21Chapter 6
Long vowels,
alif maqs
̇
u ̄rah,
dagger or miniature
alif,
word stress and syllable
structure
6.1 The three short vowels, ــَـــ /a/, ــُـــ /u/, and ــِـــ /i/, also have
long variants. They are written by adding one of the following three
letters after the short vowel signs. These letters are called in Arabic
ّدَُح ُرو ُف اْلـ َم h
̇
uru ̄fu l-maddi ‘letters of prolongation’:Note: In some books long vowels are transliterated as double vowels. Here we
use the macron above the vowel to indicate length.
6.2 It should be noted that the combination of the letter la ̄m ...لـ
followed by
alif ...ـا is called la ̄m-
alif and written as َلا or ـ َلا.... /la ̄/(not as َلـا). Also, the la ̄m-
alif (^) َلا follows the rule of
alif (1) ...ـا, which
means that it cannot be connected to the following letter (to the left),
e.g.
alif ا, which is related to fath
̇
ah ــَــــ/a/
wa ̄w و, which is related to d
̇
ammahــُــــ/u/
ya ̄
ي, which is related to kasrah ــِــــ/i/
Short vowels Long vowels
... َبـ /ba/ بَـا /ba ̄/, e.g.َبـا ٌب ba ̄bun, door
... ُبـ /bu/ ُبـو /bu ̄/, e.g.ُنـو ٌر nu ̄run, light
... بِـ/bi/ بِـي /bı
- /, e.g. ِديـ ٌن dı
- nun, religion
َس َلا ٌم sala ̄mun, peace َلا َم la ̄ma, to blame ّلا~ َح h
̇allan, a solution