It is said that caliph “Al Motasem” used to love poetry and poets. One day, a Bedouin man who was said to be a poet, came to visit the caliph. The caliph granted the Bedouin come in. There he entered, stepping forward and backward honoring the king, and started reciting a poem that he had…
Today, our story comes from Scandinavia. Scandinavia, Sweden, Norway and Denmark… How far away these countries are from Tunisia! Further than Italy, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany or the Netherlands… Yet, tales have a tendency to be similar to one another. This tale, for instance, is very similar to the tales of Juha*. Once upon a…
Once upon a time, there was a treasurer of merchants who had three sons. Once his sons were old enough for marriage, he told his wife that it was time to find them spouses. “Let us first settle a thorny matter.” said his wife. “Having daughters-in-law in the same house will not be easy. The…
Once upon a time, there was a gardener who worked for a sultan. One winter day, he found a large peach, the size of an orange, hanging from the peach tree. He was amazed at the sight because it was not the season for peaches to grow. As the sultan was strolling around the garden,…
Once upon a time in Tunis, there was a well-regarded wealthy merchant who had many shops, a house in the center of town and another summer house in Sidi Bou Said. He also had a country estate on the hill of Sidi Yahia and an olive orchard in Tebourba. He had many servants and workers.…
Once there was a talented merchant who was successful in his thriving business (God bless him). Any goods he purchased would bring him good fortune. He was blessed with good luck until one day when all the merchants in the market had had enough of his rising prosperity and began to cause him trouble. The…
The vocabulary of a given language is constantly changing: new words emerge, old words “die,” i.e., they are no longer actively used and eventually no longer understood. This process varies according to the type of word: new nouns, adjectives and verbs emerge quickly and spontaneously. Other types of words, such as articles or numeral words,…
When I wrote the blog post “Linguistics and Linguists in Film” over a year ago, I thought that for a brief period we would have to confine our lives to the living room, bedroom, and kitchen. Now we still can’t travel without restrictions, and those of us who wanted to do projects on the ground…
Once upon a time, there was a merchant in Baghdad. There came a year when trade was stagnant. The next year was the same, there was no rain and so there were no goods for people to buy. Many people went out of business and he feared he would too. “What am I still doing…
Once in a while, we get requests to translate from English or French into North African dialects. For historical and political reasons, these languages are often referred to as dialects. But according to Ethnologue (www.ethnologue.com, see below) and other sources, these Arabic varieties are languages in their own right. Colloquial Arabic in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria,…