n99a نقّا
Moroccan Darija · verb
“n99a” (نقّا) is a verb in Moroccan Darija meaning to clean, make clean.
Meanings
- to clean, make clean
- to sort, pick over
Usage
N99a means "to clean" in the ordinary sense: a house, a room, the dishes. In cooking, it also refers to sorting pulses or grains, when you remove small stones and impurities: n99a l3des, "to sort the lentils". The present tense is formed with ka: kan99i, kat99i. The imperative is n99i. The adjective of the same family, n9i, means "clean" or "pure". Do not confuse the verb form, with its doubled consonant, with the adjective.
Example
نقّات الدار كاملة قبل ما يجيو الضياف
n99at ddar kamla 9bel ma yjiw ddyaf
“She cleaned the whole house before the guests arrived.”
Conjugation
Forms as recorded in DODa and reproduced in its spelling, which often leaves out short vowels.
| Imperfective (present) | Perfective (past) | Imperative | |
|---|---|---|---|
| ana (I) | kann99i | n99it | |
| nta (you, m.) | katn99i | n99iti | n99i |
| nti (you, f.) | katn99i | n99iti | n99i |
| howa (he) | kayn99i | n99a | |
| hiya (she) | katn99i | n99aat | |
| 7na (we) | kann99iw | n99ina | |
| ntouma (you, pl.) | katn99iw | n99ito | n99iw |
| homa (they) | kayn99iw | n99ao |
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “n99a” but also “ne99a”, “nqqa” and “n9a”. 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.