# Additional "u" sounds



## Ben Jamin

I heard today a radio transmission from a celebration in Afghanistan. The speaker began with an invocation “Allahu akubaru”. The ‘u’ (like Engglish ‘oo’) sounds were clearly audible, but were very short. The usual transliteration of Arabic gives “Allah akbar”, without the ‘u’s.
Can anybody explain me if this pronunciation is typical for Afghanistan, or it originates from genuine Arabic pronounciation.
Actually, I heard “Allahu “ earlier (may be even from an Arab country), but “akubaru“ was a novelty.


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## cherine

Hi,

I'm not versed into phonetics, so the simple answer I can give you is that adding the vowels makes the pronounciation easier. Besides, this is the correct reading after all (from a grammatical point of view), specially at the end of these two words. As for the "u" in akubaru, it's not pronounced in all dialects of Arabic, but many dialects have it, though not as a long vowel as you describe it.


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## Ben Jamin

I wrote “they were like ‘u’ (like English ‘oo’) sounds were clearly audible, *but were very short*.”


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## ayed

Agree with Cherine.


Ben Jamin said:


> I heard today a radio transmission from a celebration in Afghanistan. The speaker began with an invocation “Allahu akubaru”. The ‘u’ (like Engglish ‘oo’) sounds were clearly audible, but were very short. The usual transliteration of Arabic gives “Allah akbar”, without the ‘u’s.
> Can anybody explain me if this pronunciation is typical for Afghanistan, or it originates from genuine Arabic pronounciation.
> Actually, I heard “Allahu “ earlier (may be even from an Arab country), but “akubaru“ was a novelty.



First, Afghanistan is not an Arabic country and the official language is not Arabic.

So, the idea is that Arabic learners out there often apply or follow what so-called "vowelization"--attashkeel.That is, they speak as they utter kasra, tanween, fataha .ect.

The words الله أكبر seem to be Allah Akbar. In fact, it is pronounced as Allahu Akbar. You can say Allah_u_ Akbar_u_ if you are going to continue your speech.

Allah_u _Akbaru kabeera
Allah_u_ Akbar( ) kabeera 

I hope this helps..


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## cherine

Ben Jamin said:


> I wrote “they were like ‘u’ (like English ‘oo’) sounds were clearly audible, *but were very short*.”


Ah, right. Sorry about that.


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## Ben Jamin

Is it correct to say that _Akubaru_ is a kind of Afghan vocalization too? I heard it very distinctly.


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## cherine

As Ayed and I said, this is an Arabic pronunciation of an Arabic sentence. It's not something specific to Afghan's pronunciation of Arabic.

If you listen to the Muslim call of prayer (adhan) from any place, you'll hear the same.


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## rayloom

The short /u/ after the k in Akbar is a mistake. Probably a hyper-correction on the part of some, who actually give the kaf what's called in Arabic a قلقلة. Which is an epenthetic very short vowel (schwa) normally occuring only after certain consonants in Quranic reading. The consonants being q ṭ b d and the ج (dʒ), when they occur as silent consonants (i.e. not followed by a vowel).

As for the -u after Allah and akbar, it's the nominative case marker for these words ("Allah" occuring as a subject, "akbar" as a predicate).


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## Ben Jamin

Why is the u at the end of the word usually not transliterated in roman alphabet? Is it always pronounced in all Arab dialects?


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## rayloom

Usually transcriptions of Arabic just drop the final case markers. This is a transcription by the way.
And although Arabic dialects are syntactic (not inflected in general), this phrase الله أكبر is quite frozen, and would almost always be pronounced as Allahu akbar in nearly all varieties of colloquial Arabic.
By the way, Classical Arabic doesn't end speech with a short vowel, so even though akbar here would end with a -u (for the nominative), it would be dropped here in the end of speech.


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## Ben Jamin

So 'akubaru' is wrong in regard of the both 'u's?


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## ayed

I, for one, consider it so. It seems to be such an invention.

_*ak.ba.ru *_would be fine.
what would you feel if I uttered your nickname as " BenuJamin"?


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## Schem

rayloom said:


> And although Arabic dialects are syntactic (not inflected in general), this phrase الله أكبر is quite frozen, and would almost always be pronounced as Allahu akbar in nearly all varieties of colloquial Arabic.



This isn't true. Almost no one, at least in Najd, pronounces Allah Akbar with case endings. It's always pronounced (and sung!) Allah akbar except when used for formal Islamic purposes such as the Adhan/call for prayer.


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## rayloom

Ben Jamin said:


> So 'akubaru' is wrong in regard of the both 'u's?



Only the middle u (akubar) is wrong, not the final one. For the drop of the final u, we're assuming Allahu akbar is occuring at the end of speech. If it's not, as in Ayed's first example: Allah_u _Akbaru kabeera, then it's correct to pronounce the final u in Akbar.



Schem said:


> This isn't true. Almost no one, at least in Najd, pronounces Allah Akbar with case endings. It's always pronounced (and sung!) Allah akbar except when used for formal Islamic purposes such as the Adhan/call for prayer.



Excluding Najd 
I did say "nearly" and "almost". 
It's one of those frozen expressions which guards the original case endings, like, al-7amdu li-llah, assalamu 3alaikum, wallah(i), bismi 'llah...etc. And as you might notice, it's really difficult to say that they're only pronounced so for Islamic purposes!


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## Tracer

Any non-native Arabic speaker reciting the _adhan_ (unless he’s had extensive training in pronunciation) will almost always pronounce this phrase “incorrectly” to native Arabic ears.  I’ve heard the call to prayer in several non-Arabic speaking countries (including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran) and they all sound different not only from Arabic, but from each other. 

None of them, for example, can really pronounce the “emphatic” /l/ found in /allah/.  Persian is noted for its /AW/ sounding /a/ and it comes out very clearly – and very un-Arabic -  in the _adhan_ and other set phrases of this kind.

The /u/ you heard between the /k/ and /b/ in the word /akbar/ is most likely simply “phonetic interference” arising from the speakers native language entering the Arabic word.  This happens all the time with language learners.  

Since Arabic is not spoken in Afghanistan (nor Iran nor Pakistan etc), it is as “foreign-sounding” to them  as it is to an American.  

(In fact, as you probably know, linguistically speaking, the languages of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. are 1000 times closer to English than they are to Arabic….a situation I have always found somewhat comical).


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## Schem

rayloom said:


> Excluding Najd
> I did say "nearly" and "almost".
> It's one of those frozen expressions which guards the original case endings, like, al-7amdu li-llah, assalamu 3alaikum, wallah(i), bismi 'llah...etc. And as you might notice, it's really difficult to say that they're only pronounced so for Islamic purposes!



Haha, sorry I got excited.

Also in the Gulf region, not just in Najd. The one expression out of those I can sufficiently call "frozen" is _assalamu 3alaikum_, the rest all adhere to local phonetic rules. Not to mention the many Bedouin pronunciations which do not reserve for assalamu 3alaikum a special status, and apply their rules of phonetics to it as well. (e.g., assalam 3alakum)

And I'm not sure I understand the last bit about Islamic purposes.


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## Ben Jamin

Thanks to everybody! I have now got a good overview of the subject.


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