Other Semitic and Mediterranean peoples
, also referred to as
are an Arabic-speaking people with family origins in Palestine. The total Palestinian population is estimated atapproximately 12 million, roughly less than half continuing to live within the boundaries of whatwas Mandate Palestine, an area encompassing Israel, the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jordan.
In this combined area, as of 2009, they constitute 49% of all inhabitants,
some of whom areinternally displaced. The remainder, over half of all Palestinians, comprise what is known as thePalestinian diaspora, of whom more than half are stateless refugees, lacking citizenship in anycountry.
Of the diaspora, about 1.9 million live in neighboring Jordan,
one and a half million between Syria and Lebanon, a quarter million in Saudi Arabia, while Chile's half amillion are the largest concentration outside the Arab world.By religious affiliation, most Palestinians are Muslim, particularly of the Sunni branch of Islam,and there is a significant Palestinian Christian minority of various Christian denominations. Asthe commonly applied "Palestinian Arab" ethnonym implies, the current traditional vernacular of Palestinians, irrespective of religion, is the Palestinian dialect of Arabic. For those who are Arabcitizens of Israel, many are now also bilingual in Modern Hebrew. Recent genetic evidence hasdemonstrated that Palestinians as an ethnic group are closely related to Jews and representmodern "descendants of a core population that lived in the area since prehistoric times,"
largely predating the Arabian Muslim conquest that resulted in their acculturation, establishedArabic as the predominant vernacular, and over time also Islamized many of them from various prior faiths.The first widespread use of "Palestinian" as an endonym to refer to the nationalist concept of aPalestinian people by the local Arabic-speaking population of Palestine began prior to theoutbreak of World War I,
and the first demand for national independence was issued by the