I found an excellent post on the Language Hat blog linking to a study recently done concerning mutual intelligiblity among Libyan (Benghazi) Arabic, Tunisian (Tunis) Arabic, and Maltese. Fascinating in its own rights and with an eye toward studying the true level of intelligibility among other varieties of Arabic. http://languagehat.com/maltese-and-arabic/
Of note: Benghazi and Tunis Arabic, while highly mutually intelligible, are not perfectly so (<80%) and not perfectly symettrical (73% Libyan understanding Tunisian, 79% Tunisian understanding Libyan). Intelligibility of Maltese with the two fell between 37%-45%
Here is another video. The man on the left speaks maltese with a very thick arabic accent I end up understanding about 80% of what he says!
Surprisingly most Tunisians don't know how Maltese is close to the Tunisian dialect. One guy I spoke to didn't know what Malta was (lolwut???). I personally didn't know this similarity till relatively recently.
This video went viral in facebook for a while:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld0hUaZZ9ko
"Malta is mine ,Malta is yours , Malta is for all of us."
if you were to walk in a metro station and see this sign : "stanna wra el linja essafra" you probably wouldn't understand it, but any tunisian would understand it instantly : "wait beyond the yellow line"
However understanding something that is written is far different than understanding something that is said. For instance I don't think I understood most of that video.
Cool! Do you know about any studies about mutual intelligibility of other Arabic dialects?
