Re: Telling time in Tunisia: the "drej"


benlizross wrote:


The first thing that occurred to me, being largely ignorant of Arabic,
was that a reflex of Latin tretius 'third' might be involved (e.g.
Italian terzo). Have you checked to see if they do this in Maltese?


The French infleunce on Tunesian Arabic is evident in the contraction
or shortening of Standard Arabic words. The similarity in sound could
of course suggest some sort of relationship (if not folk etymology
because the French word is "trois"). At any rate the time concept in
Arabic in general shows uncertainty. This is also evident in the number

of loan words likes the names of months or even words like: waqt "time"

(sounds foreign to me). Pure Arabic words could be: ?al-?a:n, laHDa,
Hi:n. What about the the words sa:3a "hour" and zama:n?

.