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What does “hassa” mean in Iraqi Arabic?

هسه (hassa) or هسة (hessa) is the Iraqi Arabic word for “now,” replacing Modern Standard Arabic الآن (al-ān) and Egyptian دلوقتي (dilwa’ti). Hassa is one of the strongest dialect markers in Iraqi Arabic. Pair it with the Iraqi negation مو (mū) (instead of MSA ليس) and the address particle لك (lak), often spoken at sentence-onset, and you have a tight cluster of Iraqi-distinctive features in a single phrase.

In this clip, a woman tries to wake her late-sleeping husband Hamid for his medicine: “يلا حميد قوم بالساعة هسه صارت” (“come on Hamid, get up, it’s past time now”). The trio of yalla, hassa, and lak signals Iraqi speech.