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Many Semitic languages were spoken in Arabia during antiquity. The first of these languages to share the isoglosses of Arabic dialects are today labelled Safaitic and Hismaic.[11] These were natively written in South Arabian scripts, although some transcriptions into Greek script survive in graffiti.[12] Some Safaitic writing was etched into the walls of Pompeii, and in Arabia are recorded Imperial Roman names like Claudius and Titus - implying a first-century CE date, at least for these.[13] The earliest inscriptions of Arabic in the (northern) Arabic script date CE 512-568.[14] The Aramaic alphabet was introduced to the Arab people through traders from the Mediterranean Empire, and the Arab people began using the script during the Christian period in the Middle East.[14] From the Aramaic, the script continued to develop through two separate kingdoms in the region: The Nabataean and the Palmyran. The Arabic script that is widely used today developed from the Nabataean Kingdom’s writing script.[15] While the Nabataean alphabet and writing system met a great deal of the needs, it did not provide letters or symbols for /t/, /d/, /h/, /g/, /z/ and /d/, which were not represented by Aramaic script.[15] The Aramaic writing system also only provided fifteen letter shapes for 28 consonants.[15] In order to differentiate between consonants that had the same shape, a system of placing dots around the letters developed. It took over 100 years in order to codify these dots around letters (Bateson, 55). Evidence of the development of codified dots is recorded on numerous different codes and tombstones.[15] In the 8th century, the dots were finally codified enough that all texts used dots with the exception of purely decorative writings that were not meant to be read.[15] In addition to the issue of codifying the dots above letters, there was also the issue of how to represent vowel sounds in Arabic script, a language made up of an all-consonants script (an abjad). During the 7th century a dotting system also developed to mark vowels.[16] Red dots were used to mark vowels while black lines were used to mark consonants. Eventually smaller versions of the letters representing short vowels were placed above consonants in order to indicate that a vowel was present.[16] Pre-Islamic poetry and early Islamic literature The oral poetic tradition had been alive and well for centuries in the Arabian Peninsula before it was eventually recorded. Arab poets blossomed in the 6th century AD but their work was not recorded or written down until the 8th or 9th century AD.[17] There were linguistic oddities in regards to spelling found throughout the poems. The poems had been recorded, but there were different spelling and pronunciation techniques used by different authors when trying to record a poem that had previously only been recited.[18] These differences reflected how different dialects had a large impact on written Arabic and how texts were recorded. To solve this problem, grammarians and scholars asked Bedouins to recite poems in order to hear how they pronounced the poem as their voices were believed to be pure. Consensus was then used to determine the correct pronunciation of a word so that the word could also be spelt correctly.[19] Eventually, scholars and grammarians developed a system for standardizing Classical Arabic so that texts and words would be written in a way that the majority of the population could understand.[19] Muslims believe that the Quran was revealed to Muhammad in 632 CE.[20][21] Both a formal and informal version of Arabic existed during the Pre-Islamic Period. The informal dialect was used on coin and tomb inscriptions while the formal variety of Arabic was used on letters and contracts. However, contracts were sometimes written in a mixture of Formal and Informal Arabic, reflecting the large influence dialects had on the written language in Pre-Islamic Arabia.[22] The Islamic conquests and Arabic language The Galland Manuscript of One Thousand and One Nights, 14th century The Islamic conquests introduced Arabic to new non-Arab regions, such as North Africa, Spain and Persia. As a result, Osmanli, Turkish, Persian, Urdu, Malay, Berber, Swahili and Hausa all adopted some Arabic alphabet into their writing systems and Arabic adopted 12 letters from others (for example, Persian P CH Zh and Ga). These sounds entered Arabic through loanwords.[23] In the 8th century Islamic scholars in Lower Iraq feared the influence that the recently conquered non-Arabs would have on the language and scholars became more conservative and a more standardized Classical Arabic writing system developed.[20] However, non-Arabs had a huge influence on the religious writings at the time since many of the intellectual elite were in fact non-Arab.[20] Modern era Throughout Pax Britannica, and well into Pax Americana, most countries officially use the Arabic numerals, which originated in India. Arabic numerals are vital to the smooth operation of international banking, and most countries' National Debt. During the colonial era, the European powers occupying Arab nations actively encouraged the public spread and use of colloquial Arabic dialects and suppressed the use and teaching of classical Arabic. This caused great diversity in dialects throughout the near east, northern Africa, and even eastern European dialects of Arabic like Czech Arabic and Slavo-Anderski Arabic.[24] After wiping out a third of the Algerian population between 1830 and 1872 for example, the French then closed all Qur'anic schools and banned public usage of Arabic; Arabic was actually declared a foreign language in 1938 and while about half the population was literate in Arabic at the beginning of French colonization, 90% of the native population was illiterate in both Arabic and French by its end in the 1960s.[25] Classical, Modern Standard and spoken Arabic Arabic usually designates one of three main variants: Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic and colloquial or dialectal Arabic. See also: List of Arabic dictionaries Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran, used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate. Theoretically, Classical Arabic is considered normative, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as the Lisān al-ʻArab). In practice, however, modern authors almost never write in pure Classical Arabic, instead using a literary language with its own grammatical norms and vocabulary, commonly known as Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). MSA is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" (فُصْحَى fuṣḥá) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: Certain grammatical constructions of CA that have no counterpart in any modern dialect (e.g., the energetic mood) are almost never used in Modern Standard Arabic. No modern spoken variety of Arabic has case distinctions. As a result, MSA is generally composed without case distinctions in mind, and the proper cases are added after the fact, when necessary. Because most case endings are noted using final short vowels, which are normally left unwritten in the Arabic script, it is unnecessary to determine the proper case of most words. The practical result of this is that MSA, like English and Standard Chinese, is written in a strongly determined word order and alternative orders that were used in CA for emphasis are rare. In addition, because of the lack of case marking in the spoken varieties, most speakers cannot consistently use the correct endings in extemporaneous speech. As a result, spoken MSA tends to drop or regularize the endings except when reading from a prepared text. The numeral system in CA is complex and heavily tied in with the case system. This system is never used in MSA, even in the most formal of circumstances; instead, a significantly simplified system is used, approximating the system of the conservative spoken varieties. MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that is not present in the spoken varieties. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined a large number of terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve.[26] Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فيلم fīlm 'film' or دموقراطية dimūqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). However, the current preference is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح jināḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots (إستماتة istimātah 'apoptosis', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into the Xth form, or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to repurpose older words; that has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to the many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible, and some linguists consider them distinct languages.[27] The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows,[28] as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. The only variety of modern Arabic to have acquired official language status is Maltese, which is spoken in (predominately Roman Catholic) Malta and written with the Latin script. It is descended from Classical Arabic through Siculo-Arabic, but is not mutually intelligible with any other variety of Arabic. Most linguists list it as a separate language rather than as a dialect of Arabic. Historically, Algerian Arabic was taught in French Algeria under the name darija. Flag of the Arab league, used in some cases for the Arabic language. Flag used in some cases for the Arabic language Note that even during Muhammad's lifetime, there were dialects of spoken Arabic. Muhammad spoke in the dialect of Mecca, in the western Arabian peninsula, and it was in this dialect that the Quran was written down. However, the dialects of the eastern Arabian peninsula were considered the most prestigious at the time, so the language of the Quran was ultimately converted to follow the eastern phonology. It is this phonology that underlies the modern pronunciation of Classical Arabic. The phonological differences between these two dialects account for some of the complexities of Arabic writing, most notably the writing of the glottal stop or hamzah (which was preserved in the eastern dialects but lost in western speech) and the use of alif maqṣūrah (representing a sound preserved in the western dialects but merged with ā in eastern speech). Language and dialect The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia, which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native, mutually unintelligible "dialects";[29][30][31][32][33] these dialects linguistically constitute separate languages which may have dialects of their own.[34] When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. Arabic speakers often improve their familiarity with other dialects via music or film. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, similar to the issue with the varieties of Chinese, Hindi and Urdu, Serbian and Croatian, Scots and English, etc. Similar to how speakers of Hindi and Urdu will claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they can't.[35] The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a significant complicating factor: A single written form, significantly different from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites a number of sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak a single language, despite significant issues of mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions.[36] From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages.[37] This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for the Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb, a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq, much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. Influence of Arabic on other languages Main article: Influence of Arabic on other languages See also: List of Arabic loanwords in English The influence of Arabic has been most important in Islamic countries, because it is the language of the Islamic sacred book, Quran. Arabic is also an important source of vocabulary for languages such as Baluchi, Bengali, Berber, Bosnian, Catalan, Chechen, Dagestani, English, French, German, Gujarati, Hausa, Hindustani, Italian, Indonesian, Kazakh, Kurdish, Kutchi, Malay, Malayalam, Pashto, Persian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Rohingya, Saraiki, Sicilian, Sindhi, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, Turkish, Urdu, Uzbek and Wolof, as well as other languages in countries where these languages are spoken. In addition, English has many Arabic loanwords, some directly but most through the medium of other Mediterranean languages. Examples of such words include admiral, adobe, alchemy, alcohol, algebra, algorithm, alkaline, almanac, amber, arsenal, assassin, candy, carat, cipher, coffee, cotton, ghoul, hazard, jar, kismet, lemon, loofah, magazine, mattress, sherbet, sofa, sumac, tariff and many other words.[citation needed] Other languages such as Maltese[38] and Kinubi derive ultimately from Arabic, rather than merely borrowing vocabulary or grammatical rules. Terms borrowed range from religious terminology (like Berber taẓallit 'prayer' < salat) (صلاة ṣalāh), academic terms (like Uyghur mentiq 'logic'), economic items (like English coffee) to placeholders (like Spanish fulano 'so-and-so') and everyday terms (like Hindustani lekin 'but', or Spanish taza meaning 'cup'and hasta meaning 'until'), and expressions (like Catalan a betzef 'galore, in quantity'). Most Berber varieties (such as Kabyle), along with Swahili, borrow some numbers from Arabic. Most Islamic religious terms are direct borrowings from Arabic, such as صلاة salat 'prayer' and إمام imam 'prayer leader.' In languages not directly in contact with the Arab world, Arabic loanwords are often transferred indirectly via other languages rather than being transferred directly from Arabic. For example, most Arabic loanwords in Hindustani entered through Persian though Persian is an Indo-Iranian language. Older Arabic loanwords in Hausa were borrowed from Kanuri. Some words in English and other European languages are derived from Arabic, often through other European languages, especially Spanish and Italian. Among them are commonly used words like "coffee" (قهوة qahwah), "cotton" (قطن quṭn) and "magazine" (مخازن makhāzin). English words more recognizably of Arabic origin include "algebra", "alcohol", "alchemy", "alkali", "zenith," and "nadir". Arabic words also made their way into several West African languages as Islam spread across the Sahara. Variants of Arabic words such as كتاب kitāb (book) have spread to the languages of African groups who had no direct contact with Arab traders.[39] As, throughout the Islamic world, Arabic occupied a position similar to that of Latin in Europe, many of the Arabic concepts in the field of science, philosophy, commerce etc. were coined from Arabic roots by non-native Arabic speakers, notably by Aramaic and Persian translators, and then found their way into other languages. This process of using Arabic roots, especially in Turkish and Persian, to translate foreign concepts continued right until the 18th and 19th century, when swaths of Arab-inhabited lands were under Ottoman rule. Influence of other languages on Arabic Arabic was influenced by other languages as well. The most important sources of borrowings into (pre-Islamic) Arabic are from the related (Semitic) languages Aramaic,[40] which used to be the principal, international language of communication throughout the ancient Near and Middle East, Ethiopic, and to a lesser degree Hebrew (mainly religious concepts). In addition, many cultural, religious and political terms have entered Arabic from Iranian, notably Middle Persian or Parthian and (Classical) Persian,[41] and Hellenistic Greek (kīmiyāʼ has as origin the Greek khymia, meaning in that language the melting of metals; see Roger Dachez, Histoire de la Médecine de l'Antiquité au XXe siècle, Tallandier, 2008, p. 251), alembic (distiller) from ambix (cup), qalam (pen, pencil, feather) from kalamos (reed, pen), almanac (climate) from almenichiakon (calendar). (For the origin of the last three borrowed words, see Alfred-Louis de Prémare, Foundations of Islam, Seuil, L'Univers Historique, 2002.) Some Arabic borrowings from Semitic or Persian languages are, as presented in De Prémare's above-cited book: raḥmān (رحمن, merciful), from Hebrew and Aramaic, where it had a similar meaning nabī (نبي, prophet), old non-Arabic term that came into Arabic from Aramaic and Hebrew before the emergence of Islam. madīnah/medina (مدينة, city or city square), a word of Aramaic or Hebrew origin; Alfred-Louis de Prémare explains in The Foundations Of Islam (p. 101) that the Jews were long before Arabs a sedentary population of "Arabian desert." jizyah (جزية), the tax imposed by the caliphate on individuals of religion other than Islam (dhimmis), a tax in addition to the levy on agricultural land (kharāj). The term comes from the Syriac gzita, which is in turn borrowed from Persian gazit. kharāj (خراج), land tax originally imposed only on non-Muslims, which comes from the Persian term kharazh, a term which designates the act by which the wealthy citizens were taxed, sometimes imposed upon states; satrapies were supposed to collect them. This term probably originates from the Greek language.[42] jazīrah (جزيرة), as in the well-known form "Al-Jazeera," means "island" and has its origin in the Syriac gazīra. fārūq (فاروق, savior) is the naturalized form of the Aramaic word poruk, which in the Syriac Bible (Peshitta) means the Savior or Liberator. Once naturalized, the term produced mnemonic derivatives or shortcuts, so the root f-r-q (meaning cutting) became a folk etymological explanation for faruq: the Savior was one who cuts (separates) the truth from falsehood. munāfiq (منافق, hypocrite), a term borrowed from an Ethiopian language,[clarification needed] where it had the sense of heretical sect. lāzaward (لازورد) is taken from Persian lājvard, the name of a blue stone, lapis lazuli. This word was borrowed in several European languages to mean (light) blue - azure in English, azur in French and azul in Spanish. Arabic alphabet and nationalism There have been many instances of national movements to convert Arabic script into Latin script or to Romanize the language. Lebanon The Beirut newspaper La Syrie pushed for the change from Arabic script to Latin script in 1922. The major head of this movement was Louis Massignon, a French Orientalist, who brought his concern before the Arabic Language Academy in Damacus in 1928. Massignon's attempt at Romanization failed as the Academy and population viewed the proposal as an attempt from the Western world to take over their country. Sa'id Afghani, a member of the Academy, mentioned that the movement to Romanize the script was a Zionist plan to dominate Lebanon.[43][44] Egypt After the period of colonialism in Egypt, Egyptians were looking for a way to reclaim and reemphasize Egyptian culture. As a result, some Egyptians pushed for an Egyptianization of the Arabic language in which the formal Arabic and the colloquial Arabic would be combined into one language and the Latin alphabet would be used.[43][44] There was also the idea of finding a way to use Hieroglyphics instead of the Latin alphabet, but this was seen as too complicated to use.[43][44] A scholar, Salama Musa agreed with the idea of applying a Latin alphabet to Arabic, as he believed that would allow Egypt to have a closer relationship with the West. He also believed that Latin script was key to the success of Egypt as it would allow for more advances in science and technology. This change in script, he believed, would solve the problems inherent with Arabic, such as a lack of written vowels and difficulties writing foreign words that made it difficult for non native speakers to learn.[43][44] Ahmad Lutfi As Sayid and Muhammad Azmi, two Egyptian intellectuals, agreed with Musa and supported the push for Romanization.[43][45] The idea that Romanization was necessary for modernization and growth in Egypt continued with Abd Al Aziz Fahmi in 1944. He was the chairman for the Writing and Grammar Committee for the Arabic Language Academy of Cairo.[43][45] However, this effort failed as the Egyptian people felt a strong cultural tie to the Arabic alphabet.[43][45] In particular, the older Egpytian generations believed that the Arabic alphabet had strong connections to Arab values and history, which is easy to believe due to the long history of the Arabic alphabet (Shrivtiel, 189). Arabic and Islam Classical Arabic is the language of the Qur'an. Arabic is closely associated with the religion of Islam because the Qur'an is written in the language, but it is nevertheless also spoken by Arab Christians, Mizrahi Jews and Iraqi Mandaeans. Most of the world's Muslims do not speak Arabic as their native language, but many can read the Quranic script and recite the Quran. Among non-Arab Muslims, translations of the Quran are most often accompanied by the original text. Some Muslims present a monogenesis of languages and claim that the Arabic language was the language revealed by God for the benefit of mankind and the original language as a prototype system of symbolic communication, based upon its system of triconsonantal roots, spoken by man from which all other languages were derived, having first been corrupted.[46][47] Judaism has a similar account with the Tower of Babel. External history See also: Pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions Arabic languages (brown) within Semitic languages. Among the earliest surviving texts in Ancient North Arabian, a group of languages closely related to but not a direct predecessor of Arabic, are the Hasaean inscriptions of in eastern Arabia, from about the 4th century BC, written not in the modern Arabic alphabet, nor in its Nabataean ancestor, but in variants of the epigraphic South Arabian musnad. More numerous are the 6th-century BC Lihyanite texts from southeastern Arabia and the Thamudic texts found throughout Arabia and the Sinai, and not actually connected with Thamud. Classical Arabic co-existed with the Old North Arabian languages. In the 5th century BC, Herodotus (Histories I,131; III,8) quotes the epithet of a goddess in its preclassical Arabic form as Alilat (Ἀλιλάτ, i. e.,ʼal-ʼilat), which means "the goddess".[48] Apart from this isolated theonym, Arabic is first attested in an inscription in Qaryat al-Fāw (formerly Qaryat Dhat Kahil, near Sulayyil, Saudi Arabia) in the 1st century BC.[49][50] Later come the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions beginning in the 1st century AD (in the South Arabian script) and the many Arabic personal names attested in Nabataean inscriptions (which inscriptions are, however, Aramaic). The oldest inscription in Classical Arabic known in 1985 goes back to 328 AD and is known as the Namārah inscription, written in the Nabataean alphabet and named after the place where it was found in southern Syria in April 1901.[51] By the fourth century AD, the Arab kingdoms of the Lakhmids in southern Iraq and the Ghassanids in southern Syria appeared. The Kindite Kingdom emerged in Central Arabia. Their courts were responsible for some notable examples of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry and for some of the few surviving pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions in the Arabic script.[52] Internal history Bilingual traffic sign in Qatar. The Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in terms of grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Classical Arabic—include The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense. The conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms (e.g., a present tense formed by doubling the middle root, a perfect formed by infixing a /t/ after the first root consonant, probably a jussive formed by a stress shift) in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms (e.g., -u for indicative, -a for subjunctive, no ending for jussive, -an or -anna for energetic). The development of an internal passive. Phonological history Of the 29 Proto-Semitic consonants, only one has been lost: */ʒ/,[clarification needed] which merged with /ʃ/.[53] But the consonant */ʒ/ is still found in many colloquial Arabic dialects. Various other consonants have changed their sound too, but have remained distinct. An original */p/ lenited to /f/, and */ɡ/ - consistently attested in pre-Islamic Greek transcription of Arabic languages[54] - became palatalized to /ɡʲ/ or /ɟ/ by the time of the Quran and /d͡ʒ/, /ɡ/, /ʒ/ or /ɟ/ in MSA (see Arabic phonology#Local variations for more detail).[55] An original voiceless alveolar lateral fricative */ɬ/ became /ʃ/.[56] Its emphatic counterpart /ɬˠ~ɮˤ/ was considered by Arabs to be the most unusual sound in Arabic (Hence the Classical Arabic's appellation lughat al-ḍād or "language of the ḍād"); for most modern dialects, it has become an emphatic stop /dˤ/ with loss of the laterality[56] or with complete loss of any pharyngealization or velarization, /d/. (The classical ḍād pronunciation of pharyngealization /ɮˤ/ still occurs in the Mehri language and the similar sound without velarization exists in other Modern South Arabian languages.) 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 but may have been velarized in the eighth century and glottalized in Proto-Semitic.[56] Reduction of /j/ and /w/ between vowels occurs in a number of circumstances and is responsible for much of the complexity of third-weak ("defective") verbs. Early Akkadian transcriptions of Arabic names shows that this reduction had not yet occurred as of the early part of the 1st millennium BC. The Classical Arabic language as recorded was a poetic koine that reflected a consciously archaizing dialect, chosen based on the Bedouin tribes in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula, who spoke the most conservative variants of Arabic. Even at the time of Mohammed and before, other dialects existed with many more changes, including the loss of most glottal stops, the loss of case endings, the reduction of the diphthongs /aj/ and /aw/ into monophthongs /eː, oː/, etc. Most of these changes are present in most or all modern varieties of Arabic. An interesting feature of the writing system of the Quran (and hence of Classical Arabic) is that it contains certain features of Muhammad's native dialect of Mecca, corrected through diacritics into the forms of standard Classical Arabic. Among these features visible under the corrections are the loss of the glottal stop and a differing development of the reduction of certain final sequences containing /j/: Evidently, final /-awa/ became /aː/ as in the Classical language, but final /-aja/ became a different sound, possibly /eː/ (rather than again /aː/ in the Classical language). This is the apparent source of the alif maqṣūrah 'restricted alif' where a final /-aja/ is reconstructed: a letter that would normally indicate /j/ or some similar high-vowel sound, but is taken in this context to be a logical variant of alif and represent the sound /aː/. Dialects and descendants Different dialects of Arabic. Main article: Varieties of Arabic Colloquial Arabic is a collective term for the spoken varieties of Arabic used throughout the Arab world, which differ radically from the literary language. The main dialectal division is between the varieties within and outside of the Arabian peninsula, followed by that between sedentary varieties and the much more conservative Bedouin varieties. All of the varieties outside of the Arabian peninsula (which include the large majority of speakers) have a large number of features in common with each other that are not found in Classical Arabic. This has led researchers to postulate the existence of a prestige koine dialect in the one or two centuries immediately following the Arab conquest, whose features eventually spread to all of the newly conquered areas. (These features are present to varying degrees inside the Arabian peninsula. Generally, the Arabian peninsula varieties have much more diversity than the non-peninsula varieties, but have been understudied.) Within the non-peninsula varieties, the largest difference is between the non-Egyptian North African dialects (especially Moroccan Arabic) and the others. Moroccan Arabic in particular is hardly comprehensible to Arabic speakers east of Libya (although the converse is not true, in part due to the popularity of Egyptian films and other media). One factor in the differentiation of the dialects is influence from the languages previously spoken in the areas, which have typically provided a significant number of new words and have sometimes also influenced pronunciation or word order; however, a much more significant factor for most dialects is, as among Romance languages, retention (or change of meaning) of different classical forms. Thus Iraqi aku, Levantine fīh and North African kayən all mean 'there is', and all come from Classical Arabic forms (yakūn, fīhi, kā'in respectively), but now sound very different. Examples Transcription is a broad IPA transcription, so minor differences were ignored for easier comparison. Variety I love reading a lot When I went to the library I didn't find this old book I wanted to read a book about the history of women in France. Literary Arabic in Arabic script (dialects are written in other non-standardized spellings) أنا أحب القراءة كثيرا عندما ذهبت إلى المكتبة لم أجد هذا الكتاب القديم أردت أن أقرأ كتابا عن تاريخ المرأة في فرنسا Classical Arabic (liturgical or poetic only) ʔanaː ʔuħibbu l-qiraːʔata kaθiːran ʕindamaː ðahabtu ʔilaː l-maktabati lam ʔaɡʲid haːðaː l-kitaːba l-qadiːma kuntu ʔuriːdu ʔan ʔaqraʔa kitaːban ʕan taːriːxi l-marʔati fiː faransaː Modern Standard Arabic ʔana(ː) ʔuħibb al-qiraːʔa kaθiːran ʕindama(ː) ðahabtu ʔilaː l-maktaba lam ʔaɡʲid haːða(ː) l-kitaːb al-qadiːm ʔaradtu ʔan ʔaqraʔ kitaːb ʕan taːriːx al-marʔa fiː fara(ː)nsa(ː) Yemeni Arabic (Sanaa) ˈʔana bajn aˈħibb el-geˈraːje ˈgawi ˈlaw ma ˈsert saˈla: el-ˈmaktabe ma leˈge:t-ʃ ˈðajje al-keˈtaːb el-gaˈdiːm kont ˈaʃti ˈʔagra keˈtaːb ʕan taˈriːx al-ˈmare wastˤ faˈraːnsa Gulf Arabic (Kuwait) ʔaːna waːyed aħibb aɡraː lamman reħt al-maktaba ma liɡeːt hal ketaːb al-ɡadiːm kent abiː aɡra ketaːb an tariːx el-ħariːm eb fransa Gilit Mesopotamian (Baghdad?) ˈaːni aˈħibb el-qˈraːja ˈkulliʃ ˈlamman ˈreħit lel-maktaba ma liˈɡeːt haːða l-ketaːb al-qadiːm redet aqra ketaːb ʕan tariːx al-niswan eb-fransa Hijazi Arabic (Makka?) ˈana aˈħubb al-ɡiraːja kaθiːr ˈlamma ruħt al-ˈmaktaba ma laɡeːt haːða l-kitaːb al-ɡadiːm kunt abɣa aɡra ktaːb ʕan tariːx al-ħariːm fi faransa Western Syrian Arabic (Damascus) ʔana ktiːr b'ħəbb lᵊ-ʔraːje ˈlamma ˈrəħt ʕal-ˈmaktabe ma laʔeːt ha-l-ᵊkˈtaːb lᵊ-ʔˈdiːm kaːn ˈbaddi ʔra ktaːb ʕan taˈriːx ᵊl-ˈmara bᵊ-ˈfraːnsa Lebanese Arabic (Beyrut?) ktiːr bħibb il-ʔiˈreːje ˈlamma ˈreħit ʕal-ˈmaktabe ma lʔeːt ha-l-ikˈteːb le-ʔˈdiːm keːn ˈbaddi ʔra kteːb ʕan teˈriːx il-ˈmara bi-ˈfraːnsa Urban Palestinian (Jerusalem) 'ʔana ba'ħebb l-ᵊʔ'raːje ktiːr ˈlamma ˈruħᵊt ʕal-ˈmaktabe ma laˈʔeːtᵊʃ ha-l-ᵊkˈtaːb ᵊl-ʔaˈdiːm kaːn ˈbeddi ˈʔɑʔrɑ ktaːb ʕan taˈriːx ᵊl-ˈmɑrɑ fi fˈransa Rural Palestinian (West Bank) 'ʔana ba'ħebb l-ᵊk'raːje kθiːr ˈlamma ˈruħᵊt ʕal-ˈmatʃtabe ma laˈkeːtᵊʃ ha-l-ᵊtʃˈtaːb ᵊl-kaˈdiːm kaːn ˈbeddi ˈʔɑkrɑ tʃtaːb ʕan taˈriːx ᵊl-ˈmɑrɑ fi fˈransa Egyptian (metropolitan) ana baħebb el-ʔeraːja ʔawi ˈlamma ˈroħt el-makˈtaba ma-lˈʔet-ʃ l-keˈtaːb el-ʔaˈdiːm da ˈana ˈkont-e ˈʕawz-ˈaʔra kˈtaːb ʕan taˈriːx el-setˈtaːt fe faˈransa Libyan Arabic (Tripoli?) ana nħəb il-ɡraːja halba lamma mʃeːt lil-maktba malɡeːtiʃ ha-li-ktaːb lə-ɡdiːm kunt nibi naɡra ktaːb ʔleː tariːx ə-nsawiːn fi fraːnsa Tunisian (Tunis?) ɛːnɛ nħəb ləqrɑːyæ bɑrʃa wɑqtəllɪ mʃɪːt ləlməktbæ məl-qɪːtʃ kɛːn hə-ləktɛːb ləqdɪːm kɔnt nħəb nɑqrɑ ktɛːb ʕlɛ tɛrɪx ləmrɑ fɪ frɑːnsɑ Algerian (Algiers?) eːne nħibb il-qreːje bezzaf waqtelli ruht l il-maktaba ma-lqiːt-ʃ keːn ha l-kteːb l-qdiːm kunt ħaːb naqra kteːb ʕala tariːx l-mra fi fraːnsa Moroccan (Rabat?) ana ʕziz ʕlija bzzaf nqra melli mʃit l-lmaktaba ma-lqiːt-ʃ had l-ktab l-qdim kent baɣi nqra ktab ʕla tarix l-mra f-fransa Maltese[needs IPA] I simili qari ħafna Meta I marru għall-librerija ma sabx dan il-ktieb antik Jien ridt li taqra ktieb dwar l-istorja ta 'mara fi Franza. Koine According to Charles A. Ferguson,[57] the following are some of the characteristic features of the koine that underlies all of the modern dialects outside the Arabian peninsula. Although many other features are common to most or all of these varieties, Ferguson believes that these features in particular are unlikely to have evolved independently more than once or twice and together suggest the existence of the koine: Loss of the dual (grammatical number) except on nouns, with consistent plural agreement (cf. feminine singular agreement in plural inanimates). Change of a to i in many affixes (e.g., non-past-tense prefixes ti- yi- ni-; wi- 'and'; il- 'the'; feminine -it in the construct state). Loss of third-weak verbs ending in w (which merge with verbs ending in y). Reformation of geminate verbs, e.g., ḥalaltu 'I untied' → ḥalēt(u). Conversion of separate words lī 'to me', laka 'to you', etc. into indirect-object clitic suffixes. Certain changes in the cardinal number system, e.g., khamsat ayyām 'five days' → kham(a)s tiyyām, where certain words have a special plural with prefixed t. Loss of the feminine elative (comparative). Adjective plurals of the form kibār 'big' → kubār. Change of nisba suffix -iyy > i. Certain lexical items, e.g., jāb 'bring' < jāʼa bi- 'come with'; shāf 'see'; ēsh 'what' (or similar) < ayyu shayʼ 'which thing'; illi (relative pronoun). Merger of /ɮˤ/ and /ðˤ/. Dialect groups Egyptian Arabic, also called "Aamia," spoken by around 55 million in Egypt. It is one of the most understood varieties of Arabic, due in large part to the widespread distribution of Egyptian films and television shows throughout the Arabic-speaking world.[citation needed] Levantine Arabic includes North Levantine Arabic, South Levantine Arabic and Cypriot Arabic. It is spoken by about 21 million people in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Cyprus and Turkey. Maghrebi Arabic, also called "Darija" spoken by about 70 million people in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Malta. It is very hard to understand for Arabic speakers from the Mashriq or Mesopotamia, the easiest being Libyan Arabic and the hardest Moroccan Arabic and Maltese language. Maltese, spoken on the island of Malta, is the only dialect to have established itself as a fully separate language,[citation needed] with independent literary norms. Sicilian Arabic, spoken on the island of Sicily until the 14th century, developed into Maltese in Malta. In the course of its history the language has adopted numerous loanwords, phonetic and phonological features, and even some grammatical patterns, from Italian, Sicilian and English. It is also the only Semitic language written in the Latin script. Mesopotamian Arabic, spoken by about 15 million people in Iraq (where it is called "Aamiyah"), eastern Syria and southwestern Iran (Khuzestan). Sudanese Arabic is spoken by 17 million people in Sudan and some parts of southern Egypt. Sudanese Arabic is quite distinct from the dialect of its neighbor to the north; rather, the Sudanese have a dialect similar to the Hijazi dialect. Gulf Arabic, spoken by around four million people, predominantly in Kuwait, Bahrain, some parts of Oman, eastern Saudi Arabia coastal areas and some parts of UAE and Qatar. Also spoken in Iran's Bushehr and Hormozgan provinces. Although Gulf Arabic is spoken in Qatar, most Qatari citizens speak Najdi Arabic (Bedawi). Yemeni Arabic spoken in Yemen, Somalia, Djibouti and southern Saudi Arabia by 15 million people. Similar to Gulf Arabic. Najdi Arabic, spoken by around 10 million people, mainly spoken in Najd, central and northern Saudi Arabia. Most Qatari citizens speak Najdi Arabic (Bedawi). Hejazi Arabic (6 million speakers), spoken in Hijaz, western Saudi Arabia Hassaniya Arabic (3 million speakers), spoken in Mauritania, Western Sahara, some parts of northern Mali, southern Morocco and south-western Algeria. Bahrani Arabic (600,000 speakers), spoken by Bahrani Shiʻah in Bahrain and Qatif, the dialect exhibits many big differences from Gulf Arabic. It is also spoken to a lesser extent in Oman. Judeo-Arabic dialects - these are the dialects spoken by the Jews that had lived or continue to live in the Arab World. As Jewish migration to Israel took hold, the language did not thrive and is now considered endangered. Central Asian Arabic, spoken in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan, is highly endangered Samaritan Arabic, spoken by only several hundred in the Nablus region Shirvani Arabic, spoken in Azerbaijan and Dagestan until the 1930s, now extinct. Andalusian Arabic, spoken in Spain and Portugal until the 16th century. Phonology Main article: Arabic phonology This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. The "colloquial" spoken varieties of Arabic are learned at home and constitute the native languages of Arabic speakers. "Formal" Literary Arabic (usually specifically Modern Standard Arabic) is learned at school; although many speakers have a native-like command of the language, it is technically not the native language of any speakers. Both varieties can be both written and spoken, although the colloquial varieties are rarely written down and the formal variety is spoken mostly in formal circumstances, e.g., in radio broadcasts, formal lectures, parliamentary discussions and to some extent between speakers of different colloquial varieties. Even when the literary language is spoken, however, it is normally only spoken in its pure form when reading a prepared text out loud. When speaking extemporaneously (i.e. making up the language on the spot, as in a normal discussion among people), speakers tend to deviate somewhat from the strict literary language in the direction of the colloquial varieties. In fact, there is a continuous range of "in-between" spoken varieties: from nearly pure Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), to a form that still uses MSA grammar and vocabulary but with significant colloquial influence, to a form of the colloquial language that imports a number of words and grammatical constructions in MSA, to a form that is close to pure colloquial but with the "rough edges" (the most noticeably "vulgar" or non-Classical aspects) smoothed out, to pure colloquial. The particular variant (or register) used depends on the social class and education level of the speakers involved and the level of formality of the speech situation. Often it will vary within a single encounter, e.g., moving from nearly pure MSA to a more mixed language in the process of a radio interview, as the interviewee becomes more comfortable with the interviewer. This type of variation is characteristic of the diglossia that exists throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Literary Arabic Sorry, your browser either has JavaScript disabled or does not have any supported player. You can or to play the clip in your browser. Speech sample in Arabic. Although Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is a unitary language, its pronunciation varies somewhat from country to country and from region to region within a country. The variation in individual "accents" of MSA speakers tends to mirror corresponding variations in the colloquial speech of the speakers in question, but with the distinguishing characteristics moderated somewhat. Note that it is important in descriptions of "Arabic" phonology to distinguish between pronunciation of a given colloquial (spoken) dialect and the pronunciation of MSA by these same speakers. Although they are related, they are not the same. For example, the phoneme that derives from Proto-Semitic /g/ has many different pronunciations in the modern spoken varieties, e.g., [d͡ʒ ~ ʒ ~ j ~ ɡʲ ~ ɡ]. Speakers whose native variety has either [d͡ʒ] or [ʒ] will use the same pronunciation when speaking MSA. Even speakers from Cairo, whose native Egyptian Arabic has [ɡ], normally use [ɡ] when speaking MSA. The [j] of Persian Gulf speakers is the only variant pronunciation which isn't found in MSA; [d͡ʒ~ʒ] is used instead. Another example: Many colloquial varieties are known for a type of vowel harmony in which the presence of an "emphatic consonant" triggers backed allophones of nearby vowels (especially of the low vowels /aː/, which are backed to [ɑ(ː)] in these circumstances and very often fronted to [æ(ː)] in all other circumstances). In many spoken varieties, the backed or "emphatic" vowel allophones spread a fair distance in both directions from the triggering consonant; in some varieties (most notably Egyptian Arabic), the "emphatic" allophones spread throughout the entire word, usually including prefixes and suffixes, even at a distance of several syllables from the triggering consonant. Speakers of colloquial varieties with this vowel harmony tend to introduce it into their MSA pronunciation as well, but usually with a lesser degree of spreading than in the colloquial varieties. (For example, speakers of colloquial varieties with extremely long-distance harmony may allow a moderate, but not extreme, amount of spreading of the harmonic allophones in their MSA speech, while speakers of colloquial varieties with moderate-distance harmony may only harmonize immediately adjacent vowels in MSA.) Vowels Modern Standard Arabic has six pure vowels, with short /a i u/ and corresponding long vowels /aː iː uː/. There are also two diphthongs: /aj/ and /aw/. The pronunciation of the vowels differs from speaker to speaker, in a way that tends to reflect the pronunciation of the corresponding colloquial variety. Nonetheless, there are some common trends. Most noticeable is the differing pronunciation of /a/ and /aː/, which tend towards fronted [æ(ː)], [a(ː)] or [ɛ(ː)] in most situations, but a back [ɑ(ː)] in the neighborhood of emphatic consonants. Some accents and dialects, such as those of the Hijaz, have central [ä(ː)] in all situations. The vowels /u/ and /i/ are often affected somewhat in emphatic neighborhoods as well, with generally more back and/or centralized allophones, but the differences are less great than for the low vowels. The pronunciation of short /u/ and /i/ tends towards [ʊ~o] and [ɪ~e] in many dialects. The definition of both "emphatic" and "neighborhood" vary in ways that reflect (to some extent) corresponding variations in the spoken dialects. Generally, the consonants triggering "emphatic" allophones are the pharyngealized consonants /tˤ dˤ sˤ ðˤ/; /q/; and /r/, if not followed immediately by /i(ː)/. Frequently, the uvular fricatives /x ɣ/ also trigger emphatic allophones; occasionally also the pharyngeal consonants /ʕ ħ/ (the former more than the latter). Many dialects have multiple emphatic allophones of each vowel, depending on the particular nearby consonants. In most MSA accents, emphatic coloring of vowels is limited to vowels immediately adjacent to a triggering consonant, although in some it spreads a bit farther: e.g., وقت waqt [wɑqt] 'time'; وطن waṭan [wɑtˤɑn] 'homeland'; وسط المدينة wasṭ al-madīnah [wæstˤɑl-mædiːnɐ] 'downtown' (sometimes [wɑstˤɑl-mædiːnæ] or similar). In a non-emphatic environment, the vowel /a/ in the diphthong /aj/ tends to be fronted even more than elsewhere, often pronounced [æj] or [ɛj]: hence سيف sayf [sajf ~ sæjf ~ sɛjf] 'sword' but صيف ṣayf [sˤɑjf] 'summer'. However, in accents with no emphatic allophones of /a/ (e.g., in the Hijaz), the pronunciation [äj] occurs in all situations. Consonants Consonant phonemes of Standard Arabic Labial Interdental Alveolar, Dental Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal plain emp. emp. plain Nasal m n Stop voiceless b tˤ t k q ʔ voiced dˤ3 d ʒ~d͡ʒ~ɟ~ɡʲ~ɡ Fricative voiceless f θ sˤ s ʃ x~χ[58] ħ h voiced ð ðˤ~zˤ z ɣ~ʁ ʕ Approximant l j w Trill r The phoneme /ʒ~d͡ʒ~ɟ~ɡʲ~ɡ/ is represented by the Arabic letter jīm (ج) and has many standard pronunciations. [d͡ʒ] is characteristic of north Algeria, Iraq, also in most of the Arabian peninsula but with an allophonic [ʒ] in some positions; [ʒ] occurs in most of the Levant and most North Africa; and [ɡ] is used in most of Egypt and some regions in Yemen and Oman. Generally this corresponds with the pronunciation in the colloquial dialects.[59] In some regions in Sudan and Yemen, as well as in some Sudanese and Yemeni dialects, it may be either [ɡʲ] or [ɟ], representing the original pronunciation of Classical Arabic. Foreign words containing /ɡ/ may be transcribed with ج, غ, ك, ق, گ, ݣ or ڨ, mainly depending on the regional spoken variety of Arabic or the commonly diacriticized Arabic letter. Note also that in northern Egypt, where the Arabic letter jīm (ج) is normally pronounced [ɡ], a separate phoneme /ʒ/, which may be transcribed with چ, occurs in a small number of mostly non-Arabic loanwords, e.g., /ʒakitta/ 'jacket'. /θ/ (ث) can be pronounced as [t] or even [s]. In some places of Maghreb it can be also pronounced as [t͡s]. /x/ and /ɣ/ (خ, غ) are velar, post-velar, or uvular.[58] In many varieties, /ħ, ʕ/ (ح, ع) are actually epiglottal [ʜ, ʢ] (despite what is reported in many earlier works). /l/ is pronounced as velarized [ɫ] in /ʔallaːh/, the name of God, q.e. Allah, when the word follows a, ā, u or ū (after i or ī it is unvelarized: bismi l–lāh /bismillaːh/). Some speakers velarize other occurrences of /l/ in MSA, in imitation of their spoken dialects. The emphatic consonant /dˤ/ was actually pronounced [ɮˤ], or possibly [d͡ɮˤ][60]—either way, a highly unusual sound. The medieval Arabs actually termed their language lughat al-ḍād 'the language of the Ḍād' (the name of the letter used for this sound), since they thought the sound was unique to their language. (In fact, it also exists in a few other minority Semitic languages, e.g., Mehri.) Arabic has consonants traditionally termed "emphatic" /tˤ, dˤ, sˤ, ðˤ/ (ط, ض, ص, ظ), which exhibit simultaneous pharyngealization [tˤ, dˤ, sˤ, ðˤ] as well as varying degrees of velarization [tˠ, dˠ, sˠ, ðˠ], so they may be written with the "Velarized or pharyngealized" diacritic ( ̴ ) as: /t̴, d̴, s̴, ð̴/. This simultaneous articulation is described as "Retracted Tongue Root" by phonologists.[61] In some transcription systems, emphasis is shown by capitalizing the letter, for example, /dˤ/ is written ⟨D⟩; in others the letter is underlined or has a dot below it, for example, ⟨ḍ⟩. Vowels and consonants can be phonologically short or long. Long (geminate) consonants are normally written doubled in Latin transcription (i.e. bb, dd, etc.), reflecting the presence of the Arabic diacritic mark shaddah, which indicates doubled consonants. In actual pronunciation, doubled consonants are held twice as long as short consonants. This consonant lengthening is phonemically contrastive: قبل qabala 'he accepted' vs. قبّل qabbala 'he kissed'. Syllable structure Arabic has two kinds of syllables: open syllables (CV) and (CVV)—and closed syllables (CVC), (CVVC) and (CVCC). The syllable types with three morae (units of time), i.e. CVC and CVV, are termed heavy syllables, while those with four morae, i.e. CVVC and CVCC, are superheavy syllables. Superheavy syllables in Classical Arabic occur in only two places: at the end of the sentence (due to pausal pronunciation) and in words such as حارّ ḥārr 'hot', مادّة māddah 'stuff, substance', تحاجوا taḥājjū 'they disputed with each other', where a long ā occurs before two identical consonants (a former short vowel between the consonants has been lost). (In less formal pronunciations of Modern Standard Arabic, superheavy syllables are common at the end of words or before clitic suffixes such as -nā 'us, our', due to the deletion of final short vowels.) In surface pronunciation, every vowel must be preceded by a consonant (which may include the glottal stop [ʔ]). There are no cases of hiatus within a word (where two vowels occur next to each other, without an intervening consonant). Some words do have an underlying vowel at the beginning, such as the definite article al- or words such as إشترا ishtarā 'he bought', إجتماع ijtimāʻ 'meeting'. When actually pronounced, one of three things happens: If the word occurs after another word ending in a consonant, there is a smooth transition from final consonant to initial vowel, e.g., إجتماع al-ijtimāʻ 'meeting' /alid͡ʒtimaːʕ/. If the word occurs after another word ending in a vowel, the initial vowel of the word is elided, e.g., بيت المدير baytu (a)l-mudīr 'house of the director' /bajtulmudiːr/. If the word occurs at the beginning of an utterance, a glottal stop [ʔ] is added onto the beginning, e.g., البيت هو al-baytu huwa ... 'The house is ...' /ʔalbajtuhuwa .../. Stress Word stress is not phonemically contrastive in Standard Arabic. It bears a strong relationship to vowel length. The basic rules for Modern Standard Arabic are: A final vowel, long or short, may not be stressed. Only one of the last three syllables may be stressed. Given this restriction, the last heavy syllable (containing a long vowel or ending in a consonant) is stressed, if it is not the final syllable. If the final syllable is super heavy and closed (of the form CVVC or CVCC) it receives stress. If no syllable is heavy or super heavy, the first possible syllable (i.e. third from end) is stressed. As a special exception, in Form VII and VIII verb forms stress may not be on the first syllable, despite the above rules: Hence inkatab(a) 'he subscribed' (whether or not the final short vowel is pronounced), yankatib(u) 'he subscribes' (whether or not the final short vowel is pronounced), yankatib 'he should subscribe (juss.)'. Likewise Form VIII ishtarā 'he bought', yashtarī 'he buys'. Examples:kitāb(un) 'book', kā-ti-b(un) 'writer', mak-ta-b(un) 'desk', ma-kā-ti-b(u) 'desks', mak-ta-ba-tun 'library' (but mak-ta-ba(-tun) 'library' in short pronunciation), ka-ta-bū (Modern Standard Arabic) 'they wrote' = ka-ta-bu (dialect), ka-ta-bū-h(u) (Modern Standard Arabic) 'they wrote it' = ka-ta-bū (dialect), ka-ta-ba-tā (Modern Standard Arabic) 'they (dual, fem) wrote', ka-tab-tu (Modern Standard Arabic) 'I wrote' = ka-tabt (short form or dialect). Doubled consonants count as two consonants: ma-jal-la-(tan) 'magazine', ma-ḥall(-un) "place". These rules may result in differently stressed syllables when final case endings are pronounced, vs. the normal situation where they are not pronounced, as in the above example of mak-ta-ba-tun 'library' in full pronunciation, but mak-ta-ba(-tun) 'library' in short pronunciation. The restriction on final long vowels does not apply to the spoken dialects, where original final long vowels have been shortened and secondary final long vowels have arisen from loss of original final -hu/hi. Some dialects have different stress rules. In the Cairo (Egyptian Arabic) dialect a heavy syllable may not carry stress more than two syllables from the end of a word, hence mad-ra-sah 'school', qā-hi-rah 'Cairo'. This also affects the way that Modern Standard Arabic is pronounced in Egypt. In the Arabic of Sanaa, stress is often retracted: bay-tayn 'two houses', mā-sat-hum 'their table', ma-kā-tīb 'desks', zā-rat-ḥīn 'sometimes', mad-ra-sat-hum 'their school'. (In this dialect, only syllables with long vowels or diphthongs are considered heavy; in a two-syllable word, the final syllable can be stressed only if the preceding syllable is light; and in longer words, the final syllable cannot be stressed.) Levels of pronunciation The final short vowels (e.g., the case endings -a -i -u and mood endings -u -a) are often not pronounced in this language, despite forming part of the formal paradigm of nouns and verbs. The following levels of pronunciation exist: Full pronunciation Full pronunciation with pausa This is the most formal level actually used in speech. All endings are pronounced as written, except at the end of an utterance, where the following changes occur: Final short vowels are not pronounced. (But possibly an exception is made for feminine plural -na and shortened vowels in the jussive/imperative of defective verbs, e.g., irmi! 'throw!'".) The entire indefinite noun endings -in and -un (with nunation) are left off. The ending -an is left off of nouns preceded by a tāʾ marbūṭah ة (i.e. the -t in the ending -at- that typically marks feminine nouns), but pronounced as -ā in other nouns (hence its writing in this fashion in the Arabic script). The tāʼ marbūṭah itself (typically of feminine nouns) is pronounced as h. (At least, this is the case in extremely formal pronunciation, e.g., some Quranic recitations. In practice, this h is usually omitted.) Formal short pronunciation This is a formal level of pronunciation sometimes seen. It is somewhat like pronouncing all words as if they were in pausal position (with influence from the colloquial varieties). The following changes occur: Most final short vowels are not pronounced. However, the following short vowels are pronounced: feminine plural -na shortened vowels in the jussive/imperative of defective verbs, e.g., irmi! 'throw!' second-person singular feminine past-tense -ti and likewise anti 'you (fem. sg.)' sometimes, first-person singular past-tense -tu sometimes, second-person masculine past-tense -ta and likewise anta 'you (masc. sg.)' final -a in certain short words, e.g., laysa 'is not', sawfa (future-tense marker) The nunation endings -an -in -un are not pronounced. However, they are pronounced in adverbial accusative formations, e.g., taqrīban تَقْرِيبًا 'almost, approximately', ʻādatan عَادَةً 'usually'. The tāʾ marbūṭah ending ة is unpronounced, except in construct state nouns, where it sounds as t (and in adverbial accusative constructions, e.g., ʻādatan عَادَةً 'usually', where the entire -tan is pronounced). The masculine singular nisbah ending -iyy is actually pronounced -ī and is unstressed (but plural and feminine singular forms, i.e. when followed by a suffix, still sound as -iyy-). Full endings (including case endings) occur when a clitic object or possessive suffix is added (e.g., -nā 'us/our'). Informal short pronunciation This is the pronunciation used by speakers of Modern Standard Arabic in extemporaneous speech, i.e. when producing new sentences rather than simply reading a prepared text. It is similar to formal short pronunciation except that the rules for dropping final vowels apply even when a clitic suffix is added. Basically, short-vowel case and mood endings are never pronounced and certain other changes occur that echo the corresponding colloquial pronunciations. Specifically: All the rules for formal short pronunciation apply, except as follows. The past tense singular endings written formally as -tu -ta -ti are pronounced -t -t -ti. But masculine ʾanta is pronounced in full. Unlike in formal short pronunciation, the rules for dropping or modifying final endings are also applied when a clitic object or possessive suffix is added (e.g., -nā 'us/our'). If this produces a sequence of three consonants, then one of the following happens, depending on the speaker's native colloquial variety: A short vowel (e.g., -i- or -ǝ-) is consistently added, either between the second and third or the first and second consonants. Or, a short vowel is added only if an otherwise unpronounceable sequence occurs, typically due to a violation of the sonority hierarchy (e.g., -rtn- is pronounced as a three-consonant cluster, but -trn- needs to be broken up). Or, a short vowel is never added, but consonants like r l m n occurring between two other consonants will be pronounced as a syllabic consonant (as in the English words "butter bottle bottom button"). When a doubled consonant occurs before another consonant (or fina |
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