Guide to Arabic Pronunciation

There are several regional pronunciation variants. The following gives the most standard version. The letters are given in their isolated form; there are different forms for initial, medial, and final positions. Transliteration Name Character Pronunciation long a [aː] ﺍ ā (or ʼ ) ʼalif (historically [ʔ]) [as expected: [b ﺏ b bāʼ [as expected: [t ﺕ t tāʼ [like th in thing: [θ ﺙ ṯ or th ṯāʼ ǧīm [like j: [ʤ ﺝ ǧ or j (jīm) [like whispered h: [ħ ﺡ ḥ ḥāʼ like ch in German ﺥ kh ḫāʼ auch: [x] [as expected: [d ﺩ d dāl [like th in these: [ð ﺫ ḏ or dh ḏāl [like a Spanish r: [r ﺭ r rāʼ [as expected: [z ﺯ z zāy [as expected: [s ﺱ s sīn [like sh in shoe: [ʃ ﺵ š or sh šīn [emphatic s: [sˁ ﺹ ṣ ṣād [emphatic d: [dˁ ﺽ ḍ ḍād [emphatic t: [tˁ ﻁ ṭ ṭāʼ emphatic dh or z: ﻅ ẓ or ḍh ẓāʼ [ðˁ] / [zˁ] not found in ﻉ ʻ ʻayn English: [ʕ] not found in ﻍ ġ or gh ġayn English: [ɣ] [as expected: [f ﻑ f fāʼ not found in ﻕ q qāf English: [q] [as expected: [k ﻙ k kāf [as expected: [l ﻝ l lām [as expected: [m ﻡ m mīm [as expected: [n ﻥ n nūn [as expected: [h ﻩ h hāʼ like w or long u: [w] ﻭ w, ū wāw , [uː] like y or long i: [j] , ﻱ y , ī yāʼ [iː] Standard Arabic only has three vowels (a, i, u) and short vowels are not written. Also short 'a' often sounds more like English short 'e'. (Persian, discussed below, has more vowels). Three letters do double duty as either consonants or long vowels (long vowels sound like long European vowels, not like long English vowels).

Example: Sanskrit ardha-jiva (half-chord) was shortened to jiva. Since and without (ﺟﺐ) Arabic does not have the v sound, it was changed to jiba .(ﺟﺐ) short vowels, was written with two letters in Arabic: jb was (ﺟﺐ) European translators (around the 12th century) thought that jb jayb, meaning cavity, bay. The Latin word sinus was used to translate this word since it also means bay, fold. From this we get our word sine.

-is the title of al ﺍﻟﻜﺘﺎﺏ ﺍﳌﺨﺘﺼﺮ ﻓﻲ ﺣﺴﺎﺏ ﺍﳉﺒﺮ ﻭﺍﳌﻘﺎﺑﻠﺔ :Another example Khwarizmi's most famous book (Arabic is written right to left). The fifth which can be transliterated as āl-jbr. With the ﺍﳉﺒﺮ word of the title is unwritten vowel i this gives āl-jabr which could be interpreted as āl-jebr. This ultimately gave us our word algebra

Notes: In Egyptian Arabic, 'j' might be pronounced 'g'. Some dialects pronounce it 'zh' is used, but it is not an official (ﺀ) ʒ]. The glottal stop ʼ ([ʔ]) the hamza] letter.

Persian modifications

After the Arab conquest, the Arabic alphabet was adopted for Persian (Fārsī, Pārsī, Darī, and Tajik). Since Persian has sounds that are not in Arabic, new letters were added. Transliteration Changes Character Pronunciation [p] ﭖ p peh [tʃ] ﭺ ch tcheh [ʒ] ﮊ zh zheh [g] ﮒ g gaf Other letters are modified. Only some of the changes are listed below. Transliteration Changes Character Pronunciation ʔ, ɔ, æ] or silent] ﺍ ā (or ʼ ) alef [s] ﺙ s se h] or silent] ﺡ h he [z] ﺫ z zāl [like sh in shoe: [ʃ ﺵ š or sh šīn [s] ﺹ ṣ sād [z] ﺽ z zād [t] ﻁ ṭ tā [z] ﻅ ẓ ẓā [ʔ] also lengthens a ﻉ ʻ eyn preceding vowel [v] , [u], [o] ﻭ v or u vāv Before the Arab Conquest, the Persians used a different alphabet based on the Aramaic Alphabet called the Pahlavi Alphabet. In old Persian, before Alexander the Great, cuneiform was used. (Note: the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets descend from the Aramaic alphabet, which descend from the Phoenician alphabet or a close relative thereof).

(Developed 2005-2006 by Professor Wayne Aitken for Math 330).