# Perception of Tunisian Arabic from other Arabic speakers



## tounsi51

Hello,

The goal of this topic is to have perception of Tunisia Arabic from the point of view of other Arabic speakers from North Africa, Egypt, Levant countries and Gulf countries.

Among North African dialects, it is said to be the closest to al fush7a. Some Moroccans said that Tunisian speak like Egyptian because of the accent.

Gulf people say that Tunisian or North African don't speak Arabic but gibberish, and not understandable from other Arabic speakers.

Is it true? Tunisian Arabic has lot of borrowings from French, Italian, Turkish and Berber but it remains an Arabic dialect.

What is your level of understanding when you watch a video of 2 Tunisian talking to each other for example. I found lot of similitude with Egyptian, Levant or Gulf Arabic

Thanks


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## Hemza

3al slama ya akhi, shnuwa 7alek?

As a French (from Moroccan and to a less extent, Mauritanian and 7ijazi origin), I never confused Tunisian with Egyptian, and those Moroccans who make this mistakes are not used to those accents which are different. Moroever, the speech is different (even if of course, there are muuuuuch more in common than differences).

"Closest to fu97a" has no meaning (in my opinion) because fu97a is an artificial construction. I give you an example: in the Qur2an, in one sura, "fish" is called "7ut", which is the most used word in Maghrebi dialects (samaka exists too I think). But in Standard Arabic, "7ut" means "whale". Every dialect has it own features which make it "closer" or "farther" from MSA. But I think this debate is useless, because it has no goal.

Gulf people who say that are جاهلين (sorry for them and NO OFFENSE to other Gulf people) because it shows they don't know Maghrebi dialects at all and even their dialects/accents are impossible to understand from someone who learnt ONLY Standard Arabic or has never been exposed to their accents (like for ALL dialects). Moreover, they also borrowed a lot of words from Persian, Hindi, English and also pronounce letters differently from Standard Arabic (ex: "djiddam" instead of "quddam". It took me a whiiiile to understand what it means lol)

In my opinion, it's not because a part of the population speaks a kind of "creole" language (50% dialect, 50% French) that the dialect itself is not Arabic. And our dialects were brought by Arabs themselves when they settled in North Africa, so if we don't speak Arabic, what do we speak? lol.

I understand well Northern Tunisian (I love the accent ^^) You just have to get used to "barsha, yasser, 6aw, yezzi, behi, 6abouna" (and other funny words ^^) and to be exposed to the accent to get used to it. I admit I have hard times to understand Southern Tunisians (sounds Western Libyan to me) but it's because I haven't been exposed to the accents and particular expressions.

Of course, there are similitudes between dialects, or they wouldn't be called "Arabic dialects" . Even if the accent differs from areas to areas, the bases remain the same (except for people who speak a creole which is ugly in my opinion -_-).

ya3ichak


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## إسكندراني

When an Egyptian friend and I went to Morocco, people consistently thought we were Tunisians from our dialect until we told them otherwise.

My impression of Tunisian is that it's a really pleasant sounding dialect, with far too much إمالة and some odd words which I keep forgetting. But I've not had a huge amount of exposure to it. To be honest, it just seems like Libyan to me but a bit more melodic and weirder words.


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## Hemza

إسكندراني said:


> When an Egyptian friend and I went to Morocco, people consistently thought we were Tunisians from our dialect until we told them otherwise.
> 
> My impression of Tunisian is that it's a really pleasant sounding dialect, with far too much إمالة and some odd words which I keep forgetting. But I've not had a huge amount of exposure to it. To be honest, it just seems like Libyan to me but a bit more melodic and weirder words.



That's weird... Moreover, the pronounciation of letters is different, so may be, those Moroccans were not used to make differences between accents, because I always lived in France and I can clearly make difference between a Tunisian accent and an Egyptian accent (I love both ^^).

I agree, they use a lot "imala" (like 7assanya) I remember, once I heard a Tunisian woman saying "lééééé" instead of "la2" .

I think it's close to Eastern Algerian (for Northern Tunisian) and Western Libyan (for Southern Tunisian).


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## tounsi51

Thanks both for your feedback.

I wanted to ask "imala" is like pronouncing ba7ar as b7ar? Or making long vowel instead of short

Ca va si Hemza?

yeah it is correct lol, lééééé against "leh la" in Morocco/Algeria or la2a in Egypt.

Last time when I was watching the 1st episodes of MBC the Voice, there were a Tunisian candidate and she was speaking totally comprehensible Arabic, without any French word and still MBC has written subtitles in fus7a and they always do the same when Moroccan or Tunisian speak.


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## Hemza

7amdullah et toi?

"Imala", c'est quand le son "a" est prononcé "é", tu sais, comme les Libanais qui en abusent?  genre "efté7 al bééb" ahahahah!! (No offense to akhwani wa akhwati al lubnanyin ^^). Je crois que parmi les Levantins, c'est très répandu (surtout les Libanais mdr) et chez les Mauritaniens ça existe aussi.

Lol, en fait, je voulais dire qu'au lieu de dire "la2" (non), cette Tunisienne a dit "lé"  je ne parlais pas de "lehla" ^^.

The voice? C'est au Liban que c'est tourné et diffusé, n'est ce pas? Je ne crois pas que ce soit dû au dialecte, mais plus à l'accent. Malheureusement (pour nous lol) les dialectes maghrébins ne jouissent pas du rayonnement culturel qu'ont les dialectes Egyptien/Levantin et plus récemment, du Golfe. Du coup, la plupart des Arabophones y sont peu exposés et ils comprennent difficilement ce qu'un Maghrébin peut dire. Mais encore une fois, c'est le manque d'exposition qui est responsable. Je te donne un exemple similaire, j'ai une amie originaire de Jeddah, elle comprend parfaitement le Marocain, car elle a vécu un p'tit moment là bas.

And I'm sure "Iskandarani" is able to understand Moroccan  (I mean TRUE Moroccan, not the ugly  Moroccan-French creole lol)


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## tounsi51

7amdoullah merci

Pour le "la2" il me semble qu'en arabe c'est لا pas لاء non? Je parlais de "lè la" que les Algériens et Marocains disent pour dire "non"

Peut-etre que notre imala et celui des Libanais est d'origine turque...

Les Marocains n'ont-ils pas tendance a avoir leur imala de e= i?

Ex: Khaled= Khalid
Hatem= Hatim

Pour The Voice oui ca doit etre au Liban comme toutes les emissions du genre Arab Idol, Arabs got talent, etc Mais c'est malheureux, mais meme des fois ils sous-titrent des bouts de phrase egyptiens


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## إسكندراني

الإمالة تغير في الألف الممدودة أو الفتحة وليس في حروف العلة من دون ذلك ولا الحركات الأخرى


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## Hemza

tounsi51 said:


> 7amdoullah merci
> 
> Pour le "la2" il me semble qu'en arabe c'est لا pas لاء non? Je parlais de "lè la" que les Algériens et Marocains disent pour dire "non"
> 
> Peut-etre que notre imala et celui des Libanais est d'origine turque...
> 
> Les Marocains n'ont-ils pas tendance a avoir leur imala de e= i?
> 
> Ex: Khaled= Khalid
> Hatem= Hatim
> 
> Pour The Voice oui ca doit etre au Liban comme toutes les emissions du genre Arab Idol, Arabs got talent, etc Mais c'est malheureux, mais meme des fois ils sous-titrent des bouts de phrase egyptiens



Effectivement, tu as raison, c'est "لا", dsl pour mon erreur. Par contre, je n'ai jamais entendu "lè la" pour dire "non", nous disons "la" tout simplement . Ou peut être, ta confusion vient du fait que nous appuyons sur le "l" comme si il y avait une shadda dessus lol.

Je ne crois pas que ça viennent du Turc, sinon ça se retrouverait aussi dans d'autres pays (Algérie par exemple, ou Egypte). le "i" qui devient "e" n'a rien à voir avec l'imala, c'est autre chose (dont je ne connais pas le nom lol).
L'imala ne concerne que le "a" (voyelle courte) des mots transformé en "é" comme "syyara" devient "syyaré" (voiture) chez les Levantins. Mais je crois que ça existe aussi chez vous, parfois à la place du son "a" (court), j'entends "é".



إسكندراني said:


> الإمالة تغير في الألف الممدودة أو الفتحة وليس في حروف العلة من دون ذلك ولا الحركات الأخرى



Yeah sorry, I confused with accent, "imala" only concerns short vowels


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## tounsi51

J'ai deja entendu des personnes de Casa dire "lè la" mais sinon en Algerie c'est tres courant connu 

Chez nous ce sont même les verbes 

ex:
- mché
- jé

- lmé (eau)
- hné (ici)


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## Hemza

Ben voilà, tu sais ce qu'est l'imala .

Chez nous, nous dirions:

"mcha", "ja", "lma", "hna".

Ps: Les gens de Casa parlent bizarrement .


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## Arabic Guru

Guys! will you write just in Arabic?! You are mixing English and French with Arabic  I can see that this topic is about Arabic dialects and native people.


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## tounsi51

hey

it's a mix of Arabic, English, French and Arabic written in latin letters with numbers... 

Would you comment my 1st message which is the perception of Tunisian Arabic from other Arabic speaker

Thx


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## Aloulu

I'm a Tunisian speaker myself but not really sure what you mean by "imala", and practicle examples of it. Maybe it is because I am so used to it that I do not see anything strange or difference in it?


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## Bakr

كل منا (إن لم يبدل مجهودا) سوف يرى بأن لهجة الآخرين غير مفهومة وبعيدة عن اللغة العربية..وما هي اللهجة الأقرب للغة العربية؟ سؤال سياسي وملغوم!..يستطيع المغاربة فهم اللهجة التونسية (والجزائرية) وليس كل الكلمات بحذافيرها ولن يخلط أحدهم بينها وبين لهجة أخرى إلا من لم يعرف لهجته نفسها، أو كما قال حمزة من لديه لهجة هجينة..لأن اللهجات المغاربية كانت موجودة قبل الاستعمار الفرنسي..وما أتى به الاستعمار هو أسماء الآلات والمصطلحات الادارية وما شابهها..أي كل ما اخترعه وأدخله ولا يوجد له مقابل باللهجة أو بالعربية..الدارجة المغاربية لم تأخذ الأفعال والحروف وأسماء الإشارة..الخ، من لغة المستعمر..حين تتحدث مع المغاربي القح الذي لم يتأثر ولا يعرف لغة المستعمر ولا يتباهى بمعرفتها لن تجد في كلامه كلمة واحدة من تلك اللغة


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## Hemza

Arabic Guru said:


> Guys! will you write just in Arabic?! You are mixing English and French with Arabic  I can see that this topic is about Arabic dialects and native people.



Oh yeah, sorry, I'll pay more attention to what I write. It's because French is my native language and when I saw *Tounsi51*, French came in my mind automatically as it's easier for me than English (and Arabic unfortunately). Yeah, we're talking about "Imala", differences between Egyptian, Tunisian and Moroccan dialects, and what is our opinion about Tunisian dialect, if we understand it well, etc.




Aloulu said:


> I'm a Tunisian speaker myself but not really sure what you mean by "imala", and practicle examples of it. Maybe it is because I am so used to it that I do not see anything strange or difference in it?



"Imala" is when you transform some "a" sound into "é", *Tounsi51* quoted some examples, like "jé", "mché", "lmé" while in Moroccan (as well as Algerian) we pronounce those words with the vowel "a". Do you know Lebanese pronunciation? It sounds like "ééééé" everywhere right ? So for some of those sounds (when "a" is transformed into a "é" like in "siyyaré" instead of "siyyara") we call it "Imala" which is also used in other Levantine accents, Tunisian and Mauritanian to a less extent than Lebanese ^^.



Bakr said:


> كل منا (إن لم يبدل مجهودا) سوف يرى بأن لهجة الآخرين غير مفهومة وبعيدة عن اللغة العربية..وما هي اللهجة الأقرب للغة العربية؟ سؤال سياسي وملغوم!..يستطيع المغاربة فهم اللهجة التونسية (والجزائرية) وليس كل الكلمات بحذافيرها ولن يخلط أحدهم بينها وبين لهجة أخرى إلا من لم يعرف لهجته نفسها، أو كما قال حمزة من لديه لهجة هجينة..لأن اللهجات المغاربية كانت موجودة قبل الاستعمار الفرنسي..وما أتى به الاستعمار هو أسماء الآلات والمصطلحات الادارية وما شابهها..أي كل ما اخترعه وأدخله ولا يوجد له مقابل باللهجة أو بالعربية..الدارجة المغاربية لم تأخذ الأفعال والحروف وأسماء الإشارة..الخ، من لغة المستعمر..حين تتحدث مع المغاربي القح الذي لم يتأثر ولا يعرف لغة المستعمر ولا يتباهى بمعرفتها لن تجد في كلامه كلمة واحدة من تلك اللغة



I completely agree with you ya akhi  (and glad, because I understood almost everything ).


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## Aloulu

Hemza said:


> "Imala" is when you transform some "a" sound into "é", *Tounsi51* quoted some examples, like "jé", "mché", "lmé" while in Moroccan (as well as Algerian) we pronounce those words with the vowel "a". Do you know Lebanese pronunciation? It sounds like "ééééé" everywhere right ? So for some of those sounds (when "a" is transformed into a "é" like in "siyyaré" instead of "siyyara") we call it "Imala" which is also used in other Levantine accents, Tunisian and Mauritanian to a less extent than Lebanese ^^.



I understand it now I think. Other practical examples would be how we as Tunisians very often pronounce "fahamt?" as "fémtééé?", where also emphasizing the last "é" and making it longer. Even with "labes" it often becomes "labésséé khouya!?" (how are you bro"). And many more examples probably. Funny that when you speak a language yourself you seem to be blind to notice those things...I really had to think hard about some examples and how it would be pronounced without "imala".


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## Schem

I'm not sure about the bit on Gulf Arabs (which I'm sure you're lumping other Saudis and Yemenis with) because while the majority may view Maghrebi dialects as hard to comprehend or even unintelligible, most will admit that Tunisian is the easiest and closest to eastern dialects of the bunch. Not to mention that, in my experience, those who view Maghrebi dialects as unintelligible tend to be from non-Arabian nationalities because Arabian nationalities -especially Najdi speakers- usually see the similarities between their dialects and Hilali/Sulaymi influenced Maghrebi dialects which are similarities that often only exist between the two groups and I've known many who expressed surprise at the fact.


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## Hemza

Schem said:


> I'm not sure about the bit on Gulf Arabs (which I'm sure you're lumping other Saudis and Yemenis with) because while the majority may view Maghrebi dialects as hard to comprehend or even unintelligible, most will admit that Tunisian is the easiest and closest to eastern dialects of the bunch. Not to mention that, in my experience, those who view Maghrebi dialects as unintelligible tend to be from non-Arabian nationalities because Arabian nationalities -especially Najdi speakers- usually see the similarities between their dialects and Hilali/Sulaymi influenced Maghrebi dialects which are similarities that often only exist between the two groups and I've known many who expressed surprise at the fact.



Libyan is also a Maghrebi dialect/accent and Western/Alexandrian Egyptian share a lot of features with Maghrebi dialects .
I agree with you about similarities, because my friend from Jeddah lived in Morocco for some times and she learnt it really easily. I've been stricked by the similarities of words/expressions which are not common in Urban Egyptian or Levantine dialects (in general) but found in Maghrebi dialects and the Arabian ones. I wonder if forms and expressions which exist in Maghrebi and Arabian dialects are also found in 9a3idi/Sudanese, as I don't know well these dialects...

Hilali/Sulaymi/7assani influences are mostly found in rural/bedouin dialects (Libya, Southern Tunisia and most of Morocco's and Algeria's areas) not really in urban (even if both begin to merge and the differences are less and less showed).


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## إسكندراني

إمالة means a->e - it applies to both long and short vowels.
توانسة is pronounced twe:nsa not twa:nsa. This is true in Egypt as well, we have إمالة in our dialect, but we don't realise it. And قراءات ورش وقالون have إمالة in certain places too.


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