yallah يالله
Moroccan Darija · interjection
“yallah” (يالله) is an interjection in Moroccan Darija meaning come on, let's go.
Meanings
- come on, let's go
- just now, only just
- barely, only
Usage
Yallah has two very lively uses in Morocco. At the start of a sentence it is an urging: yallah nmchiw, "come on, let's go". Before a verb in the past, often after rani, it means "to have only just": rani yallah dkhelt, "I've just come in". It can also mark smallness or a limit: yallah kaykfi, "it barely suffices". The pitfall for an English speaker is to always understand it as "come on!", when the context and the tense of the verb often point to the "only just" meaning.
Example
يالله نمشيو، راه تعطلنا
yallah nmchiw, rah t3ettelna
“Come on, let's go, we're late.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “yallah” but also “yalah”, “yalla” and “yalla8”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 8 is light ha (ه) or ghayn (غ), depending on the writer.
Type “yallah” on the Arabic keyboard
In Algerian Darja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Algerian Darja, where it means “come on, let's go, hurry”; “oh God (invocation)”: yallah in Algerian.
In Tunisian Derja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Tunisian Derja, where it means “come on, go ahead, let's go”; “hurry up”: yallah in Tunisian.