How do you say “hello” in Arabic?
The hello understood everywhere is marhaba (مرحبا). Palestinians and Lebanese use it all day, Egyptians lean on ahlan, and in the Gulf and Iraq you'll hear hala. As-salamu alaykum (peace be upon you) works across the whole Arab world.
Hello
مرحبا
How each dialect says it
Tap to hear it the way people from each place say it.
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PalestinianJerusalem, Nablus, Gaza, Jenin0:01مرحباMAR-ha-ba texted as mar7aba
Answered with “marhabtein” (two hellos). “Ahlan” is the quick version.
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LebaneseBeirut, Tripoli, Saida0:01مرحباMAR-ha-ba texted as mar7aba
Lebanese mix freely: “hi, kifak” and “bonjour” are just as common.
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EgyptianCairo, Alexandria0:01أهلاًAH-lan texted as ahlan
Egyptians say marhaba less often. “Ahlan” or “salamu 'alaykum” is the everyday hello.
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GulfKuwait, the Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar0:01هلاHA-la texted as hala
“Hala wallah” is the warmer version. Marhaba is common too.
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IraqiBaghdad, Basra, Mosul0:01هلاHA-la texted as hala
Marhaba and as-salamu alaykum are just as common.
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Formal ArabicTextbooks, news, speechesمرحباًMAR-ha-ban texted as mar7aban
The written form. In speech the final -an usually drops.
Saying it like you mean it
Marhaba comes from the root r-h-b, which has to do with room and space. Rahb means wide and roomy. The old sense of the greeting is something like “you've arrived somewhere spacious”: there is room for you here. Ahlan comes from ahl, family, so it tells the person they've come among their own people.
The reply is where Arabic shows off. Say marhaba to a Palestinian shopkeeper and you may get marhabtein back, two hellos for your one. Keep going and you'll hear mit marhaba, a hundred hellos. Whoever answers is expected to give back a little more than they got.
As-salamu alaykum sits alongside all of these. It's the greeting Muslims use, it's heard in every Arab country, and its answer is fixed: wa alaykum as-salam, and upon you peace. Plenty of people open a phone call with it and then switch straight to marhaba or kifak.
In a sentence
How people actually use it, dialect by dialect.
- Palestinianمرحبا يا جماعة، كيفكم؟marhaba ya jama'a, kifkum?Hi everyone, how are you all?
- Egyptianأهلاً يا باشا، عامل إيه؟ahlan ya basha, 'amil eh?Hey boss, how's it going?
- Gulfهلا والله، شلونك؟hala wallah, shlonak?Hey, good to see you. How are you?
People also ask
Is marhaba or salam more common?
Both are everywhere. Marhaba is the everyday hello; as-salamu alaykum is the religious greeting used by Muslims and heard in every Arab country. Either is fine from a visitor.
How do you reply to marhaba?
Marhabtein (two hellos) in Palestine and Lebanon, or simply ahlan. In Egypt, ahlan bik to a man or ahlan biki to a woman.
What does hala mean?
Hala is a short, warm hello, strongest in the Gulf and Iraq. “Hala wallah” means something like “hey, so good to see you.”
Related words
Words that tend to come up in the same conversation.
How we checked this page
Checked by two AI models, not yet by a native speaker
Each dialect form above is shown only if it passed an independent check. If we weren't sure how a dialect says it, we left that dialect out rather than guess. The audio is an AI voice tuned to each dialect; we're replacing it with real speakers over time. How we check words.