1-week dialect challenge

[languagepotato]

i'm going to challenge myself by trying to learn algerian arabic to an okay level in a week. i know learning a language in a week is insane, but algerian arabic is almost the same as moroccan arabic. i think it would be like a serbian learning bosnian or something like that. Instead of learning 'from scratch', all i have to do is learn the differences and implement them.

my main reason for doing this is that i want to speak every 'big' arabic dialect. i figured the easiest way would be to just move along the dialect continuum.

[Meera]

I love Algerian Arabic. Wish I could learn it Anyway good luck!! I'll be following your blog.

[languagepotato]

this evening:
their pronouns are exactly the same
their present tense is pretty much the same as ours, only big difference is they don't have the ke- in the beginning of the total verb form. that would be confusing for a moroccan because for us that indicates a future tense.'

for comparison
english || moroccan || algerian
i write || ena ken-ktëb || ena n-ktëb
you (male, singular) write || nta ket-ktëb ||nta t-ktëb
you (female, singular) write || nti ket-ktëb/nti ket-këtbi || nti t-këtbi
he writes || huwa key-ktëb || huwa y-ktëb
she writes || hiya ket-ktëb|| hiya t-ktëb
we write || 7na ken-këtbu || 7na n-këtbu
you (plural) write|| ntuma ket-këtbu || ntuma t-këtbu
they write|| huma key-këtbu || huma y-këtbu

[voron]

I wish I could say "I'll learn Algerian Arabic in 1 week"

Which dialects exactly are you going to continue with after the Algerian? Do the "big" standards make a continuum? In particular is Lybian mutually understandable with Egyptian?

[languagepotato]

I wish I could say "I'll learn Algerian Arabic in 1 week"

Which dialects exactly are you going to continue with after the Algerian? Do the "big" standards make a continuum? In particular is Lybian mutually understandable with Egyptian?

libyan arabic isn't your typical maghrebi dialect, it's more an in-between dialect between tunisian arabic and egyptian arabic. it's true that it's closer to tunisian arabic than to egyptian arabic, but not so much that it's extremely tough to understand for an egyptian.
let's say we're all eating fish and we want to say 'i'm eating fish'
an egyptian would understand:
moroccan/algerian/tunisian: blabla bla the whale
libyan: me eats fish

as for how i'm going to learn, my plan is
moroccan (native language) --> algerian ---> tunisian ----> libyan ---> egyptian
not sure what i'm going to do after egyptian though

[ceid donn]

There are many Alergians who live around me. Their dialect is hard, IMO. The way they speak it, it's more of patois of Arabic and French rather than a dialect of Arabic like Egyptian, and they speak incredibly fast. Maybe it's just the Arabic spoken from the region these immigrants have come from, I don't know. But there's a restaurant in the town near us that we love to go, and the Algerians who run it will speak more recognizable Arabic with non-Algerians, and much more slowly. They have several regular customers who go there to practice their Arabic too. But when they speak amongst themselves, they sound like French people arguing.

I understand Alergian Arabic has a lot of Berber influence but I can't tell it apart from the Arabic. I just hear a lot of French words and French-like pronunciation when they speak.

And they aren't shy either. Many Arabs here keep a kind of low-profile, try not to draw attention to themselves. But you always know there's an Alergian behind you in the grocery store check-out line because he's talking incredibly loud on his cell.

Also high-end track suits seem very popular with the Algerians here. Maybe wearing one would help?

Anyhow, good luck and have fun!

[languagepotato]

log day 2.



grammar: learned past simple and future tense
the future tense is made by simply putting rayi7 (m. sg)/ray7a (f. sg)/ray7in (pl.) between the subject and the verb in the present tense

english || moroccan || algerian
i are going to write || ena (ghe)n-ktëb || ena rayi7/ray7a n-ktëb
you (male, singular) are going to write || nta (ghe)t-ktëb ||nta rayi7 t-ktëb
you (female, singular) are going to write || nti (ghe)t-ktëb/nti (ghe)t-këtbi || nti ray7a t-këtbi
he are going to writes || huwa (ghe)y-ktëb || huwa rayi7 y-ktëb
she are going to writes || hiya (ghe)t-ktëb|| hiya ray7a t-ktëb
we are going to write || 7na (ghe)n-këtbu || 7na ray7in n-këtbu
you (plural) are going to write|| ntuma (ghe)t-këtbu || ntuma ray7in t-këtbu
they are going to write|| huma (ghe)y-këtbu || huma ray7in y-këtbu

the past simple is even simpler for me.

because there's only one difference, a small one too
they say nta ktëbt, we say nta ktëbti

so,
english || moroccan || algerian
i wrote || ena ktëbt || ena ktëbt
you (m, sg.) wrote || nta ktëbti || nta ktëbt
you (f, sg) wrote || nti ktëbti || nti ktëbti
he wrote || huwa ktëb || huwa ktëb
she wrote || hiya këtbët || hiya këtbët
we wrote || 7na ktëbna || 7na ktëbna
you (pl.) wrote || ntuma ktëbtu || ntuma ktëbtu
they wrote || huma këtbu || huma këtbu

vocab-wise i learned animal words which are different than ours.
english || moroccan || algerian
butterfly|| farasha|| bufërtito
bird|| twiyër|| zawësh
bull || torro || fërd
frog || grena || jrena
rooster || fëroj || serduk
sheep || 7awli || këbsh
snake || 7iya || 7nësh

[voron]

butterfly|| farasha|| bufërtito

LOL bufërtito
What do you use to study Algerian?

[vijayjohn]

Sorry for interrupting, but...

he wrote || huwa ktëb || hiya ktëb

Don't you mean huwa there?

There are many Alergians who live around me. Their dialect is hard, IMO. The way they speak it, it's more of patois of Arabic and French rather than a dialect of Arabic like Egyptian, and they speak incredibly fast. Maybe it's just the Arabic spoken from the region these immigrants have come from, I don't know.

Nah, that's pretty much all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia AFAIK. They just code-switch between their variety of Arabic and French all the time. (Just like we Malayalees code-switch between Malayalam and English all the time lol!). I remember a researcher giving a presentation on code-switching in Morocco where, in one of his examples, the guy being recorded insisted that he didn't speak a word of French...while code-switching between Moroccan Arabic and French!

But there's a restaurant in the town near us that we love to go, and the Algerians who run it will speak more recognizable Arabic with non-Algerians, and much more slowly. They have several regular customers who go there to practice their Arabic too.

Yeah, because there's absolutely no way that people from outside the Maghreb would be able to understand code-switching between Algerian Arabic and French! So they're probably speaking Modern Standard Arabic (and compensating to make sure that the non-Algerian they're talking to understands what they're saying). Especially if they have customers who want to practice their Arabic, I think it's highly unlikely that they would expect them to understand Algerian Arabic. (And I'm sure they'd have good reason to not expect that).

[languagepotato]

Sorry for interrupting, but...

he wrote || huwa ktëb || hiya ktëb

Don't you mean huwa there?

definitely, typo, fixed it

[languagepotato]

yesterday i wanted to finish learning the grammar of algerian arabic, turns out i already finished it because for the rest the grammar works almost exactly as ours (forming other verb tenses, making those tenses continuous, , possesives, word order etc.). there was one thing that really stood out though: they add an i for female you (sometimes people in morocco do this too but it's not that common). for example in the song below

the singer sings:
qaluli stënney (they said to me: wait)
tkëbri u tënsey (you'll forget when you grow up)

while some moroccans would say it exactly like the algerians, most people would say:
qaluli stënna
tëkbër u tënsa



i've also learned common things like greetings and stuff like thanks and please, the main diffferences were in hi, please and thank you:
they say yërhëm wëldëk if they want to say thanks, we say it if we want to say 'please, please, please, pretty please! i understand this difference completely because it literally means 'may your offspring be blessed' so we think 'may your offspring be blessed if you do this for me' and algerians think 'may your offspring be blessed because you did this for me',
algerians say Së7a for hi, which just means strength in moroccan arabic
and they say maddabik if they want to say please, we say 3afak
there were also things that would easily be understand by a moroccan but would sound rather strange in morocco
good night: tësba7 b khir, we'd say tësba7 3la khir. the algerian version translates to something along the lines of 'may you wake up with goodness', the moroccan versian translates to 'may you wake up upon goodness'
goodbye: bqa 3la khir, we'd say bëslemma, the algerian version would translate to something like 'stay safe' in moroccan arabic.

i also translated this song to moroccan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QClv0NJtzHw
the only sentence i couldn't translate was djambi f djambëk

but that's not what made it stand out as an algerian song (using weyn instead of feyn did). for the rest, it actually sounded more like my dialect of moroccan than my favourite moroccan song (both accentwise and vocabwise). i wouldn't be surprised if the parents of this singer grew up in northwest algeria. (the singer herself grew up in france if i'm not mistaken)

[languagepotato]

1-week dialect challenge is over but even before this week, i would have had no trouble communicating with algerians.

main differences are:
present tense, future tense, female you
question words
and some vocabulary words
my favourite algerian words are:
bufërtito - butterfly
bakhsis - fig
bushi - butcher

[Expressionism]

This seems like an awesome challenge. My favourite part of this whole thread, however, was "bufërtito", it's such a cool word.

[languagepotato]

This seems like an awesome challenge. My favourite part of this whole thread, however, was "bufërtito", it's such a cool word.

gotta agree with you on that one, bufërtito sounds way cooler than farasha (the way we say it in my dialect)

and @vijayjohn, yeah, we code-switch a lot
i couldn't stop laughing when i heard someone say:
"ena mabghitsh nes fëlmëghrib i hdru en francais, parce que l3arbiya hiya la premiere langue de l'mëghrib"

meaning: i don't want the people in morocco to speak french, because arabic is the first/main language of morocco

yep, he code-switched while complaining about code-switching

[Zippo]

Wow. I'd never think these varieties were that close (like Croatian - Bosnian). Sure I get that Algerian Arabic is closer than say Iraqi or Syrian, but still.

Btw. does it go the other way around? Do Algerians understand Moroccans? Because I heard that Moroccan Arabic is the hardest to understand for any Arab.

Syrian: Ana ma be7ke 3arabi.
Moroccan: Mttqlmsh 'l'rbiya. (or something similar )

[languagepotato]

Wow. I'd never think these varieties were that close (like Croatian - Bosnian). Sure I get that Algerian Arabic is closer than say Iraqi or Syrian, but still.

Btw. does it go the other way around? Do Algerians understand Moroccans? Because I heard that Moroccan Arabic is the hardest to understand for any Arab.

Syrian: Ana ma be7ke 3arabi.
Moroccan: Mttqlmsh 'l'rbiya. (or something similar )

the differences are often exaggerated.

the main difference between moroccan and algerian arabic is the one thing i haven't mentioned here: the accent, we understand eachother easily. there are a few small differences like wayn/fayn but yeah it's pretty much the same,

and the main reason why a some arabs don't understand moroccan arabic is because we take a 'meh-approach' to vowels. but nonetheless, most dialects are quite close, if i go to a random arabic store, i speak moroccan arabic, they speak their dialects and we even chat, and we understand eachother just fine, i think the hardest dialect for me would be sudanese arabic, mainly due to lack of exposure (i would've said egyptian arabic but my ears just weren't trained enough back when i thought i couldn't understand egyptian arabic, i now chat with egyptians easily).


and when people say moroccan arabic is the hardest to understand, they mean maghrebi in general (moroccan, algerian, tunisian and to some extent libyan)

[ceid donn]

I'm curious to know how well you can understand Gulf Arabic, as a Moroccan Arabic speaker?

[Zippo]

I see. Thanks for the explanation. I went to the local library yesterday and found a phrasebook in Moroccan , Tunisian and Egyptian Arabic. At times Egyptian seemed the most close to the MSA, but that's coming from a person who is a beginner in Arabic. On the other hand some of the Egyptian vocab was more distant in fact.

Usually the differences in vocabulary were due to the European influence. And sometimes I noticed a different position of the vowels as in the word for window etc.

[languagepotato]

I'm curious to know how well you can understand Gulf Arabic, as a Moroccan Arabic speaker?

i have absolutely no clue

the only thing i know about gulf arabic is that 'shkhbarëk' is one way of saying 'how are you' which sounds quite a lot like 'eshkhbarëk' in moroccan arabic, both literally meaning 'what's your news'


to find out i'm listening to a few gulf arabic songs, it seems somewhat understandable, i think i could chat with a speaker of gulf arabic, not as easily as with an algerian or tunesian of course, but it seems reasonable mutually intelligible nonetheless.

I see. Thanks for the explanation. I went to the local library yesterday and found a phrasebook in Moroccan , Tunisian and Egyptian Arabic. At times Egyptian seemed the most close to the MSA, but that's coming from a person who is a beginner in Arabic. On the other hand some of the Egyptian vocab was more distant in fact.

Usually the differences in vocabulary were due to the European influence. And sometimes I noticed a different position of the vowels as in the word for window etc.

ther are three big differences between msa and moroccan arabic. we take a 'meh-approach' to vowels. we use a combination of msa grammar and berber grammar and we take a lot of berber, french and spanish words (and sometimes butcher them so much even they are like 'dafuq's tbat' for example, tomobin and rempwen came from automobile and rond-point respectively)