chejje3 شجّع
Moroccan Darija · verb
“chejje3” (شجّع) is a verb in Moroccan Darija meaning to encourage, support.
Meanings
- to encourage, support
- to cheer for (a team)
- to promote, foster
Usage
Chejje3 means to encourage someone, to give them courage or momentum, and is also used to say that you support a football team. Its imperfect is ychejje3, its participle mchejje3, and the noun tachjii3 means encouragement. It takes its object directly: chejje3 wlidek ("encourage your son"). The sports use is very common, as in ana kanchejje3 lwidad ("I support Wydad"). The word comes from Standard Arabic, but it is fully integrated into everyday usage, with no formal nuance at all. A supporter is generally called mchejje3.
Example
شجّع فرقتك فلمسيانا و لمرّا
chhjje3 fre9tek flmsiana ou lmerra
“Encourage your team in good times and bad.”
Conjugation
Forms as recorded in DODa and reproduced in its spelling, which often leaves out short vowels.
| Imperfective (present) | Perfective (past) | Imperative | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ana (I) | kanchjje3 | chejje3t | |
| nta (you, m.) | katchjje3 | chejje3ti | chjje3 |
| nti (you, f.) | katchjj3i | chejje3ti | chjj3i |
| howa (he) | kaychjje3 | chjje3 | |
| hiya (she) | katchjje3 | chejje3at | |
| 7na (we) | kanchjj3o | chejje3na | |
| ntouma (you, pl.) | katchjj3o | chejje3to | chjj3o |
| homa (they) | kaychjj3o | chejje3o |
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “chejje3” but also “chajja3”, “chjje3”, “chaje3” and “shajja3”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 3 is ayn (ع), a voiced sound from deep in the throat with no English equivalent.
Type “chejje3” on the Arabic keyboard
In Tunisian Derja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Tunisian Derja, where it means “to encourage someone”; “to cheer for, support (a team)”: chaja3 in Tunisian.