9adech قداش
Tunisian Derja · pronoun
“9adech” (قداش) is a pronoun in Tunisian Derja meaning how much, how many.
Meanings
- how much, how many
- how long
- how (exclamation)
Usage
9adech is the common question word for quantity, price or duration. It is used alone (9adech?, "how much is it?") or before a singular noun: 9adech men wa9t, "how long". With the preposition b-, b9adech means "at what price, for how much". It also works as an exclamation: 9adech mezyen!, "how beautiful it is!". Suffixed forms such as 9adeh, "its size, its quantity", belong to the same family. 9adech is followed directly by the noun or the verb, with no linking word like "of".
Example
زعمة قدّاش عطوهم
Za3ma 9adech 3twhom
“I wonder how much they gave them.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “9adech” but also “9addech”, “9adach”, “kadech”, “gadech” and “gidech”. 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.
Type “9adech” on the Arabic keyboard
In Algerian Darja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Algerian Darja, where it means “how much, how many”; “how, to what extent (exclamatory)”: 9edach in Algerian.