mar9a مرقة
Tunisian Derja · noun
“mar9a” (مرقة) is a noun in Tunisian Derja meaning stew in sauce.
Meanings
- stew in sauce
- sauce of a dish
Usage
Mar9a means a slow-cooked dish in sauce, usually tomato-based, with a vegetable and often meat. It is built with the vegetable as a complement: "mar9et batata" (potato stew), "mar9et jelbena" (pea stew), "mar9et brouklou" (cauliflower stew). Before a complement, the ending becomes -et. The word also means the sauce itself, the one you scoop up with bread. Couscous also has its mar9a, poured over the grain. This everyday word belongs to the vocabulary of home cooking.
Example
أمي طيّبت مرقة جلبانة بالعلوش.
ommi tayyبت mar9et jelbena bel 3allouch.
“My mother cooked a pea stew with lamb.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “mar9a” but also “mar9et”, “marqa” and “marka”. 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 “mar9a” on the Arabic keyboard
In Moroccan Darija
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Moroccan Darija, where it means “sauce of a stewed dish”; “broth”: merqa in Moroccan.