bayya3 بياع
Tunisian Derja · noun
“bayya3” (بياع) is a noun in Tunisian Derja meaning seller, vendor.
Meanings
- seller, vendor
- traitor, snitch (slang)
Usage
Bayya3 refers to someone who sells, often a small trader: "bayya3 el ghalla" (the fruit seller), "bayya3 el 7out" (the fishmonger). It is usually completed by what is being sold. The plural is bayy3a, the feminine is bayy3a. In slang, especially among young people and in stadiums, bayya3 takes a pejorative sense: someone who "sells out" others. It then means a traitor, a snitch or a turncoat. Only context tells the occupation apart from the mild insult.
Example
البياع قالي الطماطم غالية اليوم.
el bayya3 9alli et-tmatem ghalya el youm.
“The seller told me tomatoes are expensive today.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “bayya3” but also “baya3”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 3 is ayn (ع), a voiced sound from deep in the throat with no English equivalent.
Type “bayya3” on the Arabic keyboard
In Moroccan Darija
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Moroccan Darija, where it means “seller, vendor”; “traitor, snitch”: beyya3 in Moroccan.
In Algerian Darja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Algerian Darja, where it means “snitch, informer”; “traitor, one who betrays his own”: baya3 in Algerian.