5Chapter 2
Pronunciation of consonants
(1)
Alif (^) ا This first letter has no pronunciation of its own. One of
its main functions is to act as a bearer for the sign hamzah,
discussed separately in chapter 7.
Alif is also used as a long vowel
/a ̄/ (see chapter 6).
(2) Ba ̄
(^) ب /b/ A voiced bilabial stop as the /b/ in English ‘habit’.
(3) Ta ̄
(^) ت /t/ An unaspirated voiceless dental stop as the t in English
‘stop’. Never pronounced as American English tt as in ‘letter’.
(4) T
̄
a ̄
(^) ث /t
̄
/ A voiceless interdental fricative as th in English ‘thick’,
‘tooth’.
(5) G ̆ı ̄m ج /g ̆/ A voiced palato-alveolar affricate. In reality, this let-
ter has three different pronunciations depending on the dialectal
background of the speaker:
(a) In Classical Arabic and the Gulf area, as well as in many
other places in the Arab world, it is pronounced as a voiced
palato-alveolar affricate as the j in ‘judge’, ‘journey’, or the g
in Italian ‘giorno’.
(b) In Lower Egypt (Cairo, Alexandria) it is pronounced as a
voiced velar stop as the g in English ‘great’.
(c) In North Africa and the Levant it is pronounced as a voiced
palato-alveolar fricative /zˇ/ as the s in English ‘pleasure’, and
as j in French ‘jour’.
(6) H
̇
a ̄
(^) ح/h
̇
/ This consonant has no equivalent in European
languages. It is pronounced in the pharynx by breathing with
strong friction and no uvular vibration or scrape, so that it sounds