On the Standardisation of Tunisian - Bepress

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ON THE STANDARDISATION OF TUNISIAN 1
On the Standardisation of Tunisian
The case for a formal recognition of a Tunisian language
Jihëd G. MEJRISSI
League of Tunisian Humanists
Table of Contents
Abstract.................................................................................................................................................1
1.Introduction.......................................................................................................................................1
2.The Tunisian Language(s).................................................................................................................2
2.1 What is Tunisian?......................................................................................................................2
2.2 What is a Language?.................................................................................................................4
3.The Case for Standardising Tunisian.................................................................................................5
3.1.1 Tunisian and Arabic..........................................................................................................5
3.1.2 Why standardise Tunisian?.............................................................................................10
3.1.3 Preserving the language of the “Great Arab Nation”, of Islam, and of the Quran..........12
4.Transcribing Tunisian......................................................................................................................13
4.1 Which Tunisian?.....................................................................................................................13
4.2 The STUNdard Method..........................................................................................................13
4.3 The STUNdared Arlette and Alternative Methods..................................................................21
5.Comparison and Potentials..............................................................................................................24
6.Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................29
Abstract
This essay discusses the linguistic situation of Tunisia and presents two standardisation
methods for Tunisian, namely the STUNdard and the STUNdard Arlette methods.
This document was first published in February 15th, 2014 and its current revision is that of
February 15th, 2014. This document was produced with free and open-source software. The author's
material is released under both the CC BY-SA 3.0 and the GFDL 1.3.
Keywords: Tunisian, language, standardisation, STUNdard
1. Introduction
Similarly to its North African neighbours, the linguistic situation in Tunisia owes much to
the political, social, and religious factors. Since the Phoenician settlements in North Africa,
linguistic varieties in the regions have been absorbing external influences; Tunisian is not an
exception. Official recognition of Tunisian as a language was feared as it was deemed that it would
affect the roles of Islam and its liturgical language, Classical Arabic, hereinafter referred to as
ON THE STANDARDISATION OF TUNISIAN 2
Arabic. As discussed in MEJRISSI (2013):
These same arguments are also echoed when discussing the status of Amazigh as a
regional, national, or an official language, in Tunisia and in other North African States.
Nevertheless, Tunisian has been undergoing standardisation attempts by Tunisian Civil
Society and other independent components, and its use in official communication
gradually continues to replace Arabic.
2. The Tunisian Language(s)
2.1 What is Tunisian?
In general, Tunisian refers to the group of linguistic varieties spoken within the state of
Tunisia. Tunisian is a part of the North African dialect continuum, of which the main characteristics
are the Amazigh Substrata, the substantial Arabic vocabulary, and the Mediterranean influences.
This document and future similar publications made and will make use of the word Tunisian to
denote the language rather than “Tunisian Arabic”, due to the fact that the repetition of the word
Arabic each time seems rather unnecessary and may be even misleading. This is similar to the
denomination of Maltese: One does not say “Maltese Arabic”, although Maltese can be fully
understood by Tunisians to the same extent that Moroccan is, but rather, simply, Maltese. There is
perhaps a similarity with the situation of Romance languages: It would seem rather
incomprehensible to state that one speaks a Spanish dialect of Latin, or speaks Italian Latin.
Languages are usually attributed to the political entity or the state where they are spoken, and so
should the Tunisian language be.
Much like in any other part in the world, an immense diversity of Tunisian linguistic
varieties exist. It is possible however to group them into the following, relatively homogeneous,
groups: one compromising North Eastern dialects, and the other compromising North Western
dialects and Southern dialects. Some of the main differences between the two groups are: The usage
of the "q" or "g" that in turn is, naturally, influenced by a variety of factors and linguistic strata, and
ON THE STANDARDISATION OF TUNISIAN 3
the difference in the used second-person singular pronoun, i.e. whether the same pronoun is used for
both female and male. Henceforth, for practical reasons, the first group is referred to as the Q-
dialects, and the second would be referred to as the G-dialects1.
The Q-dialects comprise the Grand Tunis dialects, the Sahel dialects, and the Sfax dialects.
The latter is, however, significantly different from the first two in multiple aspects, namely in the
type and length of the used vowels and the treatment of borrowed words. The G-dialects, though
sharing the usage of "g" instead of "q", are in their turn very distinguishable. Naturally, Tunisian
North Western dialects are close to Algerian North Eastern dialects, and Tunisian South Eastern
dialects are relatively close to Libyan Western dialects. Tunisian South Western dialects, while
remaining close to South Eastern ones, retain their own characteristics as well.
On the other hand, multiple local dialects within the regions of the Q-dialects use the "g"
instead, such as the old Bouhjar dialect, or the Touza dialect in the Sahel region. The opposite could
also be possible for G-dialect regions. Furthermore, words with “q” may exist in G-dialects regions
and the opposite is correct as well. For instance, the name of the city “Gebes” would not be
pronounced “Qebes” by a person using any of the Q-dialects. Similarly, the name of the island
“Qarqna” would not be pronounced “Gargna” in G-dialect regions. Other words such as “belgde”,
or “belgda”, which could mean "well", are not pronounced in a different way in Q-dialect regions.
This may suggest that the presence of the consonant “g” is prior to that of the “q”.
One of the most prominent projects that sought to map this diversity was L'Atlas
Linguistique de Tunisie, or The Linguistic Atlas of Tunisia, by Salah Mejri, Tayyeb Bakkouch, and
other.
1 This may also be relevant on the social level: Tunisia is still characterised with a high degree of regional
fractionalisation, and the usage of a particular dialect may suggest a particular social or economic background.
ON THE STANDARDISATION OF TUNISIAN 4
2.2 What is a Language?
The second half of the question that remains to be answered is: What is a language? To
answer this question one needs to examine the difference between a language and a dialect, and
what made some dialects become languages.
Linguistically, there is so far no universally acceptable definition or differentiation between
a language and a dialect. What makes a dialect become a language is a multitude of factors, most
importantly Politics, therefore the distinction is indeed subjective. Several dialects underwent
codification through numerous notable publications and became the de facto official standard of the
language. Arabic is not an exception, as what is nowadays called Arabic was in perhaps a dialect,
among many other, that underwent standardisation through the Quran.
Mandarin and Cantonese are not mutually intelligible, however the political will decided
that they are considered as dialects of Chinese. The same case also applies for Arabic: Although
Moroccan and Omani are not mutually understandable, political interests and Pan-Arabist efforts
decided that they are “dialects of Arabic”. It may be incorrect to consider this as a diglossia in the
sense of several dialects that stemmed from a common Arabic language, but perhaps of close
dialects, in the anthropolinguistic sense, that used Arabic as a standard lingua franca due to its
liturgical, and again political, status.
To sum up, many linguists, particularly anthropological linguists, do not differentiate
between a dialect and a language. Perhaps one rule of thumb, humorous nevertheless, is the idiom
popularised by Max Weinreich who attributes to one of his auditors: “A language is a dialect with
an army”. Linguistic varieties are sometimes regarded as dialects if, among other, they do not have
a standardised form and if they are not used in publications.
ON THE STANDARDISATION OF TUNISIAN 5
3. The Case for Standardising Tunisian
Having clarified both terminologies, that of Tunisian and that of language, one would expect
that writing Tunisian would be a rather plain task. However many, particularly persons with Pan-
Arab or Pan-Islamic affinities, might challenge this with a variety of motivations and objections, for
instance: “Why? Isn't Tunisian after all just a dialect of Arabic?”, “why write down a dialect when
one can learn Arabic?”, “Isn't it better to preserve Arabic, the language of the “Great Arab Nation”,
of Islam, and of the Quran?”, etc. The following section would seek to comment these questions.
3.1.1 Tunisian and Arabic
Many would often tend to think that everyone in the often-referred-to-as “Arab countries”2
speaks Arabic, id est Classical Arabic or perhaps a “dialect of Arabic”. This is further complicated
by the fact that many citizens of North African and West Asian states refer to the variety of
languages they uses as “Arabic”, much like what the indigenous Amazigh populations of North
Africa often refer to their linguistic varieties as “Tamazight” or “Amazigh”, and rarely use other
exonyms such as “Tarifit” or “Tashelhit”. LEDDY-CECERE (2010) notes that claiming otherwise
would be tantamount to denying an “Arab identity” altogether. Another reason for this may be that
the adjective “Arabic” is currently used in North Africa to mean either“old”, or “local” in contrast
to “modern”, or “not fully adopted”, a differentiation that may have been accentuated by the
European colonial efforts in the region. It might have also been initially used to mean “foreign”: For
instance “Turkish coffee” and “Neo-Punic bathes” are referred to respectively as “Arabic coffee”
and “Arabic bathes”. These may be re-borrowed expressions from European languages that have
2 The term “Arab countries” is perhaps one of the most common, yet, ambiguous terminologies in the region.
Politically it refers to countries that are members of the “League of Arab States”, which, in turn, is selective about
what may qualify as “Arab”, as not all countries where Arabic is an official language are members, for example
Chad or Israel. It may also refer to countries where a majority of citizens identify themselves as Arabs, whether
ethnically or linguistically, although this majority is assumed not accounted. The term “Arabic-speaking countries”,
may sometimes present ambiguities and may even be incorrect in certain contexts: No country in the world uses
Arabic, i.e. Classical Arabic or Modern Standard Arabic, as a language for its daily usage. On the other hand, if
what is meant by “Arabic-speaking countries” is, perhaps, countries where an alleged “Arabic dialect” is spoken,
then this definition leaves out multiple regions, for instance the state of Malta. There is therefore a need to refrain
from ethnic or linguistic classifications and use geographic or other, more neutral, terminologies.
ON THE STANDARDISATION OF TUNISIAN 6
previously identified such objects as “Arab”.
In other contexts, the term “Arabian”, “ɛorbèn” in Tunisian, is derogatory and carries the
meaning of “nomad”, “primitive”, or “uncivilised”. There are even some common sayings mocking
the behaviour of “Sidi Lɛarbi”, or “my Master the Arab”, as “inflexible” and even “dull”. One
Tunisian (Nesim Touzi, 2012), and possibly also Libyan (ديعقَ لا, 2005), folklore song is entitled “Me
Jebouk Ɛrab Ye Meryem”, litteraly meaning “You Were Not Brought by Arabs, O Maryem”, and in
that context meaning “You Were Not Given Birth to by Arabs, O Maryem”. The interpretations of
the title and the lyrics can differ widely. Paradoxically also, Tunisians also have a common saying
praising Arabs, which is “Sidi ennbi Ɛarbi”, meaning “our master the prophet is an Arab”. This
ambivalence is only a bit of the ethnolinguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of Tunisian. The
situation has been further complicated by the political Pan-Arabist efforts that have, among other,
offered a very selective view of history to be taught in primary schools nearly excluding almost all
non-Arab and non-Punic heritage, changed the names of various Amazigh villages into a more
Arabic-sounding toponomy, and engaged in a skewed shift of the Tunisian cultural paradigms to
more, rather Arabised, ones, mainly through the deliberate absorption of cinematographic and
musical products from Egypt and other West Asian countries, rather then focusing and emphasising
on local ones.
Linguistically, Tunisian is radically different from Arabic in multiple aspects. To name a
few: the consonant-vowel-consonant structure in Arabic words does not necessarily apply in
Tunisian. In Tunisian it is perfectly conceivable for two consonants to be used consecutively in an
onset, while Arabic, and also Modern Egyptian, do not have this possibility. Words such as
“Twensa”, meaning “Tunisians”, are arabised to “Tawanisa”. Another difference is the shift in the
length of the vowels; such as the usage of the vowel “e” instead of the Arabic “a” or “fat'ha”, both
in the treatment of borrowed words and while reading a text in Arabic. For instance, a Tunisian
ON THE STANDARDISATION OF TUNISIAN 7
would most likely not read “Dhahaba Amin ila'lmadrasati.”, a phrase in Arabic meaning “Amin
went to school”, yet “Dhehebe Emin ile'lmadreseti”, with the “a” remaining only in some proper
names and a few structures. In Tunisian, the phrase becomes “Emìn mche lelmadrsa”, with the alef
completely disappearing in the beginning of the words, again remaining only in some proper
names3. As it can also be seen from the previous example, the Verb-Subject-Object structure found
in Arabic does not exist in Tunisian, but is instead morphed into a Subject-Verb-Object
construction. These differences and multiple other are mostly due to the Amazigh substrata, making
Tunisian perhaps the very young descendant of a several-hundred-year old pidgin language, that has
since been arabised due to the substantial usage of Arabic as the liturgical language of Islam. These
forms of Proto-Tunisian dialects may have emerged as pidgin languages between the indigenous
Amazigh populations and the new Arab colonisers and settlers; later undergoing creolisation or
koineisation, and gradually under a heavy Arabisation process, sometimes carried out by the
Amazigh themselves as means for political rule motivated by the Islam4, and with the constant
contact with other Romance languages, it gave rise to current dialects of Tunisia. This view is also
suggested in VERSTEEGH (1984), where the author follows a language restructuring perspective
to view cases of creolisation in various North African and West Asian languages, and supports his
view with numerous examples of features that can be retraced to pre-Arabic languages present in
the area. For further related readings on the Amazigh substrata in Tunisian, MEJRISSI (2013) and
various other publications addressing the particularities of North African languages may be of
relevance. Tunisian also incorporates various Turkish influences, for instance the “-ji” suffix to
denote the profession, later becoming also the family name of many Tunisians. Various other
Turkish words were borrowed, such as “babour”, from the Turkish “vapur”, meaning “ship”. The
3 Nevertheless, when proper names are fully adopted into Tunisian, they lose the “Alef” sound completely. An
example is “Aħmad”, which becomes in Tunisian “Ħmed”.
4 The indigenous Amazigh and other populations of Tunisia made use of Arabic and Islam in politics, perhaps in the
same fashion that the Seljuqs made use of Abbasid dynasties and of Arabic titles after the fall of Baghdad in the
eleventh century.
ON THE STANDARDISATION OF TUNISIAN 8
use of words of Turkish origin has however been declining as they have been gradually substituted
with French or English words.
Furthermore, LEDDY-CECERE (2010) evaluates the sociolinguistic and sociohistorical
situations of Tunisia, and argues that Tunisian, through the example of the North Eastern dialect of
Sousse, have gone under a creolisation process. Various clues point out in this direction, including,
among other, the dialect's lexicosemantics and the fact that the question words are nearly all
bimorphemic. Similarly, while classifying Maltese as the most creole-like language, and to a lesser
extent Judeo-Tunisian, he views them as all stemming from a form of creole Proto-Tunisian with
various degrees of decreolisation. This decreolisation represents “the process by which a creole,
through prolonged exposure to the superstrate language from which it derives, gradually sheds its
creole features in favour of those of the more prestigious superstrate language”. This has possibly
been the case following the significant contact between the Amazigh substrata and the Arabic
superstratum or superstrata in Tunisia. It may be compared to an ongoing process in Tunisian,
where various French structures are being incorporated and used as native ones, though perhaps not
to the extent of decreolisation. This however remains a delicate point and is very debatable among
creolists and linguists, particularly the time span within which creolisation or decreolisation takes
place. This creolisation process is also a point rather ruthlessly refused to admit, as many, with each
their motivations, tend to minimise the differences between Tunisian and Arabic in a rather puritan
manner: While the contribution of other languages, aside from Arabic is ignored, the role of the
constant Arabisation through the mosques, that have been representing Islamisation and Arabisation
stations nearly for the last millennia of the region's history, is often overlooked. For some, who rely
almost unilaterally on Arabic and Arabocentric sources, it seems as if the populations of the region
were mute before the Arrival of the Arabs, and only began to speak, in Arabic of course, around the
eighth century. Such points do not stand when evaluating the history of Tunisia, and indeed serve
ON THE STANDARDISATION OF TUNISIAN 9
only for naïve political purposes.
Arabic, one the other hand, has managed to keep its status so far because of Islam, and this
has been the case for centuries of Arab expansion and colonisation. A situation similar to how Latin
owed its status in the Middle Ages to Christianity, or to how French managed to grasp a strong
linguistic foothold in Sub-Saharan Africa, using the same religion as well. On the other hand, there
is equally a reason to believe that the Hilalite and the other tribes that contributed to the language
Arabisation process, did not necessarily speak the same Arabic as Muhammad, or the dialect, or
dialects, of Arabic that Uthman chose to use in transcribing the Quran. This leads us to the
following point: Claiming that Tunisian is a dialect derived from Arabic would imply for some that
Arabic in one of its Classical forms was widely spoken in Tunisia and then gave rise to a vernacular
variant that evolved into nowadays' Tunisian, which is historically inaccurate. Therefore, viewing
Tunisian as a a language that is derived from Arabic, in the sense of perhaps Old Norse and Swedish
may be incorrect. The relationship between Tunisian and Arabic is perhaps closer to the relationship
between Afrikaans and Dutch. Tunisian is as much Arabic as Yiddish is German. In MEJRISSI
(2013), the example of the English language is provided for illustration. The original text's footnotes
were embedded into the quotation:
Arabic may be to Tunisian, what French, particularly Norman, is to English, with
Amazigh being English's Anglo-Saxon: In the period following the Norman Conquest of
England, English retained most of its Germanic substrata and borrowed extensively
from the new linguistic varieties, which were those of the new conquering Elite. This
process resulted after many centuries in “Middle English”, in turn resulting after
multiple other centuries in “Early Modern English”, of which the current standardised
form that this document uses, is a descendant, after multiple other eras. Similarly, the
Arab Islamic invasion of Tunisia and the subsequent Hilalite settlements, accompanied
by the status of Arabic as the language adopted by the new rulers since it is that of the
new religion, pushed for an Arabisation of the region, resulting after around twelve
hundred years in Tunisian in its current forms. A proper metaphor to describe it could
perhaps be that of an Amazigh mindset trying to imitate Arabic in an environment filled
with Mediterranean new words for inventions and discoveries. It is however needless to
say that a Tunisian and a Saudi, for instance, would nowadays be unable to understand
each other if each speaks only their own local linguistic variety, and they would need to
ON THE STANDARDISATION OF TUNISIAN 10
resort to a third language, which would nowadays most likely be Egyptian, due
perhaps, among other, to the substantial film industry products of the country that were
heavily exported to all of North Africa and West Asia , or English, due perhaps, among
other, to the international lingua franca status that English managed to obtain.
Tunisian remains a dynamic language carrying thousands of years of Amazigh and Neo-
Punic substrata, encompassing vocabulary, morphology mechanisms, treatment of borrowed words,
grammar, and plenty of other features, with an extensive Arabic vocabulary, substantial Latin,
Italian, and Turkish impacts, and a growing French and nowadays English influence. Tunisian
without its significant Amazigh substrata would be incomplete, and without its Arabic, and other,
vocabulary would be plain "un-Tunisian".
3.1.2 Why standardise Tunisian?
The answer to this question may seem very obvious to some; for the rest, few points would
be examined. Opponents are invited to answer the question “why not standarise Tunisian?”.
Aside from the fact that the mere academic benefits are attractive, the widely-adopted
transcription of Tunisian offers a very interesting access to one of the main aspects of the Tunisian
culture. Few examples of publications in Tunisian might include many of Bechir Khrayef's works, a
book by Tawfiq Ben Brik entitled “Kalb ben kalb”, or “Dog son of a dog”, in reference to a
common Tunisian insult, and a reported translation of Saint-Exupéry's the Little Prince into
Tunisian by Hédi Balegh (MEJRI, 2000), who also authored a collection of publications on
Tunisian Sayings. Other publications include the “Farzazzou” and the “Dhedd Essolta” newspapers,
and various columns on other journals where authors wrote in a form of language in between
Tunisian and Arabic. The first electronic magazine in Tunisian is perhaps the Tachlik magazine.
Other various material is widely present on various online sources, even essays about Sartre's works
in Tunisian, however in no particular standardised form; and to access it, knowledge of both
Tunisian, Arabic, and French is usually needed. All of the past attempts to write Tunisian were not