oum أم
Moroccan Darija · noun
“oum” (أم) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning mother.
Meanings
- mother
- hesitation "um" (interjection)
Usage
Oum means "mother", but in daily life it is heard mostly in fixed phrases or in a formal register: "oum l-3roussa" (the bride's mother), or in names like Oum Kalthoum. To talk about one's own mother, people say mmi, l-walida or yemma instead. With a possessive, the base mm- is used: mmo (his mother), mmek (your mother). Written "um", the same sound is also used as a hesitation, like the English "um", notably in subtitles and in online writing. This second use has nothing to do with the first.
Example
أم العروسة جات بكري
oum l3roussa jat bekri
“The bride's mother arrived early.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “oum” but also “om”, “um” and “2oum”. 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.
Type “oum” on the Arabic keyboard
In Tunisian Derja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Tunisian Derja, where it means “mother”; “mom (term of address)”: om in Tunisian.