Arabic phonology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This articles is about the Modern Standard Arabic phonology. See also Varieties of Arabic.

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

This article contains Arabic text, written from right to left in a cursive style with some letters joined. Without proper rendering support, you may see unjoined Arabic letters written left-to-right, instead of right-to-left or other symbols instead of Arabic script.

While many languages have numerous dialects that differ in pronunciation, the Arabic language is more properly described as a collection of different varieties or Macrolanguage.^[1] This article deals primarily with Modern Standard Arabic, which is the standard variety shared by educated speakers throughout Arabic-speaking regions. Modern Standard Arabic is used in writing in all print media and orally in newscasts, speeches and formal declarations of all types^[2].

Modern Standard Arabic has 28 consonant phonemes, making phonemic contrasts between "emphatic" (pharyngealized or velarized) consonants and non-emphatic ones; Arabic also has three vowel phonemes. However, by the 8th century the letter alif no longer represented a glottal stop, but a long /aː/. As a result, a diacritic symbol, hamza, was introduced to represent this sound.^{[citation needed]} In addition, some of these phonemes have coalesced in the various modern dialects, while new phonemes have been introduced through borrowing or phonemic splits. A "phonemic quality of length" applies to consonants as well as vowels.^[3]

Contents 1 Vowels 2 Consonants 3 Local variations 3.1 Cairene 3.2 San`a' 4 Distribution 5 History 6 References 7 Bibliography

[edit] Vowels

There are three short vowels, three long vowels and two diphthongs (formed by a combination of short /a/ with the semivowels /j/ and /w/). Allophony is partially conditioned by neighboring consonants within the same word. As a general rule, for example, /a/ and /aː/ are:

• retracted to [ɑ] in the environment of a neighboring /r/, /q/ or an emphatic consonant;^[4]
• [ɐ] before a word boundary;^[5]
• advanced to [æ] in the environment of plain labial and coronal consonants as well as /j/;^[6]

However, the actual rules governing vowel-retraction are a good deal more complex, and have relatively little in the way of an agreed-upon standard for MSA, as there are often competing notions of what constitutes a "prestige" form.^[7] Often, even highly proficient speakers of MSA will import the vowel-retraction rules from their native dialects.^[8] Thus, for example, in the Arabic of someone from Cairo emphatic consonants will affect every vowel between word boundaries, whereas certain Saudi speakers exhibit emphasis only on the vowels adjacent to an emphatic consonant.^[9] Certain speakers (most notably Levantine speakers) exhibit a degree of asymmetry in leftward vs. rightward spread of vowel-retraction.^[10][11]

Example words^[12]

	short		long
i	عـِد‎ /ʕidd/	promise	عيد‎ /ʕiːd/	feast
u	عـُد‎ /ʕudd/	come back!	عود‎ /ʕuːd/	lute
a	عـَد‎ /ʕadd/	counted	عاد‎ /ʕaːd/	came back
aj			عين‎ /ʕajn/	eye
aw			عود‎ /ʕawd/	return

The final heavy syllable of a root morpheme is stressed.^[13]

The vowels /o/, /oː/, /e/ and /eː/ appear in some stable loanwords or foreign names. ^[14]. E.g. كوكاكولا /koːkaˈkoːla/ ('Coca-Cola'), ليمون /lajˈmoːn/ or /liˈmoːn/ ('lemon'), شوكولاتة /ʃokoˈlaːta/ ('chocolate'), دكتور /dukˈtoːr/ or /dokˈtoːr/ ('doctor'), جون /dʒon/ or /ʒoːn/ ('John'), توم /tom/ ('Tom'), بلجيكا /belˈdʒiːka/ or /belˈʒiːka/ ('Belgium'), سكرتير /sekreˈteːr/ ('secretary'), etc. Foreign words often have a liberal sprinkling of long vowels, as their word shapes do not conform to the usual guidelines, which may be used to render short vowels.^[15] For short vowels /e/ and /o/ in foreign words, there may be no written letter written, as is normally done in Arabic (unless they are at the beginning of a word), or long vowel letters ي (for /e/) or و (for /o/) are used. Letters ي or و are always used to render the long vowels /eː/ and /oː/.

[edit] Consonants

Even in the most formal of conventions, pronunciation depends upon a speaker's background.^[16] Nevertheless, the number and phonetic character of most of the 28 consonants has a broad degree of regularity among Arabic-speaking regions. Note that Arabic is particularly rich in uvular, pharyngeal, and pharyngealized ("emphatic") sounds. The emphatic coronals (/sˤ/, /dˤ/, /tˤ/, and /ðˤ/) cause assimilation of emphasis to adjacent non-emphatic coronal consonants.^{[citation needed]}

Standard Arabic consonant phonemes

		Labial	Inter- dental	Dental/Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyn- geal2	Glottal
				plain	emphatic1
Nasal		م‎ m		ن‎ n
Stop	voiceless			ت‎ t	ط‎ tˤ		ك‎ k	ق‎ q		ء‎ ʔ
	voiced	ب‎ b		د‎ d	ض‎ dˤ	ج‎ dʒ ~ g3
Fricative	voiceless	ف‎ f	ث‎ θ	س‎ s	ص‎ sˤ	ش‎ ʃ	خ‎ x ~ χ		ح‎ ħ	ه‎ h
	voiced		ذ‎ ð	ز‎ z	ظ‎ ðˤ		غ‎ ɣ ~ ʁ		ع‎ ʕ
Trill				ر‎ r
Approximant				ل‎ l	(lˤ)4	ي‎ j	و‎ w

1. Emphatic consonants are pronounced with the back of the tongue approaching the pharynx (see pharyngealization). /q/, /ħ/, and /ʕ/ can be considered the emphatic counterparts to /k/, /h/, and /ʔ/ respectively.^[17]
2. Thelwall (1990) argues^[18] that Arabic descriptions of a voiced pharyngeal fricative are incorrect and that Arabic varieties instead possesses a pharyngealized glottal stop ([ʔˤ]. Epiglottal realizations for /ħ/ and /ʕ/ have also been reported.^[19]
3. ج‎ (/dʒ/) is pronounced as [ɡ] by some speakers. This is especially characteristic of the Egyptian and southern Yemeni dialects.^[20] In many parts of North Africa and in the Levant, it is pronounced as [ʒ], and in certain regions of the Persian Gulf it is pronounced as [j]. In classical Arabic, this was either [ɟ] or [gʲ]. Foreign words containing /g/ may be transcribed with ج‎ (Egypian spelling), غ‎, ك‎ or Persian letter گ‎, for example, both جولف and غولف (even كولف or گولف) /golf/ golf are all possible spellings. ^[21]
4. In most pronunciations of Standard Arabic, /lˤ/ occurs in a handful of loanwords and الله /ʔalˤˈlˤaːh/, the name of God, q.e. Allah,^[22] except when following long or short /i/ when it is not emphatic: بسم الله bismi l-lāh [bismilˈlaːh] ('in the name of God').^[23] However, /lˤ/ is a somewhat more common phoneme than this in certain dialects, such as Iraqi, where the uvulars have velarized surrounding instances of /l/ in certain environments. /lˤ/ also assumes phonemic status more commonly in pronunciations of Standard Arabic influenced by such dialects (occasionally alongside /rˤ/, /bˤ/ and /mˤ/ as is the case in Cairo) though it is still a marginal phoneme.^[24]

In most dialects, uvular fricatives of the classical period have become velar or post-velar.^[25]

Foreign sounds /p/, /v/ are usually transcribed as ب /b/ and ف /f/, respectively. In some words, they are pronounced as in the original language (/p/ and /v/), e.g. باكستان or پاکستان /pakistaːn/ Pakistan, فيروس or ﭬيروس /viːrus, vajrus/ virus, etc. Sometimes Persian letters (with 3 dots) ﭖ /p/ and ﭪ^{[citation needed]} /v/ letters are used for this purpose. As these letters lack on standard keyboards, they are simply written with ب /b/ and ف /f/, e.g. both نوفمبر and نوڤمبر /nuːfambar/, /novambar/ or /novembir/ November, both كاپريس and كابريس /kaː'priːs/ caprice can be used. ^[26][27] The use of both sounds may be considered marginal and Arabs may pronounce the words interchangeably; besides, many loanwords have become arabised.

Long consonants are pronounced exactly like short consonants, but last longer. In Arabic, they are called them "mushaddadah" (strengthened), but they are not pronounced any stronger, just held longer. Between a geminate consonant and a pause, an epenthetic [ə] occurs.^[28]

See also Sun and moon letters

[edit] Local variations

Colloquial varieties differ from Standard Arabic not only in specific words but also in pronunciation. Trends common to most or many dialects include:^{[citation needed]}

• Realization of the voiced emphatic dental fricative [ðˤ] as [zˤ], merging it with [dˤ], or both.
• Debuccalizing /q/ to [ʔ] or fronting it to [k].
• Monophthongizing diphthongs such as /aj/ and /aw/ to /eː/ and /oː/, respectively. Mid vowels may also be present in loanwords such as ملبورن (Melbórn Melbourne), سكرتير (/sikriteːr/ '(male) secretary') and دكتور (/duktoːr/, 'doctor'). ^[29]
• Loss of the glottal stop in places where it is historically attested, as in /samaːʔ/.
• Raising word final /a/ to [e].
• In dialects like North Mesopotamian, many Bedouin dialects of the Maghrib, and Mauritanian, /i/ and /u/ have collapsed to schwa and exhibit very little distinction so that such dialects have only (long and short) /a/ and /ə/. Similarly, certain Sudanese and Cairene dialects exhibit contrasts between /i/ and /u/ in limited contexts.^[30]
• A number of dialects have the marginal phonemes /v/ (for educated speakers) and /p/, largely from loanwords^[31] as in ڤولڤو (Volvo 'Volvo') and سڤن أپ (sevn-ap 'Seven-Up'). /tʃ/ is another possible loanword phoneme, as in the word سندوتش (sandawitsh 'sandwich'), though a number of varieties instead break up the /t/ and /ʃ/ sounds with an epenthetic vowel.^[32]

Despite differences amongst colloquial varieties, there is a great deal of regional consistency in speakers' recitation of the Qur'an as many fluently speak and understand the standard pronunciation.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Cairene

The Arabic of Cairo has emphatic labials [mˤ] and [bˤ]^[33] and emphatic [rˤ]^[34] with marginal phonemic status. Cairene has also merged the interdental consonants with the dental plosives (e.g. /θalaːθa/ → /talaːta/, 'three') except in loanwords from Standard Arabic where they are nativized as sibilant fricatives (e.g. /θaːnawiːja/ → /saːnawiːja/, 'secondary school'). Cairene has also retracted /dʒ/ to /g/ and debuccalized /q/ to [ʔ] (again, loanwords from Standard Arabic have reintroduced the earlier sound).^[35] Classical Arabic diphthongs /aj/ and /aw/ became realized as /eː/ and /oː/ respectively; loanwords from Standard Arabic reintroduced the diphthongs, sometimes with minimal pairs like /ʃajla/ ('carrying' f.s.) vs /ʃeːla/ ('burden') as well as [ˈgibnɐ] ('cheese') vs [ˈgebnɐ] ('our pocket').^[36] Cairene also has /ʒ/ as a marginal phoneme from loanwords.^[37]

[edit] San`a'

Varieties such as that of Ṣan‘ā’, Yemen, are more conservative and retain most phonemic contrasts of Classical Arabic. Ṣan‘ā’ni possesses /g/ but as a reflex of Classical /q/ (which still functions as an emphatic consonant).^[38] In unstressed syllables, Ṣan‘ā’ni short vowels may be reduced to [ə].^[39] and /tˤ/ is voiced to [dˤ] in initial and intervocalic positions.^[40]

[edit] Distribution

The most frequent consonant phoneme of Arabic is /r/, the rarest is /ðˤ/. The frequency distribution of the 28 consonant 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		Phoneme	Frequency
/r/	24%		/w/	18%
/l/	17%		/m/	17%
/n/	17%		/b/	16%
/f/	14%		/ʕ/	13%
/q/	13%		/d/	13%
/s/	13%		/ħ/	12%
/j/	12%		/ʃ/	11%
/dʒ/	10%		/k/	9%
/h/	8%		/z/	8%
/tˤ/	8%		/x/	8%
/sˤ/	7%		/ʔ/	7%
/t/	6%		/dˤ/	5%
/ɣ/	5%		/θ/	3%
/ð/	3%		/ðˤ/	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. In particular, /t/ occurs in several extremely common affixes (occurring in the marker for second-person or feminine third-person as a prefix, the marker for first-person or feminine third-person as a suffix, and as the second element of Forms VIII and X as an infix) despite being fifth from last on Wehr's list. The list does give, however, an idea of which phonemes are more marginal than others. Note that the five least frequent letters are among the six letters added to those inherited from the Phoenician alphabet.

[edit] History

Of the 29 Proto-Semitic consonants, only one has been lost: */ʃ/, which merged with /s/.^[41] Various other consonants have changed their sound too, but have remained distinct. An original */p/ lenited to /f/, and */ɡ/ became palatalized to /ɡʲ/ or /ɟ/ by the time of the Qur'an and /dʒ/ in MSA (see above for more detail).^[42] An original voiceless alveolar lateral fricative */ɬ/ became /ʃ/.^[43] Its emphatic counterpart was considered by Arabs to be the most unusual sound in Arabic (Hence the Classical Arabic's appellation luġatu 'ḍ-ḍād or "language of the ḍād"); for most modern dialects, it has become an emphatic stop /dˤ/ with loss of the laterality.^[44]

Other changes may also have happened. Classical Arabic pronunciation is not thoroughly recorded, and different reconstructions of the sound system of Proto-Semitic propose different phonetic values. One example is the emphatic consonants, which are pharyngealized in modern pronunciations may have been velarized in the eighth century and glottalized in Proto-Semitic.^[45]

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

• Abd-El-Jawad, Hassan (1987), "Cross-Dialectal Variation in Arabic: Competing Prestigious Forms", Language in Society (Cambridge University Press) 16 (3): 359–367, doi:10.1017/S0047404500012446 
• Al Ani, S.H. (1970), Arabic Phonology: An Acoustical and Physiological Investigation, The Hague: Mouton 
• Davis, Stuart (1995), "Emphasis Spread in Arabic and Grounded Phonology", Linguistic Inquiry (The MIT Press) 26 (3): 465–498 
• Ferguson, Charles (1956), "The Emphatic L in Arabic", Language (Linguistic Society of America) 32: 446, doi:10.2307/410565 
• Gairdner, W.H.T. (1925), The Phonetics of Arabic., London: Oxford University Press 
• Hans Wehr, (1952) Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart
• Holes, Clive (2004), Modern Arabic: Structures, Functions, and Varieties, Georgetown University Press, ISBN 1589010221 
• Kästner, H. (1981), Phonetik und Phonologie des modernen Hocharabisch, Leipzig: Verlag Enzyklopädie 
• Kirchhoff, Katrin; Vergyri, Dimitra (2005), "Cross-dialectal data sharing for acoustic modeling in Arabic speech recognition", Speech Communication 46 (1): 37–51, doi:10.1016/j.specom.2005.01.004 
• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996), The Sounds of the World's Languages, Oxford: Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-19815-6 
• Lipinski, E. (1997), Semitic Languages, Leuven: Peters 
• Thelwall, Robin (1990), "Illustrations of the IPA: Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20 (2): 37–41 
• Watson, Janet (1999), "The Directionality of Emphasis Spread in Arabic", Linguistic Inquiry (The MIT Press) 30 (2): 289–300, doi:10.1162/002438999554066 
• Watson, Janet C. E. (2002), The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, New York: Oxford University Press 

v • d • e Phonologies of the world's languages Abkhaz · Arabic · Belarusian · Bengali · Catalan · Czech · Danish · Dutch · English (Old · Australian) · Esperanto · Finnish · French (Quebec) · German (Bernese) · Greek (Ancient · Koine) · Gujarati · Hawaiian · Hebrew · Hindi-Urdu · Hungarian · Icelandic · Inuit · Irish · Italian · Japanese · Kiowa · Korean · Latin · Macedonian · Mahal · Mapudungun · Marathi · Navajo · Norwegian · Ojibwe · Ottawa · Persian · Polish · Portuguese · Proto-Indo-European · Romanian · Russian · Scottish Gaelic · Sesotho · Somali · Spanish · Swedish · Tagalog · Tamil · Taos · Turkish · Ubykh · Ukrainian · Vietnamese · Welsh · Yiddish · Zuni

v • d • e Arabic · العربية Overviews Language · Alphabet · History · Transliteration · Numerology · Influence on other languages Alphabet Western numerals · Eastern numerals · Diacritics · Hamza Letters ʾAlif · Bāʾ · Tāʾ · Ṯāʾ · Ǧīm · Ḥāʾ · Ḫāʾ · Dāl · Ḏāl · Rāʾ · Zayn · Sīn · Šīn · Ṣād · Ḍād · Ṭāʾ · Ẓāʾ · ʿAyn · Ġain · Fāʾ · Qāf · Kāf · Lām · Mīm · Nūn · Hāʾ · Wāw · Yāʾ Eras Ancient North Arabian · Classical · Modern Major varieties Modern Standard Arabic (formal)  · Maghrebi · Egyptian · Sudanese  · Levantine · Arabian · Iraqi · Judeo-Arabic Academic Literature · Names Calligraphy and scripts Naskh · Kufic · Thuluth · Ruq'ah · Diwani · Muhaqqaq · Maghrebi · Hejazi · Mashq · Jawi Linguistics Phonology · Sun and moon letters · ʼIʻrab (inflection) · IPA · Grammar · Triliteral root · Mater lectionis

v • d • e Varieties of Arabic Pre-Muslim conquests Ancient North Arabian† (Safaitic†, Lihyanitic†, Thamudic†, Hasaitic†) · Classical Arabic Modern Literary Variety Modern Standard Arabic Maghreb Moroccan Arabic · Algerian Arabic · Tunisian Arabic · Andalusian Arabic† · Libyan Arabic · Jebli Arabic · Jijel Arabic · Saharan Arabic · Hassānīya · Darija Levant Lebanese Arabic · Syrian Arabic · North Syrian Arabic · Palestinian Arabic · Bedawi Arabic · Cypriot Maronite Arabic Mesopotamia Iraqi Arabic (Baghdad Arabic) · North Mesopotamian Arabic Arabia Gulf Arabic · Bahrani Arabic · Najdi Arabic · Hejazi Arabic · Sharqi Arabic · Yemeni Arabic · Hadhrami Arabic · Dhofari Arabic · Omani Arabic · Shihhi Arabic Nile Valley Egyptian Arabic · Sa'idi Arabic · Sudanese Arabic Peripheral Nigerian Arabic . Chadian Arabic · Khuzestani Arabic · Shirvani Arabic† · Central Asian Arabic · Tajiki Arabic · Uzbeki Arabic Judeo-Arabic Judeo-Moroccan Arabic · Judeo-Yemeni Arabic · Judeo-Iraqi Arabic (Baghdad Arabic (Jewish)) · Judeo-Tripolitanian Arabic · Judeo-Tunisian Arabic Italo-Maltese Maltese · Siculo-Arabic† Creoles Nubi language · Babalia Creole Arabic · Juba Arabic † Extinct