Libyan Arabic - Intelligibility With Other Varieties of Arabic

Intelligibility With Other Varieties of Arabic

Libyan Arabic is highly intelligible to Tunisians and to a good extent to eastern Algerians. However for most eastern Arabic speakers, including Egyptians, it can be difficult to understand and requires some adaptation.

Libyans usually have to substitute some Libyan Arabic words to make themselves understood to other Arabic speakers, especially Middle Easterners. Substitute words are usually borrowed from Modern Standard or Egyptian Arabic. The following table shows some of the commonly replaced words.

Generally, all Italian and to some extent Turkish loanwords are substituted.

It should be noted, however, that if a word is replaced it does not mean that it is exclusively Libyan. This situation sometimes arises because the speaker, mistakenly, guesses that the word does not exist in the hearer's dialect. For example the word zarda (feast, picnic) has close variants in other Maghrebi dialects but is usually substituted in Maghrebi contexts because most speakers do not know that such variants exist.