Arabic phonology
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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, formal declarations of all types,^[2] and recitations of the Qur'an.

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. 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. For example, /a/ and /aː/ are:

• retracted to [ɑ] in the environment of a neighboring /r/, /q/, a velar/uvular fricative,^[4] or an emphatic consonant;^[5]
• [ɐ] before a word boundary;^[6]
• advanced to [æ] in the environment of plain labial and coronal consonants as well as /j/;^[7]

Other vowels exhibit similar allophony. Although there are long and short vowels, length distinctions are neutralized before a pause where all vowels appear as short.

Vowels of a Palestinian speaker educated in Beirut. From Thelwall (1990:38)

The final heavy syllable of a root morpheme is stressed.^[9]

Consonants

Even in the most formal of conventions, pronunciation depends upon a speaker's background.^[10] Nevertheless, the number and phonetic character of most of the 28 consonants has a broad degree of regularity among Arabic-speaking regions.

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.^[11]
2. Thelwall (1990) argues^[12] 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.^[13]
3. /dʒ/ is pronounced as [ɡ] by some speakers. This is especially characteristic of the Egyptian and southern Yemeni dialects.^[14] 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]. In classical Arabic, this was either [ɟ] or [gʲ].
4. In most pronunciations of Standard Arabic, /lˤ/ occurs in a handful of loanwords and /ʔalˤˈlˤaːh/, the name of God, i.e. Allah,^[15] except when following long or short /i/ when it is not emphatic: bismi l-lāh [bismilˈlaːh] ('in the name of God').^[16] 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.^[17]

In most dialects, uvular fricatives of the classical period have become velar or post-velar.^[18]

Long consonants are pronounced exactly like short consonants, but last longer. In Arabic, they are called them "mushaddadah" i.e. "strengthened", but they are not pronounced any stronger, just held longer. Between a geminate consonant and a pause, an epinthetic [ə] occurs.^[19]

See also: solar letters and lunar letters

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.
• Loss of the glottal stop in places where it is historically attested, as in /samaːʔ/.
• Raising word final/a/ to /e/.
• An increase in the number of vowel phonemes.

Cairene

The Arabic of Cairo, for example, has emphatic labials [mˤ] and [bˤ]^[20] and emphatic [rˤ]^[21] 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/ (while adopting loanwords from Standard Arabic with /dʒ/) and debuccalized /q/ to [ʔ] (again, loanwords from Standard Arabic have reintroduced this sound).^[22] Classical Arabic diphthongs /aj/ and /aw/ became realized as /eː/ and /oː/ respectfully; 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').^[23]

San'a'

Other 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).^[24] In unstressed syllables, Ṣan‘ā’ni short vowels may be reduced to [ə].^[25] and /tˤ/ is voiced to [dˤ] in initial and intervocalic positions.^[26]

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}

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/ is 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.

References

Bibliography

• Al Ani, S.H. (1970), written at The Hague, Arabic Phonology: An Acoustical and Physiological Investigation, Mouton
• Gairdner, W.H.T. (1925), written at London, The Phonetics of Arabic., 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), written at Leipzig, Phonetik und Phonologie des modernen Hocharabisch, Verlag Enzyklopädie
• Kirchhoff, Katrin & Dimitra Vergyri (2005), "Cross-dialectal data sharing for acoustic modeling in Arabic speech recognition", Speech Communication 46 (1): 37-51
• Ladefoged, Peter & Ian Maddieson (1996), The Sounds of the World's Languages, Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-19815-6
• Thelwall, Robin (1990), "Illustrations of the IPA: Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20 (2): 37-41
• Watson, Janet (2002), written at New York, The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, Oxford University Press
• Ferguson, Charles (1956), written at Language, Vol 32., The Emphatic L in Arabic, Linguistic Society of America