7ayawanet حيوانات
Tunisian Derja · noun
“7ayawanet” (حيوانات) is a noun in Tunisian Derja meaning animals.
Meanings
- animals
- beasts (domestic or wild)
Usage
7ayawanet is the plural of 7ayawan, "animal". It is used to talk about animals in general, whether domestic or wild. It appears in common expressions like jnina mta3 7ayawanet, "zoological garden", and in reports or conversations about nature. For farm animals, the more concrete word bhayem, "beasts", is also often heard. In the singular, 7ayawan can be used as a mild insult towards a person, meaning "brute" or "idiot". The plural mostly keeps its neutral meaning. It takes feminine singular agreement: el 7ayawanet hedhom mezyena.
Example
صغاري يحبو برشا الحيوانات.
sghari y7ebbou barcha el 7ayawanet.
“My kids love animals a lot.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “7ayawanet” but also “hayawanet”, “7ayawanat”, “hayawanat” and “7aywanet”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 7 is ha (ح), a breathy h from the throat.
Type “7ayawanet” on the Arabic keyboard
In Moroccan Darija
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Moroccan Darija, where it means “animals (in general)”; “pets”: 7ayawanat in Moroccan.