“Ça va bien, alhamdulillah!”

“I’m well, thanks be to God.” Conversations between stallholders in Houmt Souk, Djerba’s bustling main town, casually mix languages as they exchange handshakes, backslaps and teasing.

At the entrance to its narrow medina, backpack-laden tourists and local women with enormous straw hats perched atop colourful hijabs weave between stalls snaking off in every direction. I pick one at random, drawn to colourful pyramids of cumin, paprika, and tabil piled as high as the stallholder’s head. My schoolboy French and smattering of hastily learnt Arabic words are no match for Tounsi , the local vernacular blending Arabic and French with Amazigh, Italian and even Maltese influences. Locals are at pains to point out that it’s distinct from formal Arabic and uniquely Tunisian .

It’s a fitting metaphor for Djerba. The island off Tunisia’s south-eastern coast has spent millennia absorbing influences from across the Mediterranean.…