sba3tach سبعطاش
Tunisian Derja · numeral
“sba3tach” (سبعطاش) is a numeral in Tunisian Derja meaning seventeen.
Meanings
- seventeen
Usage
Sba3tach is the number seventeen in Tounsi. Like the other numbers from eleven to nineteen (7dach, thnach, tlattach, etc.), it ends in -tach. The noun that follows stays singular: "sba3tach 3am" (seventeen years), "sba3tach dinar". It also appears in compound numbers: "miya w sba3tach" (one hundred seventeen). It is used for age, prices, room or boarding gate numbers, and the time on the twenty-four-hour clock. In written arabizi, the 3 stands for the 'ayn sound. Avoid copying English by putting the noun in the plural.
Example
عندو سبعطاش عام.
3andou sba3tach 3am.
“He is seventeen years old.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “sba3tach” but also “sb3tach”, “sba3tache” and “saba3tach”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 3 is ayn (ع), a voiced sound from deep in the throat with no English equivalent.
Type “sba3tach” on the Arabic keyboard
In Moroccan Darija
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Moroccan Darija, where it means “seventeen”: sbe3tach in Moroccan.