Languages of Tunisia
See language map.Republic of Tunisia, al Jumhuriyah at-Tunisiyah. 10,105,000. National or official language: Standard Arabic. Literacy rate: 42%–62%. Immigrant languages: Ghadamès (2,000), Greek (300), Italian (9,700), Maltese (3,000). Information mainly from J. Applegate 1970; D. Cohen 1985; J. Holm 1989. Blind population: 18,000. Deaf institutions: 1. The number of individual languages listed for Tunisia is 8. Of those, 6 are living languages and 2 have no known speakers.
| Arabic, Judeo-Tunisian | [ajt]
500 in Tunisia (1994 H. Mutzafi).
Dialects: Tunis.
Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, South, Arabic
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| Arabic, Standard | [arb]
Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, South, Arabic
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| Arabic, Tunisian Spoken | [aeb]
9,000,000 in Tunisia (1995). Population total all countries: 9,406,900. Also in Belgium, France, Germany, Libya.
Alternate names: Tunisian, Tunisian Arabic, Tunisian Darija.
Dialects: Tunis, Sahil, Sfax, North-Western Tunisian, South-Western Tunisian, South-Eastern Tunisian. Similar to Eastern Algerian Arabic [arq], but clearly distinct. Tunis used in media and in language textbooks for foreigners. Southern dialects are structurally similar to those in Libya.
Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Semitic, Central, South, Arabic
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| French | [fra]
11,000 in Tunisia (1993).
Classification: Indo-European, Italic, Romance, Italo-Western, Western, Gallo-Iberian, Gallo-Romance, Gallo-Rhaetian, Oïl, French
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| Lingua Franca | [pml]
Extinct. Tunisia; Dodecanese Islands west bank, Greece; Cyprus; other major Mediterranean ports.
Alternate names: ’Ajnabi, Aljamia, Ferenghi, Petit Mauresque, Sabir.
Dialects: Lexicon from Italian and Occitan [oci]. An earlier version may have been a pidginized Latin. On the Barbary Coast of North Africa in 1578, its lexicon came from Spanish and Portuguese. In Algeria in the 1830s, it drew increasingly from French, and later became nonstandard French. May have influenced other pidgins. Reportedly a present-day variety on Aegean Islands, used as pidgin in southeast Mediterranean region, to have mainly Arabic syntax and vocabulary which is 65%–70% Italian, 10% Spanish, and other Catalan [cat], French, Ladino [lad], and Turkish [tur] words.
Classification: Pidgin, Romance based
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| Sened | [sds]
Extinct. South, Sened and Tmagourt villages, northwest of Gabès.
Dialects: Tmagourt (Tmagurt), Sened.
Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Berber, Northern, Zenati, East
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| Shilha | [jbn]
26,000 in Tunisia (1998). Southeast, Mediterranean islands (Jerba), isolated villages south of Jerba; Pacha, old Medina, and Bab Souika streets in Tunis (Tamezret); Tamezret village near Zeraoua and Taoujjout, south of Gabès (Tamezret).
Alternate names: Djerbi, Jabal Nafusi, Nafusi, Tunisian Berber.
Dialects: Jbali-Tamezret (Duwinna), Jerba (Djerbi, Guelili).
Classification: Afro-Asiatic, Berber, Northern, Zenati, East
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| Tunisian Sign Language | [tse]
Classification: Deaf sign language
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