مرحبا! - A short introduction to Tunisian Arabic

Tunisian Arabic – a short introduction

tunisian arabic

Tunisia is situated in North Africa on the Mediterranean Sea and belongs to the so-called Arab Maghreb Union (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia).
Tunisia meets the Mediterranean Sea in the north and east, and is bordered by Libya to its south and Algeria to its west.
Sicily is, by the way, only 140 kilometres off the Tunisian coast.

Tunisia has a population of around 10.7 million.
 
Though Tunisia's official language is actually high Arabic, the Tunisian Arabic dialect, which is used colloquially in the main, is what you can learn from 17 Minute Languages' courses.
 
The three Arabic dialects of Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian are also referred to as Maghrebian dialects and were heavily influenced by the Berber languages.

Tunisian Arabic is spoken by around 13 million people, both in Tunisia and the bordering regions as well as by Tunisian diaspora in many other countries.

tunisian arabic

Arabic – a Semitic language

Arabic belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family and is counted among the Semitic languages of that family.
 
Included in this family, along side high Arabic and the numerous Arabic dialects (for example, Saudi-Arabian, Tunisian and Syrian Arabic), are also Hebrew (in its modern form of Ivrit), Aramaic and various Ethiopian languages.
 
The Arabic language is spoken mainly in North Africa and on the Arabian Peninsula.

Tunisian Arabic in summary

  • Number of speakers: approximately 13 million
  • Arabian dialect
  • Semitic language
  • Characteristics:
    Guttural pronunciation, writing directing from right to left, vowels are not written, two substantive genders (masculine & feminine), three cases (nominative, genitive, accusative)
  • Lettering: Arabic script

We provide more information about Tunisian Arabic

It's great that you are interested in Tunisian Arabic!
 
Maybe you will also find some of these information interesting?