Varieties of Arabic
There are many varieties of Arabic (also called dialects of Arabic or vernacular languages) in existence. Arabic is a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family that originated on the Arabian Peninsula. It is classified as a macrolanguage comprising 30 modern varieties, including its standard form. The largest divisions occur between the spoken languages of different regions. Some varieties of Arabic in North Africa, for example, are not easily comprehensible to an Arabic speaker from the Levant or the Persian Gulf. Within these broad regions further and considerable geographic distinctions exist, within countries, across country borders, even between cities and villages.
Tunisian Arabic
Tunisian Arabic is one of the Arabic languages within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family. It is a variety of Maghrebi Arabic like Moroccan and Algerian Arabic, which are mostly unintelligible to Modern Standard or Mashriqi Arabic speakers. It has a considerable number of pre-hilalian dialects but is usually considered in its koiné form to be a mostly Hilalian variety of Maghrebi Arabic because it was affected by the immigration of Banu Hilal in the 11th century, as were the other Maghrebi varieties.