Judeo-Tunisian Arabic


Judeo-Tunisian Arabic, also known as Judeo-Tunisian, is a variety of Tunisian Arabic mainly spoken by Jews living or formerly living in Tunisia. Speakers are older adults, and the younger generation has only a passive knowledge of the language.
The vast majority of Tunisian Jews have relocated to Israel and have shifted to Hebrew as their home language. Those in France typically use French as their primary language, while the few still left in Tunisia tend to use either French or Tunisian Arabic in their everyday lives.
Judeo-Tunisian Arabic is one of the Judeo-Arabic languages, a collection of Arabic dialects spoken by Jews living or formerly living in the Arab world.

History

Before 1901

A Jewish community existed in what is today Tunisia even before Roman rule in Africa. After the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, this community began to use Arabic for their daily communication. They had adopted the pre-Hilalian dialect of Tunisian Arabic as their own dialect. As Jewish communities tend to be close-knit and isolated from the other ethnic and religious communities of their countries, their dialect spread to their coreligionists all over the country and had not been in contact with the languages of the communities that invaded Tunisia in the Middle Ages. The primary language contact on Judeo-Tunisian Arabic came from the languages of Jewish communities that fled to Tunisia as a result of persecution, like the Judaeo-Spanish-speaking Sephardic Jews This explains why Judeo-Tunisian Arabic lacks influence from the dialects of the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym, and has developed several phonological and lexical particularities that distinguish it from Tunisian Arabic. This also explains why Judeo-Tunisian words are generally less removed from their etymological origin than Tunisian words.
The most famous author in Judeo-Arabic is Nissim ben Jacob. An influential rabbinical personality of his time, Nissim of Kairouan wrote a collection of folks stories intended for moral encouragement, at the request of his father-in-law on the loss of his son. Nissim wrote "An Elegant Compilation concerning Relief after Adversity" '' first in an elevated Judeo-Arabic style following Sa‘adia Gaon's coding and spelling conventions and later translated the work into Mishnaic Hebrew.
The first Judeo-Arabic printing house opened in Tunis in 1860. In 1861, the Tunisian fundamental Pact of 1857 was translated and printed in Judeo-Arabic before its translation into Hebrew in 1862).

After 1901

In 1901, Judeo-Tunisian became one of the main spoken Arabic dialects of Tunisia, with thousands of speakers. Linguists noted the unique character of this dialect and subjected it to study. Among the people studying Judeo-Tunisian Arabic, Daniel Hagege listed a significant amount of Judeo-Tunisian Arabic newspapers from the early 1900s in his essay The Circulation of Tunisian Judeo-Arabic Books. in 1903, David Aydan prints in Judeo-Arabic "Vidu-i bel arbi", a translation of the ritual text recited by the community on Yom Kippur eve. The text is printed in Djerba, a significant point to mention as many works published by the Tunisian Jewish community in Hebrew are printed in Livorno, Italy. Educated leaders within the Tunisian Jewish community, like ceramic merchant Jacob Chemla, translated several works into Judeo-Tunisian, including The Count of Monte Cristo.
However, its emergence has significantly declined since 1948 due to the creation of Israel and the subsequent 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The Jewish community of Tunisia has either chosen to leave or was forced to leave Tunisia and immigrate to France or Israel. Nowadays, the language is extinct throughout most of Tunisia, although still in use by the small communities in Tunis, Gabes and Djerba, and most communities that have left Tunisia now speak the languages of their current country as their first language.

Current situation

Language vitality: Judeo-Tunisian Arabic is believed to be vulnerable with only 500 speakers in Tunisia and with about 45,000 speakers in Israel
Language variations: In Tunisia, geography plays a huge role in how Judeo-Tunisian Arabic varies between speakers. In fact, Tunisian Judeo-Arabic can vary depending on the region in which it is spoken. Accordingly, the main dialects of Judeo-Tunisian Arabic are:
  • The dialect of the North of Tunisia
  • The dialect of the South of Tunisia
  • The dialect of the islands off the coast of the country
In addition, Judeo-Tunisian can vary within the same region based on the town in which it is spoken.

Distinctives from Tunisian Arabic

Like all other Judeo-Arabic languages, Judeo-Tunisian Arabic is similar to the regional Arabic dialect from which it derives, Tunisian Arabic.Phonology: There are three main differences between Tunisian Arabic phonology and Judeo-Tunisian Arabic phonology:
  • *Substitution of phonemes: Unlike most dialects of Tunisian Arabic, Judeo-Tunisian Arabic has merged Tunisian Arabic's glottal and into, Interdental and have respectively been merged with and, Ḍah and Ḍād have been merged as and not as, Prehilalian /aw/ and /ay/ diphthongs have been kept, and and have been respectively substituted by and . This is mainly explained by the difference between the language contact submitted by Jewish communities in Tunisia and the one submitted by other Tunisian people.
  • * Sibilant conversion:
  • ** and are realized as and if there is an emphatic consonant or later in the word. For example, راجل rājil is pronounced in Gabes dialect of Judeo-Tunisian Arabic as /rˤa:zˤel/ and حجرة ḥajra is pronounced in all Judeo-Tunisian dialects as /ħazˤrˤa/.
  • ** and are realized as and if there is an later in the word. For example, جربة jirba is pronounced in all Judeo-Tunisian dialects except the one of Gabes as /zerba/.
  • * Chibilant conversion: Unlike in the other Judeo-Arabic languages of the Maghreb,, and are realized as, and in several situations.
  • ** is realized as if there is not another emphatic consonant or a within the word or if this is directly followed by a . For example, صدر ṣdir is pronounced as /ʃder/ and صف ṣaff is pronounced in Gabes dialect of Judeo-Tunisian Arabic as /ʃaff/.
  • ** and are respectively realized as and if there is no emphatic consonant, no and no later in the word. For example, زبدة zibda is pronounced as /ʒebda/.
  • * Emphasis of and : Further than the possible conversion of and by and due to the phenomenon of the assimilation of adjacent consonants, and are also realized as and if there is an emphatic consonant or later in the word. For example, سوق sūq is pronounced in Judeo-Tunisian Arabic as /sˤu:q/.
  • * and phonemes: Unlike the Northwestern, Southeastern and Southwestern dialects of Tunisian Arabic, Judeo-Tunisian Arabic does not systematically substitute Classical Arabic by . Also, the phoneme existing in Tunis, Sahil and Sfax dialects of Tunisian Arabic is rarely maintained and is mostly substituted by a in Judeo-Tunisian. For example, بقرة is pronounced as /bagra/ in Tunis, Sahil and Sfax dialects of Tunisian Arabic and as /baqra/ in Judeo-Tunisian.Morphology: The morphology is quite the same as the one of Tunisian Arabic. However:
  • * Judeo-Tunisian Arabic sometimes uses some particular morphological structures, such as typical clitics like qa-, that is used to denote the progressivity of a given action. For example, qayākil means he is eating.
  • * Unlike Tunisian Arabic, Judeo-Tunisian Arabic is characterized by its extensive use of the passive form.
  • * The informal lack of subject–verb agreement found in Tunisian and in Modern Standard Arabic does not exist in Judeo-Tunisian Arabic. For example, we say ed-dyār tebnēu الديار تبناوا and not ed-dyār tebnēt الديار تبنات.Vocabulary: There are some differences between the vocabulary of Tunisian Arabic and the one of Judeo-Tunisian Arabic. Effectively:
  • * Unlike Tunisian Arabic, Judeo-Tunisian Arabic has a Hebrew adstratum. In fact, Cohen said that almost 5 percent of the Judeo-Tunisian words are from Hebrew origin. Furthermore, Judeo-Tunisian has acquired several specific words that do not exist in Tunisian like Ladino from language contact with Judaeo-Romance languages.
  • * Unlike most Tunisian Arabic, Judeo-Tunisian kept Pre-Hilalian vocabulary usage patterns. For example, rā را is used instead of šūf شوف to mean "to see".
  • * Unlike the Tunis dialect of Tunisian Arabic, Judeo-Tunisian Arabic is also known for the profusion of diminutives. For example:
  • ** قطيطس for قطّوس.
  • ** كليب for كلب.