Arabic Phonology - Vowels

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:

• /a, aː/
  • retracted to in the environment of a neighboring /r/, /q/ or an emphatic (pharyngealized) consonant: /sˤ/, /dˤ/, /tˤ/, /ðˤ/ /lˤ/ and in a few regional standard pronunciations also /x/ and /ɣ/;
  • only in Iraq and Persian Gulf: before a word boundary;
  • advanced to in the environment of most consonants:
    • labial consonants (/m/, /b/ and /f/),
    • plain (non-pharyngealized) coronal consonants with the exception of /r/ (/θ/, /ð/, /n/, /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /l/, /ʃ/ and /d͡ʒ~ɡ~ʒ/)
    • pharyngeal consonants (/ħ/ and /ʕ/)
    • glottal consonants (/h/ and /ʔ/)
    • /j/, /k/ and /w/;
  • Across North Africa and West Asia, the open vowel /æ, ɑ/ may have different contrasting values, being (, ), (, ) or without any contrast at all: almost centralized .
  • In North west Africa, the (near-)open front vowel /æ/ is raised to or .

• /i, iː, u, uː/
  • Across North Africa and West Asia, /i/ may have other values: ( or ) and /u/ may have other values: ( or ). Sometimes with one value for each vowel in both short and long lengths or two different values for each short and long lengths.
  • In Egypt, close vowels have different values; short initial or medial:, ← instead of /i, u/. Unstressed final long /-aː, -iː, -uː/ are most often shortened or reduced: /-aː/ → or, /-iː/ → /-i/, /-uː/ → .

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, as there are often competing notions of what constitutes a "prestige" form. Often, even highly proficient speakers will import the vowel-retraction rules from their native dialects. 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. Certain speakers (most notably Levantine speakers) exhibit a degree of asymmetry in leftward vs. rightward spread of vowel-retraction.

The final heavy syllable of a root morpheme is stressed.

However, the pronunciation of loanwords is highly dependent on the speaker's native variety.

The vowels /o/, /oː/, /e/ and /eː/ appear in varieties of Arabic and some stable loanwords or foreign names. E.g. كوكاكولا /ko(ː)kaˈkoːla/ ('Coca-Cola'), شوكولاتة /ʃo(ː)ko(ː)ˈlaːta/ ('chocolate'), دكتور /dukˈtoːr/ or /dokˈtoːr/ ('doctor'), جون /(d)ʒoːn/ ('John'), توم /tom/ ('Tom'), بلجيكا /belˈ(d)ʒiːka/ ('Belgium'), سكرتير /sekreˈteːr/ or /sekerˈteːr/ ('secretary'), etc. Foreign words often have a liberal sprinkling of long vowels, as their word shapes do not conform to standardized prescriptive pronunciations with short vowels. For short vowels /e/ and /o/, there may be no vowel 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. The letters ي or و are always used to render the long vowels /eː/ and /oː/.