glti قلتي
Moroccan Darija · verb
“glti” (قلتي) is a verb in Moroccan Darija meaning you said.
Meanings
- you said
- you told yourself, you thought
Usage
Gelti is the perfective form of the verb gal / 9al, "to say", in the second person singular. In darija it is used for a man as well as for a woman. It is very frequent in questions: ach gelti ?, "what did you say?", or 3lach gelti dakchi ?, "why did you say that?". The person addressed is introduced with l-: gelti lia, "you told me". Before another verb, the form can also mean "you told yourself". The initial consonant varies by region between g and 9. Some online spellings replace this sound with the digit 4.
Example
علاش قلتي داكشي؟
3lach glti dakchi?
“Why did you say that?”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “glti” but also “gelti”, “galti”, “9lti” and “9elti”. 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 “glti” on the Arabic keyboard
In Algerian Darja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Algerian Darja, where it means “you said”: golti in Algerian.