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What does “بلّش” (ballash) mean in Levantine Arabic?

In Levantine Arabic, بلّش (ballash) is the everyday word for “to start” or “begin,” where Modern Standard Arabic uses بدأ. Surprisingly, it’s borrowed from Turkish başlamak (“to begin”) — a relic of Ottoman centuries. So بلّش المطر is “it started to rain.” Watch the trap: the look-alike بلاش (balāsh) is a completely different word meaning “for free.”

In the clip a panicked cyclist بلّش يطرق (“started knocking”) on car windows, begging drivers to clear the way for a family rushing a sick child to hospital — the verb kicks off the whole rescue. بلّش takes a following verb directly to mean “started doing”: بلّش يحكي (“he started talking”), بلّش يبكي (“he started crying”). The Turkish root left similar forms in Iraqi and Gulf Arabic, but in the Levant بلّش is the default “start” you’ll hear daily — while written MSA keeps بدأ.