Talk:Tunisian Arabic/Archive 2

Latin script
There is a sentence about Latin characters being used on social websites. I don't quite understand how this comes to pass. Is Derja written in Latin taught in schools or is it relatively easy for a speaker literate in the Arabic script to make the change to Latin, because the symbols can be "translated" one by one? The Arabic Alphabet article makes it seem a lot more complicated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8108:1E00:1924:E1C0:A86A:64D0:2C07 (talk) 17:39, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Is Tunsi (Tunisian Arabic) Punic ?
I did some researches recently and I discovered that, many people, are starting to think that the maghrebi dialects are, of punic origin. In fact, what we consider berber isn't itself as distinct because, it is in great part punic itself.

We can see here, a comparison between Phoenician and arabic (its in french) http://www.harissa.com/news/article/parlez-vous-carthaginois same here ici http://www.agoravox.fr/tribune-libre/article/la-langue-maghrebia-date-de-plus-141672

I found that realy impressive, knowing that this is only phoenician and not yet punic ! Is it possible, that the language we speak isn't much different from what was spoken at Carthage ? If enough people agree on that, I think this article should include these elements, and be written in that optic.

Also many recent researches in the Maghreb are adding elements on that matter, here one (sorry for non-french reader) : http://gerflint.fr/Base/Tunisie1/elimam.pdf

There's also a debate here on that http://projetbabel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17055 Exacrion (discuter) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Exacrion (talk • contribs) 18:39, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see how comparing MSA words to Tunisian words that are identical or nearly the same demonstrates a Punic origin. Look at the entries for "cent" and "chien", for example. Elimam's word list was just as puzzling: how was it meant to demonstrate that the Tunisian words on the list were of Punic rather than Arabic origin? Anyway, see this analysis and Lameen Souag's comment after it, including "My conclusion in brief is that nothing in his list justifies postulating even Punic influence on Darja, much less Punic origins for it, ...."
 * The bottom line is that this is one man's hypothesis, which is not a valid basis for inclusion in a Wikipedia article, unless it's an article about novel theories and there are other reliable sources that have written about his hypothesis. —Largo Plazo (talk) 18:58, 18 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Hello,
 * I agree with —Largo Plazo.
 * Furthermore I believe that your point "In fact, what we consider berber isn't itself as distinct because, it is in great part punic itself" seems rather unreferenced and unlikely. Perhaps one of the cases where this might stand, would be if you were referring to Neo-Punic as partly Punic and similarly to Tunisian, relying on an Amazigh substrata and a multitude of loanwords from other Mediterranean languages; in the case of Neo-Punic, mostly Phoenician.
 * Thanks.
 * E3 (talk) 08:41, 19 February 2015 (UTC)


 * To Exacrion (talk) and kwami (talk), in particular, for notification. I came through this controversy quite by accident. Here are 4 statements which are relevant to the linguistic classification of Tunisian Arabic. (1) Punic is an extinct variety of extinct Phoenician. (2) Both languages are known only from brief text or vocabulary samples. To the extent that we can judge from these rests, both languages are to be classified within the Semitic subgroup of Afro-Asiatic and are thus closely related to Arabic. (3) To the extent that we can judge today, Punic differs from Phoenician mainly by its large Berber substratum. Berber is to be classified as a non-Semitic subgroup of Afro-Asiatic and is only distantly related to Semitic. We don't know whether Punic had completely replaced Berber in the area or whether there was a coterritorial maintenance of both Punic and Berber. (4) Substratal evidence are linguistic facts but do not have any bearing on linguistic classification. This is incidentally true of historical and cultural facts. This means that research determining the nature of a substratum in Tunisian Arabic, Punic or Berber, might shed light on the origins of the populations of Tunisia but will have no bearing on the origin of Tunisian Arabic as a language. Novalis69 (talk) 18:44, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Newspaper articles and blogs are not WP:reliable sources. They are not adequate to make extraordinary claims like this. The only linguistic source you provided (elsewhere) describes a Punic substratum in Tunisian Arabic. It does not claim that Tunisian is actually Punic. It looks like some reporter misunderstood what they read. Sometimes the people who talk the most know the least. — kwami (talk) 19:56, 19 February 2015 (UTC)


 * tokwami, —Largo Plazo, E3 Then do we all agree to add the punic substratum to the page at least ? Exacrion (discuter)
 * No, I disagree, because the hypothesis is the product of one person in a non-peer-reviewed paper based on what it is bewildering to think that he considers evidenceespecially when much of it seems to be evidence of the Arabic origin of words on his list. —Largo Plazo (talk) 21:33, 19 February 2015 (UTC)


 * to E3 Not it's a fact that Amazigh, was influenced by Phoenician/Punic, it contains many punic words, that are believed to be genuinely berber, especially near Tunisia (+east algeria/ west libya). I definitely believe Tunisian is an evolution of Punic, that doesn't make any doubt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Asmodim (talk • contribs) 20:18, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

references to the use of english code-switching withing tunisian
I don't know what references could fit, in that. If someone can help it would be great.

Otherwise, if there's Tunisian people here, let's just agree with that and that'll be fine. I always use English code-switching with my friends and even more recently with my family and so do they. I don't see in what we need a source for something so basic and just part of our daily lives. If we do that in the same logic we'd need to prove, french, arabic and I don't know what else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elioun (talk • contribs) 16:53, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * But you see, you aren't writing this article for yourself. Everything in a Wikipedia article must be verifiable. Theoretically, every single assertion should be explicitly supported by a citation to a reliable source. In practice, much of what's written is uncontroversial (see WP:The sky is blue) and there's no reason why anyone would lie or be mistaken about it. But if anyone has any doubts about an assertion, he or she is entirely within reason to ask for a proper citation rather than taking it on the word of one or more people here, if for no other reason than that Wikipedia content should not consist of original research. Further, because of how Wikipedia is built, it is never, itself, a reliable source. Therefore, scrupulous researchers would never cite Wikipedia as a source for information in papers that they are writing. It helps them enormously when Wikipedia directs them to a reliable source for the information that's carried here.
 * In this case, I'd like to see a citation because:
 * Your family and friends aren't necessarily representative of the bulk of the country.
 * When I prepared for my trip to Tunisia, all of the guidebooks I used explained that Tunisians are largely bilingual and that tourists who speak French can get along easily there. (I'm American, native language English, and my guidebooks were all in English.) None of them said anything about English being commonly spoken around the country. If it were, I'd expect that these guidebooks would have said that as well, since that would be more useful to English-speaking tourists than French!
 * When I was in Tunisia, only once did I ever hear a Tunisian speak English, and that was a hotel manager who was speaking to a tourist from Hong Kong. Granted, I spoke French the whole time I was there, because I do speak it fairly comfortably, and because of the guidance given by my guidebooks, so I never asked anyone if they spoke English. But, also, no one ever switched to English with me on the theory that at least one of us might as well be speaking his native language, and I never heard Tunisians code-switching with each other in English. Really, the only times I encountered English were (a) on one "Camel Crossing" sign on the way from Kebili to Matmata, (b) on a poster in Sidi Bou Said advertising a canned beverage called Boga Cidre with the slogan "Think Tounsi", and (c) the word "Fuck" preceding the words "Ben Ali" in the graffiti in this photo I took in Souk Lahad (nine months after Ben Ali had been deposed).
 * For those reasons, I'm genuinely surprised to see an assertion that Tunisians are trilingual in general, with English as one of their languages, and I'm requesting one or more appropriate sources to support the assertion. —Largo Plazo (talk) 19:06, 25 February 2015 (UTC)


 * What kind of sources or citation could work in that case ? (don't ask me for an accredited research that's obviously impossible)
 * Anything that meets the requirements for a reliable source and that says credibly that it's true. —Largo Plazo (talk) 00:39, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
 * By the way, please WP:SIGN your contributions on talk pages. —Largo Plazo (talk) 00:40, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 18 April 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was not moved. --BDD (talk) 14:05, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Tunisian Arabic → Tunisian language – Please see the conversation on incubator:Special:PermanentLink/2902392 and Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Tunisian. Mjbmr (talk) 14:35, 18 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep. I make no judgment on the merits of the arguments given in the campaign to encourage people to call it simply "Tunisian" when I say that at this time, in English, the language spoken natively by Tunisians is, to the best of my knowledge, most commonly known as "Tunisian Arabic". This is the applicable criterion even if Tunisians, in their language, have adopted, or were to adopt, the designation "Tounsi". WP:COMMONNAME applies. —Largo Plazo (talk) 15:06, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Tunisian Arabic is derived from Arabic but it's not written in Arabic. Mjbmr (talk) 15:26, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * What script it's written in is irrelevant to what the language is called or should be called. But even if that is your argument for deciding that the language should be called just "Tunisian", we don't name articles according to what anyone thinks their topics should be known as. We name them based on what their topics are known as. —Largo Plazo (talk) 15:48, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * You'r speaking for me. I never said that. I'm saying it's a little bit miss understanding when the article name has a "Arabic" with it. In the article already says "Tunisian, or Tunisian Arabic" so what's the different for you if we rename it. Mjbmr (talk) 15:54, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I was assuming that your comment was meant to be relevant to this discussion, so I interpreted it in that regard, i.e., that what script it's written in is relevant to the choice of title for this article. Did you throw it in as a random remark that wasn't meant to be relevant to the discussion? As for what the difference is to me, I just got through explaining that. —Largo Plazo (talk) 16:23, 18 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Oppose: Tunisian Arabic is a dialect of Arabic not a separate language. Furthermore the conversations cited in the proposal are themselves on-going and clearly highly contested. The main purpose of this proposal appears to be an attempt to manipulate the conversations cited. Ebonelm (talk) 18:56, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment, If there are reasons why the language has fundamental differences a standard form of Arabic then to call it Tunisian Arabic may lack precision. I checked the parallel versions of this article in Arabic and also did the same for the articles on Gulf and Egyptian Arabic.  Even though Egyptian is known to be quite different to other Arabics, like Gulf Arabic it is described to be a "tone" (لهجة ). In contrast the Tunisian article was described to be a "rolling" (دارجة ) whatever that means.  Certainly I think that there is a reason to treat the language differently as per precise and I can well envisage that calling it something like Tunisian (Arabic dialect) or Tunisian (Arabic based language) might be appropriate.  If there was an English based language that used mahy different contents and a different alphabet I am not sure that it would be accurate so simply describe it as Fooish English.  GregKaye 19:32, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose: All varieties of Arabic within the Arabic disglossic system are know as "X Arabic" in English.  Per WP:COMMONNAME therefore, this article must remain at "Tunisian Arabic".  It doesn't matter what the name is in Arabic or Tunisian Arabic or Chukchee or Quechua.  In English, it is "Tunisian Arabic" in virtually all linguistic sources.  --Taivo (talk) 20:29, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment: First of all it's not a dialect, it was derived from Arabic that's why it's called Arabic, it has different accent and a lot of different words, and it's not quite possible to write all words in Arabic. As you noticed, it is written in both scripts in the country, but today, it is recommended to write in Latin script. btw it has nothing to do with English. And edits like Special:Diff/657073135/657071801 is not good while we're discussing this. Please read the article well, it says all about Latin script. I'm saying it should not be called "Arabic" since it also is written in Latin. Please see the links I provided in the initial comment and see another example here. Mjbmr (talk) 20:35, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it's very helpful to this discussion that you repeated all your arguments after I explained why they are invalid and/or not pertinent to the question at hand and pointed you to WP:COMMONNAME, the Wikipedia guideline that is pertinent here. And you added a new one: That is has nothing to do with English. Of course it does. This is English Wikipedia. We name articles according to what their topics are called in English. Again, WP:COMMONNAME. Just like we don't list information about the Dutch language under "Nederlands".
 * Completely unrelated to the question at hand: If the Arabic alphabet can be adapted to accommodate Persian (including 6 vowels as well as /g/ گ and /p/ پ and and /tʃ/ چ and /v/) and Urdu (11 vowels and lots of consonants unknown in Arabic, plus aspiration) and Turkish and Kurdish and Pashto and Somali, then it's absurd to argue that it can't be adapted just as well as English can to accommodate the phonology of the speech of the Tunisian people. —Largo Plazo (talk) 20:51, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * First of all please read all previous comments, I said it has nothing to do with English, I didn't say it has nothing to do with English Wikipedia, read GregKaye's comment for more information. Second, I didn't say rename the language name, I said remove ambiguity from the title, the article describe it, it self. The policy says it as well: "However, some topics have multiple names, and this can cause disputes as to which name should be used in the article's title." Mjbmr (talk) 21:05, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I've read all the previous comments and I'm interpreting everything you've written in their light. I know you said it has nothing to do with English, not that it has nothing to do with English Wikipedia. I'm saying that because this is English Wikipedia, it does, despite your contention, have everything to do with English. And if we aren't renaming the language, then the article should be under the name the language has. In English. That name is "Tunisian Arabic". Therefore, that is the answer to this dispute. —Largo Plazo (talk) 21:12, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I actually think that there is a strong case for support this is certainly the way that I am leaning. I'm also interested in similarities that the Tunisian situation may or may not have to Patois and Creole language situations.  I think that both titles meet the requirements of recognisability but, it seems to me that "Tunisian xxx" has such significant differences from regular forms of Arabic that, in some ways, to call it "... Arabic" would be imprecise.  I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason that Patois and/or Creole definitions have not been applied is because these terms may be associated with, for instance, island and Western Atlantic situations.
 * Its crystal balling but I think that if, for instance, we did not use the title "Jamaican Patois" we might simply use "Jamaican (language)".
 * "Tunisian language" would be helpful in that it would avoid inaccuracies in regard to the topic that would be implied by a presentation of "Tunisian Arabic". GregKaye 10:24, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * As with Mjbmr, you're arguing in favor of a change in the way we name the language in the real world. I have no stake in that discussion and have no argument against it (other than to maintain that the script that's used to write the language, which Mjmbr raises as a rationale, is irrelevant). But Wikipedia isn't in the business of campaigning for change or getting ahead of the curve. The title of the article now should be what the language is known as in the real world now. —Largo Plazo (talk) 11:39, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree, at least to the extent of the script as being of little significance. Wikipedia is in the business of precision and I think there can be a case for tentatively taking stand in borderline cases especially where options with similar central contents are presented.  GregKaye 14:27, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Highlighting apparent differences between Tunisian Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic (or even Classical Arabic) is like arguing how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. Every variety of Arabic has differences between it and MSA and between it and its neighbors.  But since there is absolutely no accepted linguistic methodology for "counting differences" then any such discussion is doomed to failure.  Even the methods used to measure levels of intelligibility have caveats that are sometimes ignored (to the detriment of the study).  Tunisian Arabic is one of the Maghrebi varieties (which include forms in Libya, Algeria, and Morocco as well as Tunisia), and as such, it differs in some recognizable ways from MSA.  But that doesn't separate it in any special way from the Arabic diglossic system--which stretches from Morocco to Oman.  Orthography is certainly not of any importance whatsoever in linguistic features.  Linguists almost always write Tunisian Arabic examples in their research publications in the IPA or in some other Roman transcription system.  It means nothing.  Whether "language" or "dialect" (note that I consistently use, as is the Wikipedia consensus, "variety"), it doesn't matter--Tunisian Arabic is part of a larger disglossic system that linguists recognize as "Arabic" and label as such.  --Taivo (talk) 14:29, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The thing is, I see no borderline case. I see a "variety" (taking my cue from Taivo) that I've consistently seen referred to as "Tunisian Arabic", and then I see some people campaigning for the elimination in the real world of the "Arabic" designation. For this to be a borderline case, the variety would already have to be referred to as "Tunisian" alone, in the real world, with a frequency on the same order of magnitude as the frequency with which it's referred to as "Tunisian Arabic".
 * By the way this discussion largely parallels the one above about the use of the STUNdard transcription methodology. —Largo Plazo (talk) 16:07, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm looking through the history of this page and being reminded that we went through the same sort of discussion when GeekEmad unilaterally moved the article to Tunisian Darija last August. The year before that, E3, above, argued "The classification as 'Arabic' despite the substantial Tamazight substrata and the miscellaneous influences has been for mere political reasons." Well, no. That's a false argument. It's classified as Arabic because it's always been called Arabic since before the language began to diverge, and we simply haven't stopped calling it Arabic. Compare English, which in 900 CE was called English when its vocabulary was almost exclusively Germanic, and continued to be called English after the aftermath of 1066 (Battle of Hastings) brought in an immense incursion of French at the same time that the language lost much of its morphological complexity, and remains called English today despite borrowings from dozens of additional languages, many related to several centuries of colonialism.
 * The only reason the situation with Arabic looks different is that it didn't evolve in a fairly uniform way as English did. The largest shifts in English occurred while the language was spoken nowhere but the British Isles until the English started colonizing the New World in the 17th century. If Arabic had been replaced centuries ago by some other language (Greek? Latin? Turkish?) everywhere in today's Arabic speaking world except Tunisia, then it never would occur to people in Tunisia, speaking Arabic as it evolved over the centuries, absorbing substrata from Berber and whatever else, to stop one day and say, "Hey, our language has changed in the last 500 years. Let's start calling it something else." The reason it seems like a different situation from that of English is that Arabic is spoken over a huge expanse, and it has undergone substantially different transformations across that expanse. —Largo Plazo (talk) 16:43, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Apart from is it a dialect of Arabic or not, which is a linguistic question, not a question of opinions, I think that because everyone calls it Tunisian Arabic, this page must stay as it is. When, one day, for some reasons, the name changes to Tunisian language, or Tunisian Darija, or whatever, we have to change the name of this page. By the way, my comments about STUNdard were really stupid. Sadly, we can't remove sections here. However, I think that the same rules must be applied on all x Arabic articles. In Algerian Arabic, they use a writing method that's the same as STUNdard (no official recognition of it), and there is a section about it, the same goes for Lebanese Arabic article. At the end, they describe a writing method (other than Said Aqel's alphabet). --GeekEmad (talk) 17:47, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Your comments weren't stupid! It was just a matter of framing your interest in STUNdard in the context of Wikipedia's concerns. I agree that the same considerations apply to Algerian Arabic, Lebanese Arabic, etc. But on the other hand, in my opinion, official recognition isn't the sole criterion available. As I had put it to you in our previous conversation, I think "official recognition or common acceptance", i.e., being a de facto standard, should be adequate. Do the conventions being used in those articles reflect common usage among the general public? —Largo Plazo (talk) 18:11, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The methods described in Algerian Arabic and Lebanese Arabic articles are new projects, or small projects that nobody uses them. Arabic Chat Alphabet is widely used, that's why there is an Article about it, or it's mentioned in x Arabic articles, this is not the case of LLL systemor the transcription method used in Algerian Arabic (The transcription method is not phonemic, nor used by linguists). --GeekEmad (talk) 13:44, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Transcription method
I see that all of words in this articles are written in Arabic script without a reference, and since there is no standard Arabic Alphabet for Tunisian Arabic, and since this is an article related to linguistics, I suggest the use of a Transcription method use by linguists who study Tunisian Arabic. The transcription method used in VICAV dictionary seems interesting and it denotes all the emphatic consonants, and it uses some IPA characters. There is another transcription method used by Ines Dallaji in her work ''Hochzeitsbräuche in Nābil (Tunesien). Eine linguistische und ethnographische Studie''. This method uses no IPA letters and uses the letter c to denote Arabic Ayin. I strongly support the use of a transcription method instead of writing words without clear guidelines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GeekEmad (talk • contribs) 11:14, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Review of Tunisian Arabic
Dear Users, I had considered your thoughts about Tunisian and I thought about a general review of this important work. I invite you to put your comments about what should be reviewed in this work. --Csisc (talk) 11:53, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Not sure what to say, not my field of expertise. Benwing (talk) 10:20, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Dialect loanwords
I thought "delicious" was "taħfu:na" - am I wrong?


 * taḩfūne means that something is beautiful or good. bnīne means that something is delicious. --Csisc (talk) 14:09, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Pre-Hilalian dialects and the French influence on Tunisian
First, for the Pre-Hilalian dialects, you said: ''However, these dialects respect the structures of the Arabic words like the pronunciation of diphthongs /aw and /ay/. These dialects were called later Pre-Hilalian Dialects. and [...] Moreover, the diphthongs /aw/ and /aj/ were replaced respectively by /uː/ and /iː/.''.

Actually, the inverse happened. Pre-Hilalian dialects were very influenced by Berber dialects, so they dropped Arabic diphthongs and changed them to /u:/ and /i:/. Hilalian dialects were more influenced by Arabic, so they maintained the Arabic diphthongs, and in some regions they started pronouncing them as /o:/ and /e:/. This is a fact.

For the influence of French on Tunisian, French language didn't have an influence on the grammar of Tunisian. The SVO form was borrowed from Arabic, the use of one Second personal pronoun if due to the influence of Berber, that's why it's common in Pre-Hilalian dialects only. GeekEmad (talk) 19:27, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

List of significant contributors
This is the list of contributors to Tunisian Arabic having more than 25 edits and adding more than 800 bytes. This list would be considered when publishing the paper 'Tunisian Arabic: Wikipedia linguistic review" in a scholarly journal under CC BY SA Licence

Competing Interests: Houcemeddine Turki is a member of WikiProject Tunisia and a founder of the projects of Wikipedia and Wiktionary in Tunisian Arabic, Rafik Zribi is a contributor to the project of Wikipedia in Tunisian Arabic and Emad Adel is a contributor to the project of Wikipedia in Tunisian Arabic and a founder of the project of Wiktionary in Tunisian Arabic.

The work in Wikipedia was created in 22 December 2004. From 2005 until 2008, Maik Gibson had made 84 edits to the work and had rewritten the work and ameliorated it to Wikipedia's C Status. From June to August 2015, Houcemeddine Turki made 890 edits and modified and adjusted all the parts of the work, added new parts and ameliorated the citation quality of the work. Emad Adel wrote offline a draft of the morphology part and verified all the parts of the work by making 48 edits. Rafik Zribi adjusted the history and dialects parts by making 92 edits. During the writing process, other 252 Wikipedia users and bots and mainly Largoplazo and Kwamikagami had reviewed and edited the work and made 606 edits. Further information can be found in: https://tools.wmflabs.org/sigma/articleinfo.py?page=Tunisian_Arabic&server=enwiki

GA review
There's been a lot of work on this article. I was involved in an edit-war some time ago with an editor who claimed that Tunisian was a dialect of Phoenician/Punic. That was my first concern with the GA nom, but it seems that nonsense is now gone.

I copy-edited the lead, but left alone one phrase which I could't make sense of: "more educated and upper-class people who make code-switching between Maghrebi Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic also have more French and Spanish loanwords.". Why should speaking MSA cause you to borrow words from Spanish?

Haven't read the article, but one phrase jumped out: "Neo-Punic differentiate itself from the ancient Punic by its pronunciation of words that was more phonetic". This is gibberish: A pronunciation cannot be "more phonetic". I have no idea what the writer intended to say, so I didn't want to simply delete it. The entire article needs to be proofed by a native (or nativelike) English speaker before this becomes GA, as there appear to be many ungrammatical phrases and improperly used words like this, where it's difficult to discern the intended meaning. — kwami (talk) 17:46, 7 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment
 * Very ambitious article. Nice to see a variant of Arabic covered in such detail as well. But I agree with with kwami regarding the prose. The article will not pass a proper GA review without thorough copyediting.
 * There's also a problem with content focus (criterium 3b). Sections like "Music" and "Cinema and mass media" are really about Tunisian culture, not Tunisian as such. "Morphology" (which usually sorts under the heading "Grammar") is over-burdened with samples and grammar tables. It should be spun off into a sub-article (Tunisian Arabic grammar) with a much shorter summary left in this article.
 * There's a standard formula for the sections that a language article should contain. This strays quite a bit from that formula. I recommend checking out other language GAs for guidance and inspiration. There really ought to be a separate "Classification"-section, for example.
 * Peter Isotalo 18:31, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Peter Isolato: I thank you for your comment. I agree with you about the fact that the work should be copyedited. After, we can summarize the parts of Morphology and Domains of Use and use the current version of the work in creating "Tunisian Arabic Grammar" and "Tunisian Arabic Usage". --Csisc (talk) 15:31, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Comments
As a full-time researcher into language contact in North Africa, I've been asked to comment on this article. I do not plan to come back to Wikipedia, or probably even to reply to responses to this comment, but I'm willing, briefly, to make an exception for this case. The article is a good effort, into which a lot of work has clearly gone. It still needs a bit of polishing, though. Here are a few comments. The English in some sections needs serious proof-reading (for one thing, substitute "novel" for "roman" throughout).
 * I thank you very much for your comments.

The claim that "Tunisian also has a significant Punic component,[9][10]" is untenable. Reference 9 can be viewed at http://www.ieiop.csic.es/pub/07tilmatine.pdf ; it does not make the claim anywhere that Tunisian has any Punic component at all. In fact, its only mention of Punic is in regard to Punic loans into Berber. Reference 10 does at least make the claim that Tunisian has a Punic component; however, it represents the extremely idiosyncratic opinion of a single researcher with no special expertise in historical linguistics, and has not been taken up by any historical linguist. (Readers of Maghrebi Arabic may be interested in my critique of his work, at البونيقية في الدارجة؟ 1.)
 * I ask if you can provide me a reference for that. Mr. Lameen Souag from CNRS had said that Tunisian does not have a punic substratum. I ask about your opinion about that.
 * Done. Thank you.

The region where "the geographer al-Bakrī describes people speaking a language that was not Berber, Latin or Coptic" is not Ifriqiya in general but rather Sirt in modern-day Libya, as you can verify by checking any copy of al-Bakrī.
 * Csisc: The author of this part is Tounsimentounes
 * Tounsimentounes: We're talking about Ifriqiya, not modern Tunisia there, Sirt was part of Ifriqiya at that moment

The claim that "Judeo-Tunisian Arabic [...] use Hebrew Phonology instead of Tunisian Phonology" is wrong. As can easily be verified by checking reference 39, Judeo-Tunisian Arabic phonology is very similar to that of the Muslims in the same area, and includes Tunisian Arabic phonemes that do not exist in Hebrew, such as ẓ and ḷ and ž. It does retain the Hebrew phonemes p and v in loanwords, which Cohen claims do not exist in the Muslim dialect, but that's about it for Hebrew phonological influence.
 * Done.

"The passive derivation of verbs is similar to Berber and does not exist in Classical Arabic." This statement is technically correct but misleading; passives in it- and in- are well-attested all over the Arab world, including regions where Berber influence is impossible to postulate.
 * I will adjust it.

"In religion, the use of Tunisian Arabic in promoting Islam is limited, although there are some trial efforts." I haven't been to Tunisia, but here in Paris Tunisian imams switch into dialect within their khutbas quite often; it seems hard to believe that this is not true in Tunisia itself.
 * However, it is true. In Tunisia, the use of dialect is limited.

"the effective beginning of Tunisian Arabic song came in the early 19th century"? And before that everyone in Tunisia was just humming wordlessly, or what? Song is a human universal. Whether they were writing the lyrics down or not, we can be confident that they were singing, and no doubt in Tunisian Arabic.
 * Before, songs were mainly in Classical Arabic. Songs in Tunisian Arabic were not supported.

"However, the transcription of Tunisian Arabic was not common until 1903 when the Gospel of John was transcribed in Tunisian Arabic using Arabic script." - One Gospel, printed by foreigners, does not even begin to make the transcription of Tunisian Arabic "common".
 * However, it was the first initiative to use Tunisian Arabic in a written form and in a considerable length.

"However, the situation had ameliorated since 2015 as Crúbadán Project for Minority Languages had recognized the Latin Script as an official script for Tunisian in 21 February 2015." Crúbadán, a personal project by a US-based academic, has no standing to recognise any script as "official", and does not claim to.
 * I will adjust this.

Loanwords:


 * There's no obvious reason to link فيشته fišta to Italian festa rather than Spanish fiesta.
 * صبّاط ṣabbāṭ: The etymology of this word is obscure. It's attested in Spanish, of course, but no one knows where Spanish got it from, which raises the possibility that it might come from Arabic or have reached Arabic and Spanish from the same source.  Probably it is a Spanish loanword, but it's a questionable example.
 * قلسيطه qalsīta could equally well be from Spanish calcetín or Italian calzino. Its ultimate origin in any case is Latin calceus.
 * No variety of Berber has a form kuskūs, with a long vowel. A variety of forms are attested, most commonly seksu (as in Kabyle).
 * بطانيه baṭṭāniye is an Arabic loan into Turkish, not vice versa (cf. Nisanyan).
 * سفناريه sfinnarya has cognates in some Berber varieties (and in Spanish zanahoria), but is not of Berber origin. The etymology usually accepted for this word is Greek staphyliné agria "wild carrot" (see Perseus.)
 * باكو bakū is from Italian pacco, not French paquet.
 * Done.

āš + nūwa, āš + nīye: rather āš + n + (h)ūwa, āš + n+ (h)īye.
 * Done.

"Metathesis": the analysis of this phenomenon as metathesis is rather questionable (cf. eg Angoujard 1990, The Metrical Structure of Arabic, for one alternative analysis), but for a general audience presenting it as metathesis is OK.
 * Thank you

The list of "Tunisian Arabic vowel phonemes" seems very hard to believe. Can we have some contrastive pairs please?
 * ë, ü, añ, iñ, uñ are mainly used in Loanwords. However, mañqūb is an example for them.

"Tunisian Arabic has a very different syllable structure from Standard Arabic like many other North African varieties due to their Berber substrates.[9] While Standard Arabic can have only one consonant at the beginning of a syllable, after which a vowel must follow, Tunisian Arabic commonly has two consonants in the onset.[6][52][88][233] For example, Standard Arabic book is /kitaːb/, while in Tunisian Arabic it is ktāb.[6][52]" - The fact that two-consonant onsets are equally common in Syria, with no Berber substrate, and in Maltese, with very little Berber influence, suggests that this aspect of Tunisian has little to do with Berber influence. A more plausible - though still questionable - influence of Berber on Tunisian Arabic is the banning of short vowels in open syllables.
 * Done.

"If there is a CCC within a word, it is pronounced as CCiC" - I think there's a missing condition somewhere here - Tunisians say yiktbu, not yiktibu, as we see later on in the article.
 * Done.

"forms which are probably encouraged by the berber substratum such as [nimʃu], [niħbu], [nibdu] and [nu:χðu]" - these forms have nothing to do with Berber influence - forms like [jimʃu], [jiħbu] are the regular outcomes of the Classical Arabic equivalents. If anything, it's the mainstream Tunisian forms like yimšīū that might be attributed to language contact, although probably they're just regularisations.
 * I will adjust this.

"The future tense in Tunisian Arabic is also similar to Berber" - in what respect?

The definition of verb to include forms like ʕand- and kāṛ- here is probably tenable within some theories, but rather idiosyncratic.

"Adding ā between the last two radical consonants, e.g. ḥmār “turn red”" - this is called an Inchoative verb.
 * Thank you very much. Done.

"Prefixing it– to the verb, e.g. itmasxar “to make fun of”" - this is a poor example of a quadriconsonantal derivation, since the original root is triconsonantal sxr, and since (I think?) there is no verb masxar in use.
 * I will search for another example. --Csisc (talk) 10:27, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * This example is used in Esquisse grammaticale de l'arabe maghrébin, there is possibility another example, however I didn't write it because I didn't recognize the used word. --GeekEmad (talk) 17:56, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

"-š or -šī can be suffixed to the verb to indicate an interrogative sentence." - only the verb? I thought it could be added to pronouns as well?
 * Verbs, personal pronouns and modal verbs. That is true. However, I wrote it in another part of the work.

"The only relative pronoun used in Tunisian Arabic is illī meaning who or that and its short form is lī" - surely Tunisian has free relatives, like mā ʕandu mā yqūl?
 * Relative pronouns are related to nouns. Here, mā is a subjunctive conjunction because it is related to verbs.

sūbɛīn: is this a true dual or just a plural derived from a historic dual? In other words, could you say xamsa sūbɛīn or not?
 * No, we could not say xamsa sūbɛīn in Tunisian

Months of the year: what about the traditional farmers' calendar?
 * Minor research had been done about the subject. However, its use is not common. I think that the traditional farmers' calendar is the same of all the countries of Maghreb. So, we can write a new work about it. --Csisc (talk) 10:14, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, there are some differences. For example, in Tunisia we say ṃarəs and awəssu, however, in Algeria, or Morocco (depending on the region) they have məɣrəs and ɣəšt. This is actually a problem when standardizing Maghrebi language. --GeekEmad (talk) 17:56, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, those are my comments. Use them, or don't - I don't plan to do any editing here. - Lameen Souag (talk) 14:21, 13 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I removed the claims of Punic influence pending some reliable sources. I also removed the vowel table that claimed the allophones of /a/ were distinct phonemes. — kwami (talk) 02:45, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * For the vowels, there are two possibilities (see Talmoudi's work and Chekili's work). The first, is the most common: Three (or Five for Hilalian dialects) vowels, and many emphatic consonants. The second is, only three emphatic consononts (ṣ, ṭ and ḍ) with the vowels /a/ /æ/ /u/ and /i/ (plus [ē] and [ō] for Hilalian dialects). That's because only those three emphatic consonants can occur before /i/ and /u/, the other emphatic consonants from the first hypothesis occurs only before/after /a/. This can be explained in the phonology section. --GeekEmad (talk) 09:25, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, a sourced description of the two analyses, with the vowel and consonant charts both based on the same analysis (or else separate charts for each) would address my concerns. — kwami (talk) 17:43, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course. Here, from page 11. P.15 he talks about what I said above (only ṣ, ṭ and ḍ occur before all the vowels, hence, they are the only emphatics). (Sorry for not including the reference from the beginning). --GeekEmad (talk) 18:20, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The claims on Punic, are sourced and there is quite a handful of vocabulary and pronunciation that are close to Punic or Phoenician, most of these words are found in Hebrew but not in classical arabic/standard for instance. You should have started a discussion before acting, i'm restoring it as it was for now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tounsimentounes (talk • contribs) 08:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * We asked for expert opinion, and got The claim that "Tunisian also has a significant Punic component,[9][10]" is untenable. You now want to reject that because WP:IDONTLIKEIT. That is not acceptable. The claims appear to be remnants of the earlier FRINGE idea that Tunisian is a descendant of Punic. If such dubious claims are restored despite expert opinion, I think the article will need to fail GA review. — kwami (talk) 17:43, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * @Csisc,GeekEmad,kwami In the history part "the development of tunisian arabic", there is a bugging sentence that goes "By the XIth Century, some urban dialects had appeared in the main cities of coastal Tunisia." What most likely happened is that classical arabic coexisted with the older different dialects until they were progressively influenced by it. I think we should reformulate the sentence in order to convey more clearly this meaning. — User:Tounsimentounes (talk) 03:03, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Punic component
There is a problem regarding the part Punic takes in Tunisian Arabic, it is undeniable that the similarities between Arabic and Phoenician blurs most of the differences. However, it is also true that regarding the historical linkage of the languages in Tunisian Arabic, Punic or Phoenician do play a role. Many words, used in the dialects of Tunisian Arabic, only appear in Phoenician and sometimes also Hebrew, among them chakchak (to mix), kirch (belly), 3akrat (disturber). There are also words that have similar roots to Arabic, but are pronounced or/and have a Phoenician meaning used in Tunisian Arabic according to the canaanite dictionnary. Such as zare3 (seed), mal7amit (fight) or lben (white) as in "abyadh lben". I think, the Punic component, should be precised in the definition, also i am looking for your opinions concerning the matter. Tounsimentounes (talk • contribs) 13:47, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The broader claims were a violation of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH and, it would appear from our expert opinion, WP:RS. They have no place here except perhaps to debunk them. Currently, only the claim that there may be Punic loans has been restored, which is probably okay. Giving examples of loans would be good, but only if sourced to a RS (i.e., not one of the ones dismissed above as non-RS). If we want to restore more, please run it by our resident expert.
 * (Sorry if you think I'm taking a hard line, but we often get linguistic claims, even sourced claims, that are based more on nationalism or a desire for historical authenticity or ethnic identity than they are on the linguistic evidence. We need to be careful such political motives do not contaminate what is shaping up to be quite a nice article.) — kwami (talk) 17:45, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I had asked Mr. Lameen Souag and he had confirmed to me that all the provided examples exist in Arabic. So, Tunisian has not a Punic component although Abdou Elimam proved that. However, this does not mean that the existence of Punic language had not be influencing in the development of Tunisian Arabic. In fact, Punic is from the same family as Arabic and its phonology is similar to the one of Classical Arabic... So, the fact that the main language of Tunisia was Punic had influenced the spread of the Classical Arabic in Tunisia and let it absolutely easier.--Csisc (talk) 11:09, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Vowels
Given the explanation above, I restored the vowel table and added an intro. Please add the appropriate refs are correct any mistakes I made.

A couple issues:
 * 1) Only three emphatics, /t', d', s'/, in the second analysis. If that is so, why are /r'/ and /l'/ not placed in parentheses in the consonant table? (In MSA, /l'/ is only found in one word, which makes it marginal even if that word is "God".)
 * Following the first the common hypothesis, Classical Arabic *r developed into /r/ and /ṛ/. ḷ, ḅ, ṃ and ṇ are found in borrowed words, or in some rare native words. (e.g. French pelle > TUN ḅala. We also have ṇaṇa Grandmother.) --GeekEmad (talk) 18:49, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * 1) Which consonants correspond to the /ɑ/ vowel? I assume the uvulars, but what of the pharyngeals? (If so, we can call all the triggering/dependent consonants, emphatics + uvulars + pharyngeals, "gutterals" for short.)
 * /ɑ/ or [ɑ] occurs before (if it is a closed syllable) or after ṭ, ṣ, ḍ (and any pharyngealized consonant), and after q, ġ, ḥ and x. In some rural dialects, it never occurs after q (pronounced [g] in rural dialects), ġ, ḥ, and x. --GeekEmad (talk) 18:49, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * 1) Do /i/ and /u/ also have allophonic differences when adjacent to gutterals?
 * Short, yes, Long, no. So, /u/ can be pronounced [o~ɔ] and /i/ can be pronounced [ɪ~e]. --GeekEmad (talk) 18:49, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


 * 1) Can we have an example or two of nasal vowels in native words? I think I might have deleted them, not recognizing what they were.
 * Yes. [mɛ̃nquːbæ] From CA maŧqūba, [lɑ̃gɑːr] From FR La gare, [læ̃driːsæ] or [lɛ̃driːsæ] From FR l'adresse. --GeekEmad (talk) 18:49, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

— kwami (talk) 18:20, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The part about the vowels had been adjusted. Thank you very much. --Csisc (talk) 11:10, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Reviewers
I had to thank the reviewers of the work:
 * Kwamikagami


 * Peter Isotalo


 * Lameen Souag

Yours Sincerely,

--Csisc (talk) 11:42, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Adjustments
This is what had been recommended by the reviewers:
 * Drop the fact that Tunisian has a punic substratum ✅
 * Ameliorate the consonants and vowels parts ✅
 * Create a new work entitled Tunisian Arabic Morphology in which the morphology part is written and summarize this part in Tunisian Arabic ✅
 * Csisc: The first part is done, please make a short summary of Tunisian Arabic Morphology. See French language for example. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GeekEmad (talk • contribs) 09:39, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * GeekEmad: You have to see Tamil language.


 * Create a new work entitled Use of Tunisian Arabic in which the Domains of Use part is written and summarize this part in Tunisian Arabic ❌
 * Add a Classification part ✅
 * Proofread the work:
 * Introduction ✅
 * Classification ✅
 * History ✅
 * Distinctive Features ✅
 * Dialects ✅
 * Domains of Use ✅
 * Scripts ✅
 * Vocabulary ✅
 * Phonology ✅
 * Morphology ✅
 * Semantics and Pragmatics ✅
 * Influences ✅
 * See also ✅
 * Verify its sources ✅
 * Protect all the output ❌

Yours Sincerely,

--Csisc (talk) 11:39, 20 August 2015 (UTC)


 * "Domains of use" should be done away with entirely in my view. The info generally belongs under "History" or "Geographic distribution", but mi. Look at how this heading is used in English language for example.
 * Peter Isotalo 12:33, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Peter Isotalo: ❌: Other reviewers do not have the same idea as yours for Domains of Use. However, they see that the idea is accurate for the Morphology part. --Csisc (talk) 13:27, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Peter Isotalo: All the required changes are done excepting summarizing the Morphology part. I ask if you have several ideas about doing that more efficiently. --Csisc (talk) 10:20, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Kwamikagami: All the required changes are done excepting summarizing the Morphology part. I ask if you have several ideas about doing that more efficiently. --Csisc (talk) 10:20, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

GA procedure
Please note that none of this is normal procedure for GA nominations. There is supposed to be a single reviewer who determines whether the article fulfils the GA criteria.

Has anyone actually taken on the responsibility of a GA review?

Peter Isotalo 16:13, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Peter Isotalo: Unfortunately, no one has actually taken the responsibility of a GA review. As for the work, I am now summarizing the morphology part. Please Review it and adjust it so that we could be certain that the work is excellent. If you have any further comment about this Wikipedia work, please write about it and explain it here. Yours Sincerely, --Csisc (talk) 10:43, 24 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't know about "GA", but I would not describe this as a "good article", because the referencing is simply terrible. To wit (taking a passage at random),
 * In fact, Central Tunisian Arabic speakers became using the voiced velar plosive [ɡ] instead of the voiceless uvular plosive [q] in words such as qāl "he said". Some linguists supposed that even the replacement of the diphthongs /aw/ and /aj/ respectively by /uː/ and /iː/ vowels was a Hilalian influence.
 * this is WP:BOMBARD of the worst kind. I am happy to believe that " Some linguists supposed that even the replacement of the diphthongs /aw/ and /aj/ respectively by /uː/ and /iː/ vowels was a Hilalian influence", but I would like to know either who these linguists were, with references, or at the very least a clear reference to some authority who is responsible for the "some linguists" classification. Just dumping a selection of references, without page numbers, "preh, ritt, dial, ency" is not helpful. Suppose I want to use this "some linguists supposed" information. Am I now supposed to read four books just to pinpoint where the authors of this article got this from? Give me one good reference, with page number, not four generic links. This is so terrible that I would describe an article as "good" that has a fraction of the information, with decent references, rather than this "the reference is in there somewhere, you are on your own" approach. The article should be tagged for "refimprove", not for "GA review". --dab (𒁳) 11:40, 1 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Dbachmann: I do not think that I should cite the pages for each cited work because the most of them are scientific papers that are only consituted by a limited number of pages. However, I agree on doing this for books. For example, preh, ritt, dial, ency are references that are only involving 20 pages or less... However, I agree on doing this for books and on providing more explanation to the unclear parts you cited. Yours Sincerely, --Csisc (talk) 09:06, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Tunisian Arabic classification
In the classification section, it is mentioned that Tunisian Arabic is a Hilalian dialect. I don't think this is the correct thing to say. Because, there is no such thing as one "Tunisian Arabic". The phonology, morphology and vocabulary differ from a region to another, some dialects are Pre-Hilalian, others are not, and others are mixed. Unless, the article is actually talking about Tunis dialect, which I think is actually mixed, for example: zawj > zuuz, however, jazzaar stays as it is.

I have two suggestions for this problem: describing all the dialects spoken in Tunisia, or, writing other articles about the most spoken dialect, such as South Tunisian (which has a different phonology, morphology and vocabulary), Sfaxian, which has a different phonology and vocabulary etc.

The first suggestion is more suitable since it is a dialect continuum. The problem is that not much work was done about all those dialects. Some differences which I remarked in my trips in Tunisia are the use of /g/ in every single word instead of /q/, even in ɛaaqil > ɛaagil, naqra > nagra, I remarked this in the dialect of Kalâat el-Andalous, in Ariana. I noticed also, in the dialect of Rguèb, in Sidi Bouzid, the use of a Moroccan-like morphology, so instead of saying, for example, mšit (You, m. sing.), they say mšiti. In Sahil, they have the Arabic dual form, but with replacing /aj/ with /e:/. In Rural dialects, they have the verb baa, like the Libyan yebbi, meaning He wants to. Furthermore, the vocabulary radically changes from a city to another, for example, the word for "lip" can be šiffa, šallūfa, šārib etc.. One word can have many plural forms depending on the region (Mosbah Said, Salah Mejri, La représentation cartographique des données linguistiques).

So, depending on those data, Tunisian Arabic is either Tunis Arabic or, a dialect continuum (part of Maghrebi Arabic). Hence, expressions like "Tunisian Arabic is a hilalian dialect, Tunisian Arabic is a dialect of Arabic etc." are incorrect. The morphology part must be updated, the same goes for the phonology and vocabulary part. --GeekEmad (talk) 10:26, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Another thing is that in rural dialects, the emphatic consonants affect the pronunciation of all the vowels. For example, ṛūz is pronounced ṛōz, the word didn't have any diphthongs originally, so it can't be /aw/ > [ō]. --GeekEmad (talk) 17:45, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Official status in infobox
There's been a little edit war over whether to add the official parameter in the infobox. The argument advanced by User:Tounsimentounes is that Tunisian Arabic is similar to Japanese in that both are "National languages". The source given is Ethnologue. However, there are two reasons why this source cannot be used the way Tounsimentounes intends it: (1) The Republic of Tunisia, as opposed to Japan, already lists a language as official; (2) Ethnologue does not describe Tunisian Arabic and Japanese the same way - Japanese is listed as a "de facto national language" while Tunisian Arabic is listed as "de facto national working language". I don't know why it is so important to add the official parameter when Tunisia is already listed as the native state of Tunisian Arabic. Abjiklɐm (tɐlk) 18:30, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't actually see in what it is a problem as long as we precise it. It does make the article easier to read so i am more prone to keep it.Tounsimentounes (talk) 19:06, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

WP:OVERCITE
Hello,

There's some WP:OVERCITE in the Tunisian Arabic section ; unfortunately, as it is generally the case for OVERCITE cases, it is to push a POV regarding the dialectal classification, which is, in this article, more based on general conceptions and phonetics than on scientific works (using scientific data related to a single regiolect/geolect to describe the whole linguistic map).

For instance, this section does not classify these dialects into Hilalian and Non-hilalian, which is the main linguistic/sociolinguistic classification for Maghreb Arabic dialects, nor does it give any importance to Urban pre-Hilalian dialects that are actually different from modern Urban koines (such as the "tunis dialect" as described in the article).

Imho, some of the most important works aren't cited or are not cited the right way ; for example, K. Versteegh is cited (ref no. 38) in the "History" section, but ignoed on the "Dialects" one despite being enough precise for classifying the dialects into Hilalian/Non-Hilalian (sample), and EALL should also be cited (example) --Omar-toons (talk) 23:09, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
 * That would be to Csisc to explain that as he is the one who wrote that part. However, I don't see that classification relevant in this case as the modern dialectal variations listed have all an hilalian influence, a notable exception would have been (ancient) sfaxian, but since the dialect leveling in the 1980s it integrated components (hilian ones) from the other variations. That's why Tunisian Arabic is usually classified as a set of/a hililian variety of Maghrebi Arabic.Tounsimentounes (talk) 17:51, 19 October 2015 (UTC)


 * However as for WP:OVERCITE, I agree it might be too much of unneeded referencing for the dialects, that is not as important as for now, but it would be good that Csisc, keeps only the essential ones (max 3 or 4 i think)Tounsimentounes (talk) 18:42, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
 * You are talking about the keoinetization of these dialects ; that process does not make them Hilalian but creates a new koine which is by definition distinct from the old dialects. --Omar-toons (talk) 09:08, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Omar-toons, Tounsimentounes: I saw your discussion. I will try to solve the problem as soon as possible. However, this would not be possible those days. I have to work on several other projects before. --Csisc (talk) 10:10, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH
Hello,

Unfortunately, despite the previous discussion above, nothing has been done to clarify the linguistic situation in Tunisia and to give more detailed scientific data on dialects.

Also, the classification is still not correct, giving geographical limits instead of "genealogical" ones, while keeping WP:OVERCITE to give the illusion that it is complete.

I can NOT imagine such an article as a good one, unless it is correctly redezigned. I wonder if can help?

--Omar-toons (talk) 13:14, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Omar-toons: I thank you for your contributions that led to the amelioration of the output of this important work. As for what you have said, I must tell you that the linguistic situation in Tunisia should be explained more efficiently in Languages of Tunisia. As for the dialects, the classification explained in the work has been given by Maik Gibson. In fact, the number of varieties of Tunisian Arabic has been reduced since the 1960s due to Dialect Levelling. However, the work of Gibson does not explain the precise Distribution of dialects in Tunisia and does not involve an explanation of the characteristics and distinctives of each dialect So, we had to pick these information from the other references. --Csisc (talk) 14:28, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Omar-toons: I have solved some of the problems. Please review the work very soon. --Csisc (talk) 09:01, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, linguistic/dialectal studies aren't affected by migrations and subsequent Dialect Levelling ; the latter only creates new "koines" without affecting old dialects.
 * As I said before, EALL/Versteegh should be considered as a highly valuable secondary source instead of making WP:SYNTH using different sources --Omar-toons (talk) 10:19, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, this is not what happened for Tunisia as I have explained in History part. Due to the Tunisian policy that had begun the early 1960s, the state promoted Tunis dialect through medias and Education. This resulted in that all dialects had lost some of their characteristics and became more homogenous. For example, Bizerte had a distinct dialect that is characterized by a tendency to pronounce vowels with a French phonology in 1960. However, in 2015, Bizerte and other regions became using Tunis dialect. The same happened for other dialects. For example, nomadic dialects were existing in 1960 even in the suburbs of Sfax. Nowadays, you would not find it even in a city that is 30 km far from Sfax. --Csisc (talk) 13:48, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, "sociolinguistically", what happened (what you're describing) is a process of koineization, not "replacement". For its application on the example of Bizarte : it means that a "new dialect" (koine) came to exist, but it does not "replace" the features of the old dialect ; in this case, two dialects come to coexist: the "old urban dialect" and the "urban koine", each one with its own properties. --Omar-toons (talk) 17:05, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Omar-toons: Old dialects are spoken only by a few people. Furthermore, they seem to be like the six main Tunisian varieties. So, it is useless that we evocate their characteristics. As for the fact that the old dialects coexisted with the new Tunisian koinés for a period of time and particularly the 1980s and 1990s, it can be involved to the work about Tunisian Arabic with EALL/Versteegh and other works as references. Thank you in advance. --Csisc (talk) 11:28, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, that's WP:SYNTH too ; as I said before, the fact that Old Urban dialects are only spoken by a few people doesn't allow us to ignore them.
 * As I said before: the current situation is that there's a "kind of modern koine" spoken alongside the Old Urban dialects, period. Anything else is WP:SYNTH.
 * --Omar-toons (talk) 16:48, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Omar-toons: I have explained what you have just said in the History Part. Please review it soon.--Csisc (talk) 11:46, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Phonology
In phonology- voyels, there is a claim that /ɔ:/ mainly occur in loanwords. I have to challenge that claim, there are more tunisian words that use it than actual loanwords (o has the value of ɔ): mo5, qotlek, ydoq, zok, ychoq, ychok, y7ok, kol, mot, molk, chorba, torkia..., it's even clearly preserved in the maltese language Tounsimentounes (talk) 11:44, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
 * This is a very important issue. When we have written "Maghrebi Arabic Transcription Method", we had discovered that [u:] is pronounced as [o:] in a pharyngeal or uvular environment, [i:] is also pronounced as [e:] in a pharyngeal or uvular environment and [a:] is pronounced as [ɛ:] in a pharyngeal or uvular environment. However, Tunisian phonology has eliminated the first and second phenomenon due to the language contact. So, this is only true for the dialect with an Algerian phonology. This is only true for Northwestern and Southwestern Tunisian and this is why I have decided to write about this only in Dialects Part. We have involved your name as a coauthor of this work because we have used some of your provided references in writing the paper. --Csisc (talk) 13:21, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, i don't know... i don't know anyone from these regions, I speak a mix of Sfaxian and of Tunis dialect actually and so does my familly. For Sfaxian, i am quite sure they pronounce it ɔ, for Tunis i'm not that sure, but I still regularly hear it.
 * Oh, actually it's also the case of sahil dialect, well that explains that, i didn't know Tunis dialect didn't pronounce it like that. Thank you

Tounsimentounes (talk) 13:49, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Sfax dialect does not pronounce ū as [ɔ:] for long vowels. They only pronounce u as [ɔ] in an emphatic or uvular environment. I did not find a reference for that. For Tunis Dialect, existing literature does not report the pronunciation of ɔ for long and short u. For Sahil Dialects, [ɔ:] is used to pronounce ū when it is substituting the Arabic diphthong aw. However, Northwestern and Southwestern Tunisian pronounces [ɔ:] as ū and [ɔ] as u in an emphatic or uvular environment. --Csisc (talk) 15:34, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Hello again Csisc, thank you for your answer. If you participate to the phonological study community about Tunisian i wanted to ask a question: Why doesn't the standard use the lettre "e" to represent the ɛ sound ? Using a for both ɐ/ɑ and ɛ is quite confusing and hinders the usefulness of using a latin script, in a way we have to guess the vowels then, thanks.Tounsimentounes (talk) 10:43, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Tounsimentounes: This is done because [a] and [ɛ] are minimal pairs. They are the pronunciation of the same letter. It is pronounced as [a] in an emphatic or uvular environment and as [ɛ] in the other situations. So, if you know the letters next to a, you can find out its pronunciation. That is why it is useless to use e as a letter. --Csisc (talk) 11:50, 22 November 2015 (UTC)