arba3tach اربعطاش
Tunisian Derja · numeral
“arba3tach” (اربعطاش) is a numeral in Tunisian Derja meaning fourteen.
Meanings
- fourteen
Usage
Arba3tach is the Tunisian form of "fourteen", like the other numbers from eleven to nineteen: 7dach, thna3ch, tleta3ch, arba3tach, etc. It is used for counting, giving a date, a time or a door number. Before a noun, -en is often added: "arba3tachen dinar". For a date, one simply says "nhar arba3tach" (the fourteenth). The initial a often drops in speech, hence the spelling rba3tach.
Example
عندو أربعطاش عام وحدو يمشي للمكتب.
3andou arba3tach 3am w we7dou yemchi lel mekteb.
“He is fourteen years old and goes to the office alone.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “arba3tach” but also “rba3tach”, “arba3tache”, “orba3tach”, “arbe3tach” and “arb3tach”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Its Arabic spelling is not fixed either: you will find اربعطاش and اربعتاش, all the same word.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 3 is ayn (ع), a voiced sound from deep in the throat with no English equivalent.