yalla

What it means

1. 1.

   Come on; let's go; hurry up. A general call to get moving, and one of the most fully naturalised Arabic borrowings in German youth speech — used by speakers with no Arabic connection at all.

2. 2.

   Also a sign-off, roughly 'right, I'm off': 'Yalla, bis später.'

Examples with translations

• Yalla, wir kommen zu spät!

  Come on, we're going to be late!

• Yalla, Leute, aufstehen.

  Right, everyone, up you get.

Where it comes from

From Arabic يا الله yā allāh, literally 'O God', long since worn down to a simple 'come on' across the Arabic-speaking world; Turkish has the same word as hadi/yallah, and both communities carried it into German. It reached general youth speech through schoolyards and rap rather than through any single song, and is now neutral enough to appear in advertising.

Other forms

Spellings and variants:

yallah, jalla