Arabic phonology

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The Arabic alphabet
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The Arabic language has a standard pronunciation, which is basically the one used to recite the Qur'an. The same pronunciation is used in newscasts, discourses and formal actuations of all types.

As in other widely used languages, dialects of Arabic pronounce some letters differently.

Standard Arabic (or Quraanic Arabic) has 28 consonant sounds, represented by the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet, and three vowel sounds. Both consonants and vowels may be short or long; long consonants are marked with the shadda (sign of gemination, literally "sign of emphasis" in Arabic), whereas long vowels are marked with the letters ا (alif), ي (yā) or و (wāw) quiescent (then called matres lectionis or "mothers of reading").

Vowels and diphthongs

There are three short vowels, three long vowels and two diphthongs (formed by a combination of short a with the semivowels y and w).

• Short a is pronounced like e in English bed but with the tongue towards the center of the mouth: IPA [ɛ̈]. However, in an environment of velarised or laryngeal (so called "emphatic") consonants, it is pronounced like a short version of the first vowel in English father: IPA [ɑ].
• Short i is pronounced like i in English sit: IPA [ɪ].
• Short u is pronounced like u in English put: IPA [ʊ].
• Long a (ā) is pronounced like a long version of the vowel in English man: IPA [æː]. In promixity to velarised consonants, as well as after r, it is pronounced like the first vowel in English father: IPA [ɑː].
• Long i (ī) is pronounced like ee in English need: IPA [iː].
• Long u (ū) is pronounced like uh in German Stuhl: IPA [uː]. (Note: oo in English tool is different - it is centralised)
• The diphthong ai (equivalently ay) is pronounced as a combination of the short a and short i: [ɛ̈ɪ]. In a velarised environment it is pronounced with a back first element: IPA [ɑɪ].
• The diphthong au (equivalently aw) is pronounced as a combination of the short a and short u: [ɛ̈ʊ]. Near velarised consonants it is pronounced with a back first element: IPA [ɑʊ].

Consonants

The 28 consonant sounds of Arabic are the following: (Letters left without a comment are pronounced more or less like in English.)

Standard Arabic consonant phonemes

		Bilabial	Inter- dental	Dental (incl. alveolar)		Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyn- geal	Glottal
				plain	emphatic
Stop	voiceless
	voiced
Fricative	voiceless
	voiced
Nasal
Lateral
Trill
Approximant

1. [dʒ] is pronounced as [ɡ] by some speakers. This is especially characteristic of the Egyptian and southern Yemeni dialects. In many parts of North Africa and in the Levant, it is pronounced as [ʒ], and in certain regions of Oman it is pronounced as [j].

To pronounce the four emphatics, make your tongue broader and cover the side teeth with it, and lower the back of the tongue. The four corresponding "unemphatics" (s, d, t, dh) are pronounced with a narrow tongue and with the back of the tongue raised. You also lower the back of the tongue to pronounce q and r.

Long consonants are pronounced exactly like short consonants, but last longer. Arabs call them "mushaddadah" i.e. "strengthened", but they are not pronounced any stronger, just held longer.

Local variations

Most variation on spoken Arabic pronounce certain letters different than the pronunciation of literary Arabic. Or, to put it differently, spoken and literary Arabic differ not only in specific words but also contain changes throughout the board in the pronunciations of certain sounds.

A good example would be Egyptian Arabic.

• The letter ﻕ (q) is pronounced like a glottal stop in most (but not all) words.
• The letter ﺝ (j) is pronounced as g. Foreign words which contain the sound j are written with چ, the same special variation used in some other dialects to pronounce g.
• The letter ﺙ (th) is pronounced as s. Thus Umm Kulthum is actually pronounced Umm Kalsoum.
• The letter ﺫ (dh) is usually pronounced as z, sometimes as d.
• The letter ﻅ (emphatic dh) is pronounced as emphatic z.

Other dialects have similar variations. The letter most prone to variations in pronunciation seems to be ﻕ. This sometimes leads to variations in transliteration systems.

This does not mean that Egyptians recite the Qur'an differently or that they do not know the standard pronunciation: all of them can pronounce a q correctly and understand Standard Arabic when necessary.

Distribution

The most frequent phoneme of Arabic is rāʼ, the rarest is ẓāʼ. The frequency distribution of the 28 consonantal phonemes, based on the 2,967 triliteral roots listed by Wehr (1952) is (with the percentage of roots in which each phoneme occurs):

Phoneme	Frequency
	24%
	18%
	17%
	17%
	17%
	16%
	14%
	13%
	13%
	13%
	13%
	12%
	12%
	11%
	10%
	9%
	8%
	8%
	8%
	8%
	7%
	7%
	6%
	5%
	5%
	3%
	3%
	1%

This distribution does not necessarily reflect the actual frequency of occurrence of the phonemes in speech, since pronouns, prepositions and suffixes are not taken into account, and the roots themselves will occur with varying frequency. The list does give, however, an idea of which phonemes are more marginal than others. It will be noted that the five least frequent letters are among the six letters added to those inherited from the Phoenician alphabet.

References

• Hans Wehr, Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart (1952)

See also

• Qaddafi spelling variations (Example of confusion generated by translation of non-standard ﻕ pronunciation).

 

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