chakhs شخص
Moroccan Darija · noun
“chakhs” (شخص) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning person, individual.
Meanings
- person, individual
Usage
The word chakhs (or chkhas) means a person, an individual. It comes from Standard Arabic, but is well integrated into darija, especially among young people and in a somewhat formal register. In everyday speech, people more often say wa7ed (someone) or bnadem (a human being). It appears in phrases like wa7ed chakhs, "a certain person", or dak chakhs, "that person". Note that it never has the negative sense of "nobody". To say "nobody came", use 7ta wa7ed.
Example
علاش كتسنا داك شخص
3lach katsna dak chkhas
“Why are you waiting for that person?”
Forms
| plural | achkhaS |
|---|
Forms as recorded in DODa, in its spelling.
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “chakhs” but also “chkhas”, “cha5s”, “chakhss”, “shakhs” and “cha5ss”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 5 is kha (خ), like the ch in Scottish loch.