Wallahi
"I swear to God" in Arabic — used constantly across the GTA thanks to the city's large Somali and Arab communities, well beyond just those speaking Arabic at home.
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How it's used
This is conversational glue — words and tags that hold a sentence together in everyday GTA speech.
“Wallahi I'm not lying, ask anyone who was there.”
Where it comes from
Origin: Arabic, common via Toronto's Somali and Arab communities. It's part of the Somali- and Arabic-rooted vocabulary that entered Toronto slang through the city's East African and Middle Eastern communities. Read more in our history of Toronto slang.
Sources
Specific source for this entry: CBC Toronto — "Wallahi, it's not just Toronto slang anymore". General research sources for the whole dictionary are listed in SOURCES.md.
This word is a possible Torontle answer — the Wordle-style game built from this dictionary.
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