Mutual Intelligibility of Spoken Maltese, Libyan Arabic and Tunisian Arabic Functionally Tested: A Pilot Study

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11210%2F16%3A10319681" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11210/16:10319681 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=rIYvZd7pDG" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=rIYvZd7pDG</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Mutual Intelligibility of Spoken Maltese, Libyan Arabic and Tunisian Arabic Functionally Tested: A Pilot Study

Original language description

This paper presents the results of a pilot project designed to functionally test the mutual intelligibility of spoken Maltese, Tunisian Arabic and Benghazi Libyan Arabic. We compiled an audio-based intelligibility test consisting of three components: a word test where the respondents were asked to perform a semantic classification task with 11 semantic categories; a sentence test where the task was to provide a translation of a sentence into the respondent&apos;s native language and a text test where a short text was listened to twice and the respondents were asked to answer 8 multiple-choice questions. We collected data from 24 respondents in Malta, Tunis and Benghazi which we analyzed to determine that there exists asymmetric mutual intelligibility between the two mainstream Arabic varieties and Maltese where speakers of Tunisian and Benghazi Arabic are able to understand about 40% of what is being said to them in Maltese, whereas that ratio is about 30% for speakers of Maltese exposed to either variety of Arabic. Additionally, we found that Tunisian Arabic has the highest level of mutual intelligibility with either of the other two varieties. Combining the intelligibility scores with edit distance data, we were able to sketch out the variables involved in enabling and inhibiting mutual intelligibility for all three varieties of Arabic and provide a rough analysis of the linguistic distance between them as branches of North African Arabic.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60203 - Linguistics

Project

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Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach

Publication year

2016

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Folia Linguistica

ISSN

0165-4004

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

50

Issue of the periodical within the volume

2

Country of publishing house

DE - GERMANY

Number of pages

4

Pages from-to

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UT code for WoS article

000388116200009

EID of the result in the Scopus database

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