All About Possession In Moroccan Arabic

Expressing possession in Moroccan Arabic is a skill that you will carry with you in your everyday situations, that’s why it’s a necessity to learn it, the good news is it’s simple and this lesson will prove you just that.

There are two ways to express possession in Moroccan Arabic: adding the word “Dyal” (or its synonyms) or adding possessive suffixes.

Expressing Possession With The Word “Dyal” (and its synonyms)

Take a look at this sentence: hadi tefaha dyal Oualid, (this is the apple of Oualid) dyal here is the equivalent of of in English, what if we want to say “my apple, his apple” for example?:

English	Transcribed Moroccan Arabic	Using Arabic Alphabet
My/Mine	Dyali	ديالي
Your/Yours	Dyalk	ديالك
His/His	Dyalo	ديالو
Her/Hers	Dyalha	ديالها
Our/Ours	Dyalna	ديالنا
Your/Yours (plural)	Dyalkum	ديالكم
Their/Theirs	Dyalhum	ديالهم

Example: ktab (book):

English	Transcribelktab d Moroccan Arabic	Using Arabic Alphabet
My book	lktab dyali	الكتاب ديالي
Your book	lktab dyalk	الكتاب ديالك
His book	lktab dyalo	الكتاب ديالو
Her book	lktab dyalha	الكتاب ديالها
Our book	lktab dyalna	الكتاب ديالنا
Your book (plural)	lktab dyalkum	الكتاب ديالكم
Their book	lktab dyalhum	الكتاب ديالهم

Notice that the noun used with “dyal” is alwasy used with the definite article.

Expressing Possession With The Possessive Suffixes

The Possessive Suffixes In Moroccan Arabic:

English	Transcribed Moroccan Arabic	Using Arabic Alphabet
My	-i	-ي
Your	-k	-ك
His	-o	-و
Her	-ha	-ها
Our	-na	-نا
Your (plural)	-kum	-كم
Their	-hum	-هم

Examples:

Ktab:

English	Transcribed Moroccan Arabic	Using Arabic Alphabet
My	ktabi	كتابي
Your	ktabk	كتابك
His	ktabo	كتابو
Her	ktabha	كتابها
Our	ktabna	كتابنا
Your (plural)	ktabkum	كتابكم
Their	ktabhum	كتابهم

Tefaha:

As almost every word that has “a” at the end, Tefaha/تفاحة is a feminine word, that “a” at the end is the Arabic “taa marbota” that comes at the end of the feminine words as we talked about here. With that being said, adding the possessive suffix will require transforming that “a” to its origin “t” :

English	Transcribed Moroccan Arabic	Using Arabic Alphabet
My	tefahti	تفاحتي
Your	tefahtk	تفاحتك
His	tefahto	تفاحتو
Her	tefahtha	تفاحتها
Our	tefahtna	تفاحتنا
Your (plural)	tefahtkum	تفاحتكم
Their	tefahthum	تفاحتهم

Note: you can practice what you’ve learned here, and learn how to pronounce each of the words in our Memrise course here, don’t know how to use the platform or sign up? we’ve got you covered in this easy-to-follow tutorial here.

Happy learning