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…
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…
Last Sunday, our tale was about fear and the gallows (God forbid). We said those who are hanged are taken down at sunset to spend the night at “Beb Souika”‘s oil mill to be buried the following day. Today’s tale deals with the same subject. However, this time, events take place in an earlier period.…
(see here Introduction to the Tunisian Stories and Overview) A certain woman was divorced from her husband. At that time divorce was a shameful thing and it wasn’t something that people of nobility would even recognize or admit to. If someone was pushed to divorce because of irreconcilable differences, they would hide it for fear…
(see here Introduction to the Tunisian Stories and Overview) Once upon a time, there was a tailor sewing in his shop. A woman selling jam passed him by, so he bought an ounce from her. He had some bread in his shop that he cut in two and spread the jam on one half to…
Every culture and every society has its stories. The Grimm brothers, Charles Perrault, Božena Němcová and others have collected and written down the fairy tales and stories of their countries. These often somehow have some things in common and also differ in interesting nuances. This also applies to Tunisia but with the exception that these…
It’s now been over a year since I started learning Tunisian Arabic. A year with many interruptions and various difficulties, but a good year, all in all! A breakthrough has not happened yet: everything is slow. That being said, I can’t work more than 10 hours a week on language learning because I just don’t…
“He has his hands behind his back” – in German or English, I could also say: “He has the hands behind the back.” I do not need to refer to the subject. In Arabic, this is not possible, “his” is mandatory both times. Maybe it’s because Arabic needs no explicit subject, so that the reference…
I have now done 60 hours of language learning with my language helper. That means that I have probably heard another 60 hours of my recordings. My vocabulary in Tunisian Arabic might be around 500 words. But, that’s difficult to know as the number of words I can say is far smaller than the number…