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, as well as smaller religious communities. As the commonly applied term "Palestinian Arab" ethnonym implies, the current traditional vernacular of Palestinians, irrespective of religion, is the Palestinian dialect of Arabic. For those who are citizens of Israel, known also as Arab Israelis, many are now also bilingual in Modern Hebrew. Recent genetic research has demonstrated that ancient Levantines cluster predominantly with modern-day Palestinians and the Bedouins who live in the same region. Similarly, it shows that Palestinians as an ethnic group represent modern "descendants of a core population that lived in the area since prehistoric times," largely predating the Arabian Muslim conquest that resulted in their acculturation and established Arabic as the lingua franca, which eventually became the sole vernacular of the locals, most of whom would over time also convert to Islam from various prior faiths.