sinyal سينيال
Moroccan Darija · noun
“sinyal” (سينيال) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning network, phone signal.
Meanings
- network, phone signal
- turn signal (in a car)
Usage
Sinyal is a borrowing from French "signal", adapted to Moroccan pronunciation and used informally. It is mostly used for phone or internet reception: makaynch sinyal ("there is no signal"). The phrase kayn sinyal? asks whether there is reception. In a car, dir sinyal means "put your turn signal on" before turning or overtaking. This is the pitfall: the word almost never means a signal in the general sense, but rather phone reception or the turn signal. The French word "réseau" is also often heard for the phone.
Example
كانحسّ بحالا ماكاين حتّا سينيال هنا.
kan7ess b7ala makayn 7tta sinyal 8na.
“I feel like there's no signal at all here.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “sinyal” but also “sinial” and “siniyal”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.