Algerian/Moroccan/Tunisian: phonetic differences

Darija, Moroccan Arabic Forums - Forums de darija, Moroccan Arabic Translation - Traduction de l'arab
#1

Paperbird said in another thread the singer of Orange Blossom sounded Algerian, but strange. She is Algerian - but what are the features you recognise as Algerian and as distinctive from Moroccan? And what about Tunisian? I mean in terms of pronounciation, rythme, intonation etc, not vocabulary.

I promised myself this would be my last SMF post today, I really need to get that essay I have laying around written…:fouet: But as always, thanks ahead for your replies, I know they’ll be fascinating stuff :beach:

Ok folks, see ya! :pilot:

#2

I won’t be able to answer your question Jonquix, but what i heard from an Egyptian folk was that, the more further west you go into North Africa, the harder the dialects become, in terms of comprehensibility (if that’s even a word)… So i’m guessing Moroccan Arabic is the hardest to catch up to, and out of the three (Moroccan, Algerian & Tunisian), Tunisian is probably the more understandable one, for a mainstream Arabic speaker… I don’t know how much credence i can give to that claim, but it’s what i heard anyway.

#3

Thanks for your input, LallaAicha :hat:. I’ve been googling a bit as well, and realised q is one difference, apparantly pronounced [q] in Morocco but [g] in most other parts of Maghreb. Am I right?

And, to my surprise, a West Algerian claimed (on this wiki discussion page) to understand Moroccan quite well but Tunisian only just barely.

I keep :recherche:

#4

The fact that the accents & dialects get harder the further you go towards the west, is not totally right, because also towards the east the language gets more harder & mysterious for us, specifically the golf countries.
there’s no accent that is so close to classic arabic, the only reason Egyptien sounds easy, its that its been already spread through television, as well as the lebanese & syrian.

People in Egypte & the middle east says that the north african accents aren’t understandable & they change a lots of words…etc.
That’s selfish, because they’re assuming that the way they speak & name things should be the right one.
Golf people also has an accent that is so far from classic arabic, their accent & way of spelling is similar to the Indian.

According to my humble conclusion, those areas had their own language, but when Arabic was spread, every folk adjusted it according to their tongues. that’s mainly why you have these different accent of arabic besides the classic one.
take as an example, the english people & chinese people who are learning arabic, their accent wouldn’t be the same. the english might say “sellam allaykum” the chinese might say "salamoo a li kum.
such things should be concidered, not ignored, i saw some ignorant that day on Yahoo Answer, when someone asked for an english translation of an arabic text, someone answered with this.: “what is this a space communication codes ?” see ? he was American btw.

Back to Maghreb area. Morocco itself contains many accents of arabic, you have the dakhiliya, marrakshiya (marakshiya is close to shel7a accent, that explains what is said before about adjusting language on tongues), sahrawiya, shamaliya, & shamaliya itself contains many accents, the accent of Asilah is not the same as Tanja, & they’re both not the same as Tetwan, they’re all not the same as Wejda.

You can say that Algeria speaks 80% similar to shamaliya, specifically Wejda accent. for us, algerian accent is a lil bit “heavy” for our tongues, if i’ll speak as an alerian, bt its easily understood as well as the tunisian…

The incoming between the 3 accents is that they use french words, but Algeria is the top of them in using french.

A note: the borders of countries are not the same borders for languages & accents, for example, people in west Lybia don’t speak general lybian, they have an accent that is 90% tunisian, just like Sahra people have 90% mauritanian accent.
There are of course exeptions, like the east of lybia (egyptien border), they don’t speak an accent close to egyptien.

#5

wow thats very interestimg thanks for that! And as you said the accents varies within the country itself e.g in the East of Algeria they speak with some elements of the tunisian accent whereas the closer you get to Morocco in the West the more the Algerian accent sounds the same.

There are also variations the way “Qaf” is pronounced in Algeria. In certain places they say “Qul” as “Gul” in others it remains “Qul” and in some regions they say “Kul”. The place where my family comes from they pronounce the letter “Tha” or “Ta” as its commonly said as “Cha” e.g Chalacha instead of Thalatha and hence have aquired the name 7ayaweecha :okay:

#6

Wow, thanks P for that! Very interesting :okay: I absolutely didn’t mean to suggest there weren’t differences of accent and dialect with any one of those countries - I’m sure there are even dramatic differences. I’m just curious to know what features that usually “gives one away” as Tunisian, Algerian or Moroccan (or Libyan, for that matter). :smiley: