How to say "neighborhood, quarter" in Arabic
CognateMeaningneighborhood, quarter
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
ḥayyחי
حي
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
shkhunaشْخُونَا
How the two words are related
Same Semitic root, same meaning — you already know this word.
Arabic root
ح-ي-يHebrew root
ח-י-הThe exact same root as Hebrew ח-י-ה, 'to live' — Arabic حَيّ is even spelled and doubled the same way as Hebrew חַי, 'alive'. The leap to 'neighborhood' makes sense from the inside: a حي is 'where the living are', the inhabited quarter of a town, as opposed to open desert.
Related Hebrew word:חיkhaiخَاي
Learn it
On the street
How people actually say it in the spoken dialects, where it differs from the standard word.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija's neighborhood is a ḥūma.
In a phrase
an old neighborhood
Plural
broken plural aCCāC — like سُوق→أَسْوَاق; this same plural also means 'the living' (plural of حَيّ 'alive'), so context does the sorting.