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The 'Arabic language' has a standard pronunciation, which is basically the one used to recite the Qur'an. The same pronunciation is used in newscasts, discourses and formal actuations of all types.
As in other widely used languages, dialects of Arabic pronounce some letters differently.
Standard Arabic (or Quraanic Arabic) has 28 consonant sounds, represented by the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet, and three vowel sounds. Both consonants and vowels may be short or long; long consonants are marked with the shadda (sign of gemination, literally "sign of emphasis" in Arabic), whereas long vowels are marked with the letters ا (''alif''), ي (''yā'') or و (''wāw'') quiescent (then called ''matres lectionis'' or "mothers of reading").

Contents

Vowels and diphthongs

Consonants

Local variations

Distribution

References

See also

Vowels and diphthongs

There are three short vowels, three long vowels and two diphthongs (formed by a combination of short with the semivowels and ).

★ Short is pronounced like ''e'' in English ''bed'' but with the tongue towards the center of the mouth: IPA . However, in an environment of velarised or pharyngealised (so called "emphatic") consonants, it is pronounced like a short version of the first vowel in English ''father'': IPA .

★ Short is pronounced like ''i'' in English ''sit'': IPA .

★ Short is pronounced like ''u'' in English ''put'': IPA .

★ Long (''ā'') is pronounced like a long version of the vowel in English ''man'': IPA . In promixity to velarised consonants, as well as after ''r'', it is pronounced like the first vowel in English ''father'': IPA .

★ Long (''ī'') is pronounced similar to the ''ee'' in English ''need'': IPA .

★ Long (''ū'') is pronounced like ''uh'' in German ''Stuhl'': IPA . (Note: ''oo'' in English ''tool'' is different in some dialects)

★ The diphthong is pronounced as a combination of short and short : . In a velarised environment it is pronounced with a back first element: .

★ The diphthong is pronounced as a combination of short and short : . Near velarised consonants it is pronounced with a back first element: .

Consonants

The 28 consonant sounds of Arabic are the following:
(Letters left without a comment are pronounced more or less like in English.)

'Standard Arabic consonant phonemes'

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Inter- dental	Dental/Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyn- geal	Glottal
					plain	emphatic
Plosive	voiceless
	voiced						¹		¹
Fricative	voiceless
	voiced
Nasal
Lateral
Trill
Approximant

# is pronounced as by some speakers. This is especially characteristic of the Egyptian and southern Yemeni dialects. In many parts of North Africa and in the Levant, it is pronounced as , and in certain regions of Oman it is pronounced as .
Emphatic consonants are pronounced with the back of the tongue approaching the pharynx (see pharyngealization). , , and can be considered the emphatic counterparts to , , and respectively.
Long consonants are pronounced exactly like short consonants, but last longer. Arabs call them "mushaddadah" i.e. "strengthened", but they are not pronounced any stronger, just held longer.
See also: solar letters, lunar letters.

Local variations

Most variations on spoken Arabic have different reflexes of Classical Arabic phonemes than the pronunciation of literary Arabic. Or, to put it differently, spoken and literary Arabic differ not only in specific words but also contain changes in the pronunciations of certain sounds.
A good example would be Egyptian Arabic, where:

★ The letter ﻕ (SA ) represents a glottal stop in most (but not all) words.

★ The letter ﺝ (SA
★ ) represents a velar stop .

★ The letter ﺙ (SA
★ ) represents in common words and in borrowings from Classical Arabic. Thus Umm Kulthum is actually pronounced Umm Kulsuum.

★ The letter ﺫ (SA
★ ) represents in common words and in borrowings from Classical Arabic.

★ The letter ﻅ (SA
★ ) represents an emphatic in common words and an emphatic in Classical Arabic borrowings.
Other dialects have similar variations. The letter most prone to variations in pronunciation seems to be ﻕ. This sometimes leads to variations in transliteration systems.
This does not mean that Egyptians recite the Qur'an differently or that they do not know the standard pronunciation: speakers have no difficulty pronouncing correctly and understand Standard Arabic when necessary.

Distribution

The most frequent consonant phoneme of Arabic is , the rarest is . The frequency distribution of the 28 consonantal phonemes, based on the 2,967 triliteral roots listed by Wehr (1952) is (with the percentage of roots in which each phoneme occurs):

Phoneme	Frequency
	24%
	18%
	17%
	17%
	17%
	16%
	14%
	13%
	13%
	13%
	13%
	12%
	12%
	11%
	10%
	9%
	8%
	8%
	8%
	8%
	7%
	7%
	6%
	5%
	5%
	3%
	3%
	1%

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. The list does give, however, an idea of which phonemes are more marginal than others. It will be noted that the five least frequent letters are among the six letters added to those inherited from the Phoenician alphabet.

References

★ Hans Wehr, ''Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart'' (1952)

See also

★ Qaddafi spelling variations (Example of confusion generated by translation of non-standard ﻕ pronunciation).