's the second half of that 3a raasi w 3eeni from before. Your eye is a precious thing, so handing it over is a big warm yes.
Two of everything: the dual
Hands and eyes come in pairs, and Palestinian has a tidy trick for "two of something," so you almost never say the number on its own. You add the dual ending -een to the noun. (The counting guide walks through this ending in full.)
That's exactly what 'iydeen is. It reads as "two hands," and it's just the normal word for hands. For eyes you'll usually hear the plural e3yoon when you mean eyes in general, but "my two eyes" specifically comes out 3eenein, same -een ending. The head and the chin don't get this, of course. You've only got one of each.
qalb: the heart
qalb is the heart, masculine, plural qloob. Like in English, it does double duty for the organ and for the feeling.
Say min qalbi, "from my heart," and you mean it sincerely, no politeness layered on top. And to call someone kind, you say their heart is white: qalbo abyaD. A white heart is a clean one, nothing dark sitting in it.
sinn and daqen: teeth and chin
Two to round it off. sinn is a tooth, masculine, and the plural 'asnaan is the one you'll actually use, because you rarely complain about a single tooth. waja3 'asnaan is a toothache, and that one really is for the doctor's office.
daqen is both the chin and the beard, depending on what's growing there. You won't pluralize it much. But it anchors a great expression: Di7ek 3a daqno, "he laughed at his beard," meaning he pulled one over on him and made him look the fool. Next time someone sells you a story you didn't buy, you'll know they were trying to laugh at your chin.
