I’ve lost track of the number of times over the years that I’ve heard people talk about how North African dialects as if they are drastically different from those of the Central Middle East. This is a mindset that unjustifiably intimidate students, especially because it isn’t true.
3 more Algerian Arabic dialogue as part of my effort to break the perceived “scariness.”
Click on the title to hear the audio.
(1) This is the first time I’ve heard ( نهار ) instead of ( يوم ) when describing days of the week. On one hand, I’d never thought of people saying it this way, but as soon as I saw it said this way, the meaning was crystal clear.
(2) Had never heard this verb before as far as I can recall. As I’ve already mentioned in this series of posts on Algeria, if the goal is to just become competent in Algerian, where it comes from doesn’t really matter. Just memorize the verb and use it.
But out of curiosity, I wanted to know if it’s some random Algerian verb, or in fact coming from a clear “Fusha” root. I couldn’t come up with a decisive verdict where it’s coming from in my allotted 10 minutes per word – but I am 95% sure it’s coming from one of these two verbs listed in Hans Wehr:
(3) Nothing uniquely Algerian here. Pretty close to how you’d say this in Egypt.
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