jens جنس
Tunisian Derja · noun
“jens” (جنس) is a noun in Tunisian Derja meaning kind, sort, species.
Meanings
- kind, sort, species
- sex (male/female)
- sexuality
Usage
Jens first means "kind" or "sort". People say ech men jens ("what kind?") or jens bnadem to talk about a type of person, often with a pejorative nuance: jens hedha ma yetfehemch, "this kind of person doesn't understand". The word also refers to biological sex, as in el jens el-ekhor, "the other sex", or on forms. The meaning "sexual relations" belongs more to written or media usage. In speech, the first meaning is by far the most frequent.
Example
هذا جنس ما تتعاملش معاه
hedha jens ma tet3amelch m3ah
“This is the kind of person you don't deal with.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “jens” but also “jins”, “jons” and “jenss”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Type “jens” on the Arabic keyboard
In Moroccan Darija
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Moroccan Darija, where it means “kind, sort, type”; “sex (male or female)”: jins in Moroccan.