In Arabic, yallah is used to move things along. It is a call to action, an expression of urgency, encouragement or even impatience.
It can be translated to “let's go”, but its meaning is shaped entirely by context. You might hear it when someone wants you to hurry up, when a group is ready to leave, or when a conversation has gone on too long. It can be warm, firm, supportive or exasperated.
Yallah is a fusion of two words: ya, which is a vocative particle similar to “oh” or “hey” in English, and Allah, the Arabic word for God. It is a contraction of ya Allah, meaning oh God.
Over time, it became secularised in daily speech. Its religious weight is not as overt any more, but the word retains the energy of its plea.
If you are running late and you would like a friend to hurry up, you could say: yallah taakharna. If you’re waiting for them downstairs and want to hurry up and make a move: yallah, ana taht.
You could even use it to wrap up a conversation: yallah, binhki baadein – or yallah, we’ll talk later. To encourage someone, you could say: yallah, feek taamilha – yallah, you can do it. You could even use it to cheer your favourite sports team, simply by shouting yallah, yallah.
Yallah is one of those words that has outgrown its origins, perhaps due to its flexibility. This is most evident by its prevalence in pop culture and music.
Nancy Ajram, Cheb Khaled and Ragheb Alama all have songs with yallah in their title, but non-Arab singers have also adopted the word. Romanian singer Inna has a 2015 dance hit named Yalla. Iranian-Swedish singer Arash also has a song with US rapper T-Pain called Yalla.
