jadarmi جدارمي
Moroccan Darija · noun
“jadarmi” (جدارمي) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning gendarme.
Meanings
- gendarme
Usage
Jadarmi is an adapted borrowing from French "gendarme", fully integrated into darija. It refers to a member of the Royal Gendarmerie, present mainly on roads and in rural areas, as opposed to the bolisi (police officer) in towns. The plural is jadarmiya, a word also used for the gendarmerie as an institution: "3eyyet l jadarmiya" (call the gendarmerie). It is often heard in connection with roadside checks and roadblocks.
Example
وقفني جدارمي فالطريق وطلب مني لاوراق
w9efni jadarmi f tri9 w tleb menni lwra9
“A gendarme stopped me on the road and asked me for my papers.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “jadarmi” but also “jadermi”, “jadarmy”, “djadarmi”, “jdarmi” and “jedarmi”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Its Arabic spelling is not fixed either: you will find جدارمي and جدرمي, all the same word.
Type “jadarmi” on the Arabic keyboard
In Algerian Darja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Algerian Darja, where it means “gendarme”: jadarmi in Algerian.