tmaticha طوماطيشة
Algerian Darja · noun
“tmaticha” (طوماطيشة) is a noun in Algerian Darja meaning a tomato.
Meanings
- a tomato
Usage
Tmaticha, or tomaticha, is the unit noun: it means a single tomato. The collective is tomatich, "tomatoes, tomato" in general. You say tomatich when talking about the vegetable at the market or in cooking, and tmaticha when counting one. The counted plural is tmatichat. The word is very common in Algerian cooking: chakchouka, salad, sauce. Pitfall for an English speaker: "a tomato" is tmaticha, but "to buy tomatoes" uses the collective tomatich.
Example
زيد طماطيشة في الشكشوكة.
zid tmaticha fel chakchouka.
“Add a tomato to the chakchouka.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “tmaticha” but also “tomaticha”, “tmatisha”, “tomatisha” and “6ma6icha”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 6 is emphatic ta (ط).
Type “tmaticha” on the Arabic keyboard
In Moroccan Darija
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Moroccan Darija, where it means “a tomato”: tomaticha in Moroccan.