bar بر
Tunisian Derja · noun
“bar” (بر) is a noun in Tunisian Derja meaning country, land.
Meanings
- country, land
- dry land (as opposed to sea)
Usage
Bar means land, and more often country or homeland. It appears in expressions such as bar tounes, "Tunisia, the Tunisian land", or fi bar el ghorba, "in a foreign land, in exile". The negation ma fama 7atta bar means "there is no country at all". In the concrete sense, bar is the opposite of b7ar, the sea: dry land, the shore. The register is everyday but a little figurative. Do not confuse it with barra, "outside" or "get out", or with the start of barcha, "a lot".
Example
ما فماش حتى بر كيف تونس.
ma fammech 7atta bar kif tounes.
“There is no country like Tunisia.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “bar” but also “barr”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.