Tunisian Arabic is a Maghrebi dialect of the Arabic language, spoken by some 9 million people. It is usually known by its own speakers as Darija, to distinguish it from Standard Arabic, or as Tunsi, which means Tunisian. It is spoken all over Tunisia, and merges, as part of a dialect continuum, into similar varieties in eastern Algeria and western Libya. Its morphology, syntax, pronunciation and vocabulary are quite different from Standard or Classical Arabic. Tunisian Arabic is hardly intelligible to Arabic-speaking Middle Easterners (including Egyptians), but much more readily understood by other Arabic-speaking North Africans such as Algerians, Libyans and Moroccans. Tunisian is also closely related to Maltese^[1], which is not considered to be a dialect of Arabic for sociolinguistic reasons. A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. ... The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a language family (Languages of Africa) with about 375 languages (SIL estimate) and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, and Southwest Asia (including some 200 million speakers of Arabic). ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ... 12th century Hebrew Bible script The Semitic languages are a family of languages spoken by more than 250 million people across much of the Middle East, where they originated, and North and East Africa. ... Arabic ( or just ) is the largest living member of the Semitic language family in terms of speakers. ... Writing systems of the world today. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and others. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... Maghrebi Arabic is a cover term for the dialects of Arabic spoken in the Maghreb, including Western Sahara, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. ... A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language characteristic of a particular group of the languages speakers. ... Arabic ( or just ) is the largest living member of the Semitic language family in terms of speakers. ... ... Modern Standard Arabic is the dialect of Arabic used in almost all writing and in formal spoken contexts. ... A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. ... For other uses, see Morphology. ... For other uses, see Syntax (disambiguation). ... Look up pronunciation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A vocabulary is a set of words known to a person or other entity, or that are part of a specific language. ... Modern Standard Arabic is the dialect of Arabic used in almost all writing and in formal spoken contexts. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ...

Almost all literate speakers of Tunisian also understand and can speak some Standard Arabic. Most Tunisians do not view Tunisian Arabic as a language in its own right, but as a corrupted form of Classical Arabic. Because of this, there is no official standard, and a limited interest in the variety as a topic worthy of study.

Distinctives

Tunisian Arabic is a spoken variety of Arabic, and as such shares many features with other modern varieties, especially North African. Some of its distinctives (from other Arabic dialects) are listed here. The Arabic language is classified as a Semitic language. ... Maghrebi Arabic is a cover term for the dialects of Arabic spoken in the Maghreb, including Western Sahara, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. ...

• A conservative consonantal phonology, with /q/ and interdental fricatives maintained.
• The use of inti in urban varieties meaning 'you' when addressing both men and women, and a concomitant loss of this gender distinction in the verbal morphology.
• The lack of an indicative prefix in the verbal system, resulting in no distinction between indicative and subjunctive moods.
• The innovation of a progressive aspect by means of the participle qa:ʕd, originally 'sitting' and the preposition fi 'in' in transitive clauses.
• Some vocabulary such as ba:hi 'good' and barʃa 'very, much'.

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... Phonology (Greek phonē = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). ... Interdental consonants are produced by placing the blade of the tongue against the upper incisors. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ... It has been suggested that Verbal agreement be merged into this article or section. ... For other uses, see Morphology. ... In linguistics, many grammars have the concept of grammatical mood, which describes the relationship of a verb with reality and intent. ... In linguistics, a prefix is a type of affix that precedes the morphemes to which it can attach. ... The subjunctive mood (sometimes referred to as the conjunctive mood) is a grammatical mood of the verb that expresses wishes, commands (in subordinate clauses), and statements that are contrary to fact. ... For the grammatical term, see Grammatical mood. ... In English, and sometimes in other languages, the continuous or progressive aspect is an aspect that denotes an incomplete action in progress at a specific time. ... Aspect is a piece of information about a topic, usually on look and appearance. ... In linguistics, a participle is a non-finite verb form that can be used in compound tenses or voices, or it can be used as a modifier. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with adposition. ... In grammar, a verb is transitive if it takes an object. ... A clause is a group of words consisting of a subject (often just a single noun) and a predicate (sometimes just a single verb). ...

Dialects

The major distinction within Tunisian Arabic is that between sedentary (mainly urban) and Bedouin-origin (rural) dialects (see Sedentary vs. Bedouin). Note that most speakers of these rural varieties are not actually nomadic. Sedentary varieties are spoken in large cities on or near the coast, such as Tunis, Bizerte, Nabeul, Hammamet, Sousse, Monastir, Mahdia, Kairouan, and Sfax, while the rest of the country to the west and south of this coastal strip uses rural varieties, including the towns of Gabès, Gafsa, Tozeur, El Kef and Beja. Rural dialects are also found in small villages not far from the centres of the urban dialects. A Bedouin man on a hillside at Mount Sinai Bedouin, derived from the Arabic ( ), a name for a desert-dweller, is a term generally applied to Arab nomadic pastoralist groups, who are found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western... This language or phonology related article needs to be fully converted to IPA. See IPA in Unicode for information about the correct codes for IPA characters. ... Bizerte or Bizerta (Arabic: بنزرت; transliterated: Binzart) is a capital city of Bizerte Governorate in Tunisia. ... Nabeul Nabeul (Arabic: ‎, IPA: , in French [naˈbøl]) is a coastal town in northeastern Tunisia, on the south coast near to the Cap Bon peninsula. ... Medina of Hammamet at night Hammamet (Arabic: ‎, ) is a town in Tunisia. ... View from the Abou Nawas Hotel over to the main beach in Sousse (Bou Jaafar) The Grand Mosque of Sousse, Tunisia, as seen from the tower of the Ribat The Ribat of Sousse Sousse (Arabic سوسة Susa), is a city of Tunisia. ... The Ribat in Monastir. ... Skifa Kahla, ancient gate to the city Marine cemetery in Mahdia Mahdia, Arabic: المهدية (al-Mahdiya), is a Tunisian coastal city with 37,000 inhabitants, south of Monastir and southeast of Sousse. ... Kairouan (Arabic القيروان) (also known as Kairwan, Kayrawan, Al Qayrawan) is a muslim holy city which ranks after Mecca and Medina as a place of pilgrimage. ... Sfax, Looking across the Place de la Republique towards the Town Hall. ... Gabès (Arabic: قابس) is the capital city of the Gabès Governorate, a province of Tunisia. ... Gafsa (or Qafsah; Arabic: ‎) is a capital city of Gafsa Governorate. ... Habib Bourguiba Avenue, Tozeur Sahara around Tozeur Tozeur (Arabic: ‎) is an oasis and a city in central Tunisia. ... El Kef is a city in northwestern Tunisia. ... Beja can refer to: The Beja people, an ethnic group in the Horn of Africa The Beja language Beja, Portugal Béja, Tunisia This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

All the urban varieties use the voiceless uvular plosive /q/ in words such as qa:l 'he said', while rural varieties have the voiced velar plosive /g/ in such words. Urban varieties also pronounce a final root vowel before another vowel, as in the word mʃa:u 'they went', while rural varieties delete this final vowel, giving mʃu. Urban varieties also share with Maltese the distinction amongst Arabic dialects of not marking gender in the second person. The otherwise feminine inti is used to address men and women, much to the bemusement of other Arabic speakers, while in the verb no feminine marking is used. Rural dialects maintain the usual distinctions found in Arabic, whether standard or spoken. Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. ... A stop or plosive or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... Phoneticians define phonation as use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ...

There is further variation within both urban and rural dialects. For example, the dialect of Sfax maintains the diphthongs of Standard Arabic in words such as lajl 'evening', a trait shared by Maltese and the traditional women's dialect of Tunis. In phonetics, a diphthong (in Greek δίφθογγος) is a vowel combination usually involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

Further information on Tunisian dialectology can be found in Gibson (1998), Marçais (1950), Singer (1984), and Talmoudi (1980). Dialectology is the study of dialects of a language, their evolution, differentiation, inter-intelligibity, grammar, phonetics etc. ...

Domains of use

Advert from 2007 with slogan at top in Tunisian Arabic. Tunisian features are the long vowel و in خوذ, the complementiser باش, the joining of the indirect object to the verb in تقوللها (tqu:lilha) and the typical Maghrebi first person singular 'n-' in نحبك I love you. Lower text detailing offer is in Standard Arabic.

Tunisian Arabic has the role of the low variety in an example of classic diglossia, where Standard Arabic is the high variety. As such, the use of Tunisian is mainly restricted to spoken domains, though cartoons in newspapers may be written in it, and since the 1990s many advertising boards have their slogans (though not the name of the company) written in Tunisian. Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2048 × 1536 pixel, file size: 812 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Picture of an advert from Tunisia (limited to reduced rates for telephone calls in June 2007) in order to demonstrate the use of Tunisian Arabic... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2048 × 1536 pixel, file size: 812 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Picture of an advert from Tunisia (limited to reduced rates for telephone calls in June 2007) in order to demonstrate the use of Tunisian Arabic... A complementizer, as used in linguistics (especially generative grammar), is a syntactic category (part of speech) roughly equivalent to the term subordinating conjunction in traditional grammar. ... The dative case is a grammatical case for nouns and/or pronouns. ... Maghrebi Arabic is a cover term for the dialects of Arabic spoken in the Maghreb, including Western Sahara, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. ... Look up Diglossia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The Berbers of the island of Jerba and the southern part of Tunisia speak Tunisian Arabic as a second language along with a Berber language called Shelha. The Berbers (also called Imazighen, free men, singular Amazigh) are a predominantly Muslim ethnic group indigenous to the Maghreb, speaking the Berber languages of the Afroasiatic family. ... Djerba, or Jerba, is an island off the coast of Tunisia. ... Shelha is a native language spoken by the Berbers in Tunisia, particularly in the southern region. ...

Literature in Tunisian Arabic

There are very few works of literature written in Tunisian Arabic. A large body of folk tales and folk poems existed in the past. This was mainly an oral tradition told by wandering storytellers and bards at marketplaces and festivals, but it has almost disappeared due to the widespread introduction of television and mass media in general. Notable examples of this folk literature are "El Jaziya El Hilaliya" and "Hkayet Ommi Sisi w'Dheeb". Most authors who write novels or short stories prefer to write in standard Arabic or in French. In some cases, the dialogue in a novel will be in Tunisian Arabic, but the main narrative will be in standard Arabic. An exception is Hedi Balegh, who has published collections of Tunisian proverbs and translated The Little Prince into Tunisian Arabic. Plays are almost always written in Tunisian Arabic, except when they are placed in a historical setting. The lyrics to folk and popular music are usually in Tunisian Arabic. Newspapers and magazines are printed either in standard French or standard Arabic. Television newscasts and documentaries are broadcast in standard Arabic, while locally-produced soap operas, sitcoms and movies are usually delivered in Tunisian. Folklore is the ethnographic concept of the tales, legends, or superstitions current among a particular ethnic population, a part of the oral history of a particular culture. ... Oral tradition or oral culture is a way of transmitting history, literature or law from one generation to the next in a civilization without a writing system. ... The Little Prince (French: Le petit prince), published in 1943, is French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupérys most famous novel, which he wrote in the United States while renting The Bevin House in Asharoken, New York, on Long Island. ...

Vocabulary

The most immediately apparent difference between Tunisian and standard Arabic is the extensive use of words borrowed from Italian, Spanish, French, Berber and Turkish. For example: Electricity is kahraba:ʔ in standard Arabic. It is trisiti in Tunisian (a word mainly used by older people), from the French électricité. Other loans from French include burtma:n 'apartment', and bya:sa 'coin', from pièce. Kitchen is matbax in standard Arabic, but is kuʒi:na in Tunisian, from the Italian word cucina. Shoe is hiða:ʔ in standard Arabic and is sˤabba:t in Tunisian, either from the Spanish word zapato or Turkish zabata. There are also various loans from Berber, such as ʃla:ɣim 'moustache' and fakru:n 'tortoise', and from Turkish, such as ba:lik, 'perhaps', baɾʃa 'very, much', and ga:wri 'European', as well as the suffix of occupation ʒi as in busta:ʒi 'postman' and kawwarʒi 'footballer'. Some more words similar to French, Italian or Spanish are below (taken from Tunisien): The Berber languages (or Tamazight) are a group of closely related languages mainly spoken in Morocco and Algeria. ... The Berber languages (or Tamazight) are a group of closely related languages mainly spoken in Morocco and Algeria. ...

These loans are not to be confused with the actual use of French words or sentences in everyday speech by Tunisians (codeswitching), which is common in business environments. However, many French words are used within Tunisian Arabic discourse, without being adapted to Tunisian phonology, apart from the French 'r' [ʁ] which is often replaced, especially by men, with [r] (Jabeur 1987). For example, many Tunisians, when asking "How are you doing?" will use the French "ça va?" instead of, and in addition to the Tunisian ʃniya ħwa:lik. It is difficult in this case to establish whether this is an example of using French or borrowing. This article or section needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ...

However, the greatest number of differences between Tunisian and Standard Arabic are not due to borrowing from another language, but due to shift in meaning of an Arabic root, as well as some neologisms. Almost all question words fall into the latter category: compare Tunisian ʃnuwwa and a:ʃ 'what' with Arabic ma:ða, waqta:ʃ 'when' with mata:, ʃku:n 'who' with man and ʕala:ʃ 'why' with lima:ða. Shifts in meaning are demonstrated by roots such as xdm which means 'work' in Tunisian and 'serve' in Arabic, ʕml which is narrowed to 'do', and cannot mean 'work' as in Arabic, and mʃj which has broadened to 'go' from 'walk'. A neologism (Greek νεολογισμός [neologismos], from νέος [neos] new + λόγος [logos] word, speech, discourse + suffix -ισμός [-ismos] -ism) is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created (coined) — often to apply to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary. ...

Common Phrases and Vocab: Hello: Aslema How are you: Labes Alik, Shnihawalik? Response: Labes/Alhamdulilah Thank you: Barakallahufik, Yaaychek A lot: Barcha Nothing: Hat Shay How Much: Qaddesh Suri: French When (In a question form): Waqtesh Who: Chkoun Goodbye: Bislema

Phonology

There are several differences in pronunciation between Standard Arabic and Tunisian. Short vowels are frequently omitted, especially where they would occur as the final element of an open syllable. This was probably encouraged by the Berber substratum. For example, /kataba/ he wrote in standard Arabic becomes /ktib/. /katabat/ she wrote in standard Arabic becomes /kitbit/. Regular verbs exhibit this shifting of the vowel in their conjugation, and it also occurs in nouns: /dbiʃ/ stuff /dibʃi/ my stuff Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of speech that is made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with one or more optional phones (single sounds or phonetic segments). Syllables are often considered the phonological building blocks of words. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Consonants

Standard Arabic qâf has both /q/ and /g/ as reflexes in both urban and rural varieties, with /q/ predominating in urban varieties and /g/ in rural ones (e.g. He said is /qaː l/ vs. /gaː l/). But some words have the same form whatever the dialect: cow is always /bagra/ ^[2] and I study /naqra/. Interdental fricatives are also maintained, except in the traditional dialect of Mahdia. Classical Arabic /dˁ/ has merged with /ðˁ/. Skifa Kahla, ancient gate to the city Marine cemetery in Mahdia Mahdia, Arabic: المهدية (al-Mahdiya), is a Tunisian coastal city with 37,000 inhabitants, south of Monastir and southeast of Sousse. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

See Arabic alphabet for explanations on the IPA phonetic symbols found in this chart. Pharyngealisation in Arabic can also be represented with a dot below the letter, e.g. ‹ḍ›. In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... Interdental consonants are produced by placing the blade of the tongue against the upper incisors. ... Dentals are consonants such as t, d, n, and l articulated with either the lower or the upper teeth, or both, rather than with the gum ridge as in English. ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. ... A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx. ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... Pharyngealisation is a secondary feature of phonemes in a language. ... Pharyngealisation is a secondary feature of phonemes in a language. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... In phonetics, a voiceless consonant is a consonant that does not have voicing. ... A voiced consonant is a sound made as the vocal cords vibrate, as opposed to a voiceless consonant, where the vocal cords are relaxed. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... In phonetics, a voiceless consonant is a consonant that does not have voicing. ... A voiced consonant is a sound made as the vocal cords vibrate, as opposed to a voiceless consonant, where the vocal cords are relaxed. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... Laterals are L-like consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue, while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both sides of the tongue. ... In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and others. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Pharyngealisation is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx is constricted during the articulation of the sound. ...

Some consonants are bracketed in the table above because they are not universally considered to be separate phonemes, but there is strong evidence indicating they are. There are two sources for these bracketed consonants: the pharyngealised forms are internal developments while /p/ and /v/ are due to borrowing from French, and /ʔ/ from Standard Arabic. Minimal pairs are not always easy to find for these contrasts, but there are nonetheless examples showing that these marginal forms do not represent allophones of other phonemes, e.g. In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have a distinct meaning. ... In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. ...

/baː b/ [bɛː b] door

/bˁaː bˁa/ [bˁɑː bˁɑ] (my) father

alongside a minimal pair:

/gaː z/ [gɛː z] petrol

/gaː zˁ/ [gɑː zˁ] gas

The realisation of the vowels within each pair is dramatically different. Pharyngealiastion on the consonants themselves is relatively weak, the main realisation being on adjacent vowels, and is being lost amongst some speakers, such as in [sbɛː ħ] morning, with there being no vowel to carry any pharyngealisation on the first consonant. There are other words such as /nˁaː nˁa/ old lady, whose form, while not having any minimal or analogous pairs, cannot be attributed to conditioned variation, and which justify an (admittedly rare) phoneme /nˁ/. Minimal pairs for the more commonly admitted phonemes /rˁ/ and /lˁ/ can be given, as in

/ʒra/ [ʒrɛː] he ran

/ʒrˁa/ [ʒrˁɑː] it happened

/walla/ [wɛllɛ] or

/walˁlˁa/ [wɑlˁlˁɑ] by God!

Singer (1984:37-60) gives a full list of oppositions for each phoneme. Tunisian Arabic has substantial borrowing from French, and many words and expressions used by those who do not speak French maintain /p/ and /v/, e.g.

pisi:n swimming pool

mgarrap suffering from influenza (derived from French grippe)

jnarvisni He annoys me

ga:riv on strike (derived from French grève).

/ʔ/ tends to occur in the learnèd register, in loans from Standard Arabic, often in masdar (verbal noun) forms at the onset of the word, but also in other words like /biː ʔa/ environment and /jisʔal/ he asks, though many (mainly less educated) speakers substitute /h/ for /ʔ/ in the latter word. In linguistics, a register is a subset of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. ... A verbal noun is a noun formed directly as an inflexion of a verb or a verb stem, sharing at least in part its constructions. ...

Vowels

Given that pharyngealisation is a property of consonants, most dialects have three vowel qualities /i, a, u/, all also distinguished for length, as in Standard Arabic. The length distinction is suspended word finally. A final vowel is realised long in accent-bearing words of one syllable (e.g. /ʒa/ [ʒɛː] he came), otherwise short. Some dialects, for example those of Monastir and Gabès, also have long vowels /eː / and /oː /, derived from Old Arabic /aj/ and /aw/. These latter forms are maintained in Sfax, and in the more traditional, but receding, women's dialect of Tunis, but are merged with /iː / and /uː / in most dialects. Tunisian maintains a robust distinction between all short vowels, unlike Moroccan and Algerian: e.g. /qimt/ I resided vs. /qumt/ I rose. Except in varieties where Old Arabic forms are maintained, there are no diphthongs. In non-pharyngealised environments there is a strong fronting and closing of /aː /, which, especially among younger speakers in Tunis can reach as far as [eː], and to a lesser extent of /a/.

Syllable

Tunisian Arabic, like many other North African varieties, has a very different syllable structure from Standard Arabic. While Standard Arabic can have only one consonant at the beginning of a syllable, after which a vowel must follow, Tunisian commonly has two consonants in the onset. For example Standard Arabic book is /kitaː b/, while in Tunisian it is /ktaː b/. The nucleus may contain a short or long vowel, and at the end of the syllable, in the coda, it may have up to three consonants, e.g. /ma dxaltʃ/ I did not enter; Standard Arabic can have no more than two consonants in this position. Word-internal syllables are generally heavy in that they either have a long vowel in the nucleus or consonant in the coda. Non-final syllables composed of just a consonant and a short vowel (i.e. light syllables) are very rare, and are generally loans from Standard Arabic: short vowels in this position have generally been lost, resulting in the many initial CC clusters. For example /ʒawaː b/ reply is a loan from Standard Arabic, but the same word has the natural development /ʒwaː b/, which is the usual word for letter. In phonetics and phonology, a syllable onset is the part of a syllable that precedes the syllable nucleus. ... In phonetics and phonology, the nucleus is the central part of the syllable, mostly commonly a vowel. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ... In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. ...

Morphology

Verb conjugation

There are significant differences in morphology between Tunisian and Standard Arabic. Standard Arabic marks 13 person/number/gender distinctions in the verbal paradigm, whereas the dialect of Tunis marks only seven (the gender distinction is found only in the third person singular). Rural or Bedouin-origin dialects in the interior also mark gender in the second person singular, in common with most spoken varieties of Arabic elsewhere in the Arabic world. For other uses, see Morphology. ... Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to the participant role of a referent, such as the speaker, the addressee, and others. ... In linguistics, grammatical number is a morphological category characterized by the expression of quantity through inflection or agreement. ... In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ... It has been suggested that Verbal agreement be merged into this article or section. ... An inflectional paradigm is a table illustrating the forms of an inflected word. ... A Bedouin man on a hillside at Mount Sinai Bedouin, derived from the Arabic ( ), a name for a desert-dweller, is a term generally applied to Arab nomadic pastoralist groups, who are found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western...

Regular verbs are conjugated (in urban dialects) according to the following patterns: A regular verb is a verb whose conjugation can be predicted given a few verb forms (principal parts) and a few rules. ... Conjugate can be: in mathematics in terms of complex numbers, the complex conjugate; more generally see conjugate element (field theory). ...

Perfective The perfective aspect is a grammatical aspect. ...

Most rural dialects add a second person singular feminine form tiktibi.

Imperfective The perfective aspect is a grammatical aspect. ...

Most rural dialects add a second person singular feminine form ktibti.

Weak verbs

'Weak' verbs with a final semivowel have a different pattern: Semivowels (also glides, more rarely: semiconsonants) are non-syllabic vowels that form diphthongs with syllabic vowels. ...

Most rural dialects have the different third person singular feminine form mʃit. Dialects with the phoneme /e:/ tend to use it in place of /i:/ in this conjugation.

Imperfective The perfective aspect is a grammatical aspect. ...

Rural dialects have delete the stem vowel in the plural, giving forms such as nimʃu.

Noun

Marking of the dual for nouns is only used for quantity measures and things often occurring in twos (e.g. eyes, hands, parents). Look up Dual in Wiktionary, the free dictionary A dual is a pair or a grouping of two. ...

See also

• Varieties of Arabic
• Maghrebi Arabic
• Algerian Arabic
• Libyan Arabic
• Moroccan Arabic

The Arabic language is classified as a Semitic language. ... Maghrebi Arabic is a cover term for the dialects of Arabic spoken in the Maghreb, including Western Sahara, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. ... Algerian Arabic is the dialect or dialects of Arabic native to Algeria. ... Libyan Arabic is a collective term for the closely related spoken varieties of Arabic as spoken in Libya. ... Moroccan Arabic, also known as Darija, is the language spoken in the Arabic-speaking areas of Morocco, as opposed to the official communications of governmental and other public bodies which use Modern Standard Arabic, as is the case in most Arabic-speaking countries, while a mixture of French and Moroccan...

Notes and References

Notes

1. ^ Borg and Azzopardi-Alexander Maltese (1997:xiii) 'The immediate source for the Arabic vernacular spoken in Malta was Muslim Sicily, but its ultimate origin appears to have been Tunisia. In fact Maltese displays some areal traits typical of Maghrebine Arabic, although during the past eight hundred years of independent evolution it has drifted apart from Tunisian Arabic'.
2. ^ An extensive list of such words is given by Baccouche (1972)

References

• Baccouche, Taieb (1972) “Le phonème “ g “ dans les parlers arabes citadins de Tunisie” Revue Tunisienne de Sciences Sociales 9 (30/31) pp. 103-137
• Baccouche, Taieb, Hichem Skik and Abdelmajid Attia (1969) Travaux de Phonologie, parlers de Djemmal, Gabès et Mahdia. Tunis: Cahiers du CERES.
• Cantineau, Jean-Pierre. (1951) “Analyse du parler arabe d’El-Hâmma de Gabès” Bulletin de la Société Linguistique de Paris 47, pp. 64-105
• Gibson, Michael (1998) “Dialect Contact in Tunisian Arabic: sociolinguistic and structural aspects” Ph.D. Thesis, University of Reading
• Jabeur, Mohamed (1987) “A Sociolinguistic Study in Rades: Tunisia”. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Reading
• Marçais, W. (1950) “Les Parlers Arabes” in Basset et al. Initiation à la Tunisie. Paris: Adrien-Maissonneuve 195-219.
• Mion, Giuliano (2004) “Osservazioni sul sistema verbale dell'arabo di Tunisi” Rivista degli Studi Orientali 78, pp. 243-255.
• Saada, Lucienne (1984) Elements de description du parler arabe de Tozeur. Paris: Geuthner Diff.
• Singer, Hans-Rudolf (1984) Grammatik der arabischen Mundart der Medina von Tunis. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
• Stumme, H. (1896) Grammatik des tunisischen Arabisch, nebst Glossar Leipzig.
• Talmoudi, Fathi (1980) The Arabic Dialect of Sûsa (Tunisia). Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis.