mousi9a موسيقى
Tunisian Derja · noun
“mousi9a” (موسيقى) is a noun in Tunisian Derja meaning music.
Meanings
- music
Usage
The word is used for music in general, whether you listen to it or play it: nesma3 mousi9a ("to listen to music"), mousi9a classique, mousi9a char9iya. In speech, the form mouzika is very common, and many Tunisians simply say musique, as in French. The form mousi9a, closer to Standard Arabic, dominates in a somewhat more formal register, on the radio or in genre names. The word is feminine and most often used with the article: el mousi9a. Malouf is the term for traditional Tunisian music.
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “mousi9a” but also “musique”, “mosika” and “moussika”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 9 is qaf (ق), a k pronounced at the back of the throat.
Type “mousi9a” on the Arabic keyboard
In Moroccan Darija
The same word also exists in Moroccan Darija, written موسيقا, where it means “music”: mousi9a in Moroccan.