briyat بريات
Moroccan Darija · noun
“briyat” (بريات) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning letters, mail.
Meanings
- letters, mail
- written messages
Usage
Briyat is the plural of briya, "letter". The word refers to letters people send each other, especially the family or love correspondence of the past, when emigrants wrote home. You say sifet briyat ("to send letters") or ktb briyat ("to write letters"). It is still used today to talk about written messages, with a slightly affectionate or nostalgic nuance. For administrative mail, you more often hear courrier or rasa'il, a more formal register. Do not confuse this word with bariya, "wild", which is written the same way in Arabic.
Example
كان كيصيفط ليها البريات من فرانسا
kan kaysift liha lbriyat men fransa
“He used to send her letters from France.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “briyat” but also “brayat”, “briat” and “bryat”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.