ahammia أهمية
Moroccan Darija · noun
“ahammia” (أهمية) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning importance.
Meanings
- importance
Usage
Ahammiya is borrowed from Standard Arabic and is commonly used in darija, especially in negative constructions: ma 3ndo hta chi ahammiya ("it has no importance at all"). One also says 3ta ahammiya l... ("to give importance to..."), with the preposition l- before the complement. In colloquial speech, the idea often goes through the verb hemm ("to concern, to matter"): ma kayhemmch ("it's not important"). The noun remains a little more formal than this verbal construction.
Example
هاد الشي ما عندو حتى شي أهمية
had chi ma 3ndo hta chi ahammia
“It doesn't matter at all.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “ahammia” but also “ahamiya”, “a8ammia” and “ahammiya”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 8 is light ha (ه) or ghayn (غ), depending on the writer.
Type “ahammia” on the Arabic keyboard
In Tunisian Derja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Tunisian Derja, where it means “importance”: ahamiya in Tunisian.