I keep seeing the Tunisian political party written in different ways: al-Nahda, Ennahda or just Nahda. Presumably it’s about articles? Can someone explain how it works and what the difference is?
I’ll just give this the one bump, I’m sure there is someone out there who knows 
The fast answer is that “al” is usually translated as “the” in English, although I know nothing about the name of the political party…
Yes, ‘al’ is an article - ‘the’.
When it comes before a word that starts with ‘n’, though, it becomes ‘an’ instead: an-Nahda.
I don’t know why it would ever be ‘al-Nahda’ (dialect?).
mahna mahna!
And why would it become “Ennahda”? Maybe it’s just a silly way of transliterating? But that is the way I’ve seen it written most often in the media. The other ways I’ve come across in academic papers and reports by various different governments.
I think, and I really have no idea because obviously I don’t even remotely speak Arabic, that Tunisians say more of an “eh” sound where for similar words in other languages I often hear an “ah” sound. My ears may have made this up completely. But would it explain the “Ennahda” transliteration…?
There is no universal standard for transliterating Arabic to English, so you get cases like this. For example, Muammar Gaddafi’s name has been spelled many different ways by the media, used to great comic effect by Saturday Night Live.
Yep, it’s a free-for-all which varies by dialect, accent, personal preference, and general mass-confusion.
I have met some native Arabic speakers who pronounce some “a” sounds as more of a soft “e”, such as pronouncing “la” (no) as “le”. I’m not a linguist, so my transliteration of their pronunciation may be deficient.
The point being: some speakers may be pronouncing it like “ennahda”, and that’s the way it gets transliterated.
In Literary (formal) Arabic, the “l” in “al-” is dropped before the following letters: S, R, T, N, Z, L, Tz, D, and Sh.
(There’s a cute mnemonic for this in Hebrew; it’s just about the only thing I remember from three years of high school Arabic).
Well known English words that come from Arabic and that have had the Arabic article glued to them include alcohol (al-kuhul), algebra (al-jabr), algorithm (al-Khwarizmi, i.e. the person from Khwarazm), Algol (al-ghul, i.e. the ghoul), albatross (al-qadus), alchemy (al-kimiya), admiral (amir-al, “lord of the”, of what is not specified, but could have been from amir-al-bahr, “lord of the sea”)
I think that is true for Tunisian pronunciation. It sounded to me like they said “Ellehu ekbar”, more than “Allahu Akbar”. I just don’t really trust my own hearing because I don’t speak the language.