Arabic phonology

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. [Harvcoltxt|Kirchhoff|Vergyri|2005|p=38] 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, [Harvcoltxt|Kirchhoff|Vergyri|2005|p=38-39] 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. However, by the 8th century the letter "alif" no longer represented a glottal stop, but a long IPA|/aː/. As a result, a diacritic symbol, "hamza", was introduced to represent this sound.fact|date=September 2008 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. [Harvcoltxt|Holes|2004|p=57]

Vowels

There are three short vowels, three long vowels and two diphthongs (formed by a combination of short IPA|/a/ with the semivowels IPA|/j/ and IPA|/w/). Allophony is partially conditioned by neighboring consonants within the same word. For example, IPA|/a/ and IPA|/aː/ are:
*retracted to IPA| [ɑ] in the environment of a neighboring IPA|/r/, IPA|/q/, a velar/uvular fricative, [Harvcoltxt|Holes|2004|p=58] or an emphatic consonant; [Harvcoltxt|Thelwall|1990|p=39]
*IPA| [ɐ] before a word boundary; [Harvcoltxt|Thelwall|1990|p=39]
*advanced to IPA| [æ] in the environment of plain labial and coronal consonants as well as IPA|/j/; [Harvcoltxt|Holes|2004|p=60] 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.

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, IPA|/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

The six vowels are inherited without change from Proto-Semitic to Modern Standard Arabic,fact|date=September 2008 and of the 29 Proto-Semitic consonants, only one has been lost: IPA|*/ʃ/, which merged with IPA|/s/. [Harvcoltxt|Lipinski|1997|p=124] Various other consonants have changed their sound too, but have remained distinct. An original IPA|*/p/ lenited to IPA|/f/, and IPA|*/ɡ/ became palatalized to IPA|/ɡʲ/ or IPA|/ɟ/ by the time of the Qur'an and IPA|/dʒ/ in MSA (see above for more detail). [Harvcoltxt|Watson|2002|p=5, 15-16] An original voiceless alveolar lateral fricative IPA|*/ɬ/ became IPA|/ʃ/. [Harvcoltxt|Watson|2002|p=2] Its emphatic counterpart was considered by Arabs to be the most unusual sound in Arabic (Hence the Classical Arabic's appellation "ArabDIN|luġatu 'ḍ-ḍād" or "language of the ArabDIN|ḍād"); for most modern dialects, it has become an emphatic stop IPA|/dˤ/ with loss of the laterality. [Harvcoltxt|Watson|2002|p=2]

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. [Harvcoltxt|Watson|2002|p=2]

References

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