Arabic phonology: arabic language morphology phonology phonology world

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]

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:

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]

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/.

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]}

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 are not present 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. ^[15]^[25] 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.^[26]

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]}

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]}

Cairene

The Arabic of Cairo has emphatic labials [mˤ] and [bˤ]^[30] and emphatic [rˤ]^[31] 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 /ɡ/ and debuccalized /q/ to [ʔ] (again, loanwords from Standard Arabic have reintroduced the earlier sound).^[32] 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 [ˈɡibnɐ] ('cheese') vs [ˈɡebnɐ] ('our pocket').^[33] Cairene also has /ʒ/ as a marginal phoneme from loanwords.^[34]

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 /ɡ/ but as a reflex of Classical /q/ (which still functions as an emphatic consonant).Watson (2002:23)</ref> In unstressed syllables, Ṣan‘ā’ni short vowels may be reduced to [ə].^[35] and /tˤ/ is voiced to [dˤ] in initial and intervocalic positions.^[36]

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):

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.

History

Of the 29 Proto-Semitic consonants, only one has been lost: */ʃ/, which merged with /s/.^[37] 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).^[38] An original voiceless alveolar lateral fricative */ɬ/ became /ʃ/.^[39] 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.^[40]

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.^[41]

References

^ Kirchhoff & Vergyri (2005:38)
^ Kirchhoff & Vergyri (2005:38-39)
^ Holes (2004:57)
^ Thelwall (1990:39)
^ Thelwall (1990:39)
^ Holes (2004:60)
^ Abd-El-Jawad (1987:359)
^ Abd-El-Jawad (1987:361)
^ Watson (1999:290)
^ Watson (1999:290)
^ Davis (1995:466)
^ Thelwall (1990:38)
^ Thelwall (1990:38)
^ ^a ^b Elementary Modern Standard Arabic: Volume 1, by Peter F. Abboud (Editor), Ernest N. McCarus (Editor)
^ ^a ^b ^c Teach Yourself Arabic, by Jack Smart (Author), Frances Altorfer (Author)
^ Holes (2004:58)
^ Watson (2002:44)
^ Thelwall cites Gairdner (1925), Al Ani (1970), and Käster (1981)
^ Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:167-168)
^ Watson (2002:16)
^ Watson (2002:18)
^ Watson (2002:16)
^ Holes (2004:95)
^ Ferguson (1956:449)
^ Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic by Hans Wehr
^ Thelwall (1990:38)
^ Watson (2002:22)
^ Watson (2002:14)
^ Watson (2002:60-62), citing Ṣan‘ā’ni and Cairene as examples with and without this phoneme, respectively.
^ Watson (2002:14)
^ Watson (2002:16)
^ Watson (2002:22)
^ Watson (2002:23)
^ Watson (2002:21)
^ Watson (2002:40)
^ Watson (2002:14)
^ Lipinski (1997:124)
^ Watson (2002:5, 15-16)
^ Watson (2002:2)
^ Watson (2002:2)
^ Watson (2002:2)

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