goli قولي
Moroccan Darija · verb
“goli” (قولي) is a verb in Moroccan Darija meaning tell me.
Meanings
- tell me
- say (feminine imperative)
Usage
The spelling goli covers two forms. The first is gul-li, "tell me", very frequent for asking for information: goli chno w9e3 ("tell me what happened"). The second is the feminine singular imperative of gal, "to say": goli liha ("tell him/her", said to a woman). Only context and the person addressed can tell them apart. The form with an explicit liya, as in goli liya, is also common and belongs to a neutral informal register. Ghir goli ("just tell me") often introduces an urgent request.
Example
قولي شنو وقع
golli chno w9e3
“Tell me what happened.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “goli” but also “9oli”, “golli”, “gouli” and “9olli”. 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 “goli” on the Arabic keyboard
In Algerian Darja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Algerian Darja, where it means “tell me (to a person)”; “so tell me, by the way (prompt)”: goulli in Algerian.