glna قلنا
Moroccan Darija · verb
“glna” (قلنا) is a verb in Moroccan Darija meaning we said.
Meanings
- we said
Usage
qelna is the past-tense, first-person plural form of the verb gal / qal, "to say". Depending on the region, the first sound is pronounced g or q: glna, qlna or 9lna. It is used with li to refer to what was agreed, as in "hadchi li qlna", "that's what we said". With a pronoun, it indicates the person being spoken to: "glna lih", "we told him". Be careful not to confuse it with 9ellel, "to reduce", which is spelled almost the same.
Example
هادشي لي قلنا
hadchi li qlna
“That's what we said.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “glna” but also “qlna”, “9lna”, “galna” and “qolna”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 9 is qaf (ق), a k pronounced at the back of the throat.
Type “glna” on the Arabic keyboard
In Algerian Darja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Algerian Darja, where it means “we said”; “we thought, we told ourselves”: golna in Algerian.