jou3 جوع
Moroccan Darija · noun
“jou3” (جوع) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning hunger.
Meanings
- hunger
- destitution, poverty
Usage
Jou3 means hunger. There are several ways to say you are hungry: jani jou3 (hunger came to me), fiya jou3 (I am hungry), or the verb ji3t (I am hungry). The adjective is ji3an (starving). The word is also used in the sense of destitution: lfaqr w jou3 (poverty and hunger). Applied to a person, jou3 can be used to put them down as stingy, greedy or wretched. This use is colloquial and insulting. There is no verb "to be" or "to have" here: one says fiya jou3, literally "in me hunger".
Example
جاني جوع بزاف
jani jou3 bzf
“I'm very hungry.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “jou3” but also “jo3”, “ju3” and “jouu3”. 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 “jou3” on the Arabic keyboard
In Tunisian Derja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Tunisian Derja, where it means “hunger”; “famine, starvation”: jou3 in Tunisian.