hammas حماص
Tunisian Derja · noun
“hammas” (حماص) is a noun in Tunisian Derja meaning seller of dried fruit and roasted seeds.
Meanings
- seller of dried fruit and roasted seeds
- dried fruit and nut shop
Usage
The hammas sells roasted chickpeas (hommos), pumpkin seeds (glibettes), peanuts, almonds and other dried fruit and nuts, often displayed loose behind a glass counter. The word means the shopkeeper, and by extension his shop: "nemchi lel hammas". The hammas is a familiar neighbourhood business, very busy on match nights or during evening gatherings. In the diaspora, the expression "hammas fil mahjar" evokes the shops opened by Tunisians abroad. A well-stocked shop window can also be jokingly compared to that of a hammas.
Example
هات زوز دينارات قلوب من عند الحماص
het zouz dinarat glibet men 3and el 7ammas
“Bring back two dinars' worth of glibet from the seed seller's.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “hammas” but also “7ammas”, “7ammes” and “hammes”. 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.