Tunisian Arabic
Arabic dialect spoken in Tunisia / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Tunisian Arabic, or simply Tunisian (Arabic: تونسي, romanized: Tūnsi), is a variety of Arabic spoken in Tunisia.[5] It is known among its 12 million speakers as Tūnsi, [ˈtuːnsi] ⓘ "Tunisian"[6] or Derja (Arabic: الدارجة; meaning "common or everyday dialect"[7]) to distinguish it from Modern Standard Arabic, the official language of Tunisia. Tunisian Arabic is mostly similar to eastern Algerian Arabic and western Libyan Arabic.
Tunisian Arabic | |
---|---|
تونسي Tūnsi | |
Pronunciation | [ˈtuːnsi] ⓘ |
Native to | Tunisia[1] |
Ethnicity | Tunisian Arabs |
Speakers | 12 million (2021)[2] |
Arabic script | |
Tunisian Sign Language | |
Official status | |
Recognised minority language in | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | aeb |
Glottolog | tuni1259 |
As part of the Maghrebi Arabic dialect continuum, Tunisian merges into Algerian Arabic and Libyan Arabic at the borders of the country. Like other Maghrebi dialects, it has a vocabulary that is predominantly Semitic and Arabic[8] with a Berber, Latin[9][10] and possibly Neo-Punic[11][12] substratum. Tunisian Arabic contains Berber loanwords which represent 8% to 9% of its vocabulary.[13] However, Tunisian has also loanwords from French,[14] Turkish,[14] Italian[14] and the languages of Spain.[14]
Multilingualism within Tunisia and in the Tunisian diaspora makes it common for Tunisians to code-switch, mixing Tunisian with French, English, Italian, Standard Arabic or other languages in daily speech.[15] Within some circles, Tunisian Arabic has thereby integrated new French and English words, notably in technical fields, or has replaced old French and Italian loans with standard Arabic words.[15][16] Moreover, code-switching between Tunisian Arabic and modern standard Arabic is mainly done by more educated and upper-class people and has not negatively affected the use of more recent French and English loanwords in Tunisian.[15]
Tunisian Arabic is also closely related to Maltese,[17] which is a separate language that descended from Tunisian and Siculo-Arabic.[17][18] Maltese and Tunisian Arabic have about 30 to 40 per cent spoken mutual intelligibility.[19]