otel أوطيل
Moroccan Darija · noun
“otel” (أوطيل) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning hotel.
Meanings
- hotel
Usage
Otel (or otil) is a borrowing from French, adapted to Moroccan phonetics: the initial h is not pronounced. It is the usual word for a hotel. With the article, it is l-otel: bitna f l-otel ("we spent the night at the hotel"). The most common plural is otilat. The Arabic term fondoq exists, but belongs to a more formal register and is mostly seen on signs. For more modest lodging, you also hear riyad, or funduq in the medinas.
Example
بتنا فواحد الأوطيل حدا البحر
bitna f wa7ed l'otel 7da lb7er
“We spent the night in a hotel near the sea.”
Forms
| plural | 2oTilat |
|---|
Forms as recorded in DODa, in its spelling.
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “otel” but also “otil”, “oteel” and “2otil”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 2 is hamza (ء), a glottal stop.