Arabic Phonology - Consonants

Consonants

See also: Arabic letters

Even in the most formal of conventions, pronunciation depends upon a speaker's background. 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.

Arabic consonants

		Labial	Emphatic 2		Plain		Palato- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal/ Epiglottal	Glottal
			Dental	Alveolar	Alveolar	Dental
Nasal		m			n
Stop		(p) 8	tˤ 4		t 9				k	q		ʔ
		b	dˤ 4		d 9		d͡ʒ~ʒ~ɟ~ɡ 1
Fricative		(v) 8	ðˤ~zˤ		z	ð			ɣ~ʁ 5		ʕ~ʢ̰ 3
		f		sˤ	s	θ	ʃ		x~χ 5		ħ~ʜ 3	h
Approximant		w		lˤ~l 6				j
Trill				rˤ~r 7

1. ^ The phoneme represented by the Arabic letter ǧīm (ج) has many standard pronunciations: in most of Egypt and some regions in Yemen and Oman. This is also a characteristic of colloquial Egyptian and southern Yemeni dialects. In Morocco and Algeria, it is pronounced as in some words, especially colloquially. In most north Africa and most of the Levant, the standard is pronounced, and in certain regions of the Persian Gulf with, while ~ in Literary Arabic. In some Sudanese and Yemeni dialects, it may be either or as it used to be in 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 . Also, /d͡ʒ~ʒ/ can be used in loanwords where it isn't the standard pronunciation for the letter ǧīm (ج).
2. ^ Emphatic consonants are pronounced with the back of the tongue approaching the pharynx (see pharyngealization). They are pronounced with velarization by the Persian Gulf speakers. /q/, /ħ/, and /ʕ/ can be considered the emphatic counterparts to /k/, /h/, and /ʔ/ respectively.
3. ^ The so-called "voiced pharyngeal fricative" /ʕ/ (ع) is in fact neither pharyngeal nor fricative, but is more correctly described as a creaky-voiced epiglottal approximant. Its unvoiced counterpart /ħ/ (ح) is likewise epiglottal, although it is a true fricative. Thelwall asserts that the sound of ع is actually a pharyngealized glottal stop . Similarly, McCarthy (1994) points to dialectal and idiolectal variation between stop and continuant variations of /ʕ/ in Iraq and Kuwait, noting that the distinction is superficial for Arabic speakers and carries "no phonological consequences."
4. ^ ض /dˤ/ and ط /tˤ/ are pronounced as and, respectively, in Iraq and Arabian Peninsula excluding Jordan and Syria.
5. ^ In most regional pronunciations, uvular fricatives of the classical period have become velar or post-velar.
6. ^ In most pronunciations, /lˤ/ as a phoneme occurs in a handful of loanwords. It also occurs in الله /ʔalˤˈlˤaːh/, the name of God, q.e. Allah; except when it follows long or short /i/ when it is not emphatic: بسم الله bismi l-lāh /bismillaːh/ ("in the name of God"). However, /lˤ/ is absent in many places, such as Egypt, and is more widespread 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 influenced by such dialects. Furthermore, /lˤ/ also occurs as an allophone of /l/ in the environment of emphatic consonants when the two are not separated by /i/.
7. ^ Emphatic /r/ exists all over North African pronunciations.
8. ^ /p, v/ are not necessarily pronounced by all Arabic speakers, but are often pronounced in names and loanwords. 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 /pa(ː)kistaːn, ba(ː)kistaːn/ "Pakistan", فيروس or ڤيروس /vi(ː)ru(ː)s, vajru(ː)s/ "virus", etc. Sometimes the Persian letter (with 3 dots) ﭖ /p/ and a modified ﭪ /v/ letter 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 /nu(ː)fambar/, /novambar, -ber/ or /nofember/ "November", both كاپريس and كابريس /ka(ː)pri(ː)s, ka(ː)bri(ː)s/ "caprice" can be used. The use of both sounds may be considered marginal and Arabs may pronounce the words interchangeably; besides, many loanwords have become Arabized.
9. ^ Depending on the region, the plosives are either alveolar or dental.

Long (geminate/double) consonants are pronounced exactly like short consonants, but last longer. In Arabic, they are called mushaddadah (‘strengthened’, marked with a shaddah), but they are not pronounced any stronger, just held longer. Between a geminate consonant and a pause, an epenthetic occurs, but this is only common across regions in West Asia.

See also: Sun and moon letters