chonbra شنبرة
Tunisian Derja · noun
“chonbra” (شنبرة) is a noun in Tunisian Derja meaning bedroom, room for sleeping.
Meanings
- bedroom, room for sleeping
- room (of a house)
Usage
Chonbra is a spelling variant of chombra, an adaptation of the French word "chambre". The pronunciation is the same: before the "b", the "n" sounds like an "m". Only the spelling in Arabic letters differs. The word mainly refers to the bedroom, while bit remains the general term for a room. It takes Arabic possessive suffixes, as in chombrti (my bedroom), and forms chombrat in the plural. The register is informal and everyday. It is useful to recognize both spellings, شمبرة and شنبرة, which refer to the same word.
Example
الشنبرة هاذي فيها برشا ضو
ech-chombra hedhi fiha barcha dhaw
“This bedroom is very bright.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “chonbra” but also “chanbra”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.