# All dialects: صندوق، عصفور، خرتيت، خنزير، مكتوب، ملفوف



## HoopoeOfHope

Hello everyone! I'm new here so I hope this is the right place to post this. Saw some posts here of similar questions so I decided to join this site to try asking it here.

I'm a native speaker, but I was wondering about the range of this phenomenon. How do you pronounce the following words:

صندوق - عصفور - خرتيت - خنزير - مكتوب - ملفوف 

Does the first letter carry the same vowel in all of them or are they different? If they are the same for all, can you think of any instance in your dialect where one of these patterns carries a different vowel?

In my dialect (a North Arabian Bedouin dialect) the first four words begin with the same vowel while the last two are different. They are:

* صِندوق /sˁənduːɡ/
* عِصفور /ʕəsˁfuːr/
* خِرتيت /χərtiːt/
* خِنزير /χənziːr/
* مَكتوب /maktuːb/
* مَلفوف /malfuːf/

The exact vowel is not kasrah, it's /ə/. Worth noting that we lost the distinction between the dammah and kasrah in my dialect which is why the first two sets of words have the same vowels.


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## Hemza

Regarding the vowels, these words would be pronounced the same way in Morocco, with /ə/ though مكتوب and ملفوف would be pronounced with a "a" in my dialect but in some others, it would be /ə/ as well.

As for the lost distinction, this happens in most bedouin (or rural from bedouin origin) dialects of Morocco as well as in Mauritania where for instance, you hear "kell/gilt" instead of "kull/qult" as it occurs in urban dialects.


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## Derakhshan

In Bahrain (Arab-Sunni dialect) these words are all pronounced the same way you have written. The difference seems to be down to the latter two being على وزن مفعول while the others are not.


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## fenakhay

They are all pronounced with /a/ in my dialect (we don't have the word : خرتيت).

صندوق /sˁanduːq/
عصفور /ʕasˁfuːr/
خنزير /xanziːr/
مكتوب /maktuːb/
ملفوف /malfuːf/


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## Hemza

@fenakhay that's definitely also the case in Fes regarding the pronunciation of the words but I mixing up dialects .


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## Aloulu

صندوق - عصفور - خرتيت - خنزير - مكتوب - ملفوف
sondouq (proper Qaaf if your from a bigger city in Tunisia, from rural area its the english g pronounced-)
osfour
khirtit (??)
khinzir
mektoub
melfouf


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## wriight

I don't have خرتيت either, but the others all begin with fat7a:

سندوق sandūʔ
عصفور ʕasˁfūr
خنزير xanzīr
مكتوب maktūb
ملفوف malfūf



HoopoeOfHope said:


> If they are the same for all, can you think of any instance in your dialect where one of these patterns carries a different vowel?


There are two exceptions in my dialect:

Words reborrowed from Fus7a, like تلميذ _tilmīz_ (not *_talmīd_) and قدّيس _ʔiddīs_ (not *_ʔaddīs_ -- but maybe Christians retain the latter?)
The Form II masdar, which is always تِفعيل. (I like how Fus7a has فِعليق/تَفعيل while we generally have فَعليق/تِفعيل)
But this one also doesn't hold for masdars borrowed from Fus7a, like تمرين _tamrīn_ and تقريبا _taʔrīban_.


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## WadiH

wriight said:


> I don't have خرتيت either, but the others all begin with fat7a:
> 
> سندوق sandūʔ
> عصفور ʕasˁfūr
> خنزير xanzīr
> مكتوب maktūb
> ملفوف malfūf



Has it always been like this and is it this way even in rural speech?  The first three sound very "modern/urban" to my ear.



wriight said:


> There are two exceptions in my dialect:
> 
> Words reborrowed from Fus7a, like تلميذ _tilmīz_ (not *_talmīd_) and قدّيس _ʔiddīs_ (not *_ʔaddīs_ -- but maybe Christians retain the latter?)
> The Form II masdar, which is always تِفعيل. (I like how Fus7a has فِعليق/تَفعيل while we generally have فَعليق/تِفعيل)
> But this one also doesn't hold for masdars borrowed from Fus7a, like تمرين _tamrīn_ and تقريبا _taʔrīban_.




I think a dyed-in-the-wool bedouin would say تِفعيل as well.

Also what do you mean by فعليق?  Can you give an example please?


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## wriight

WadiH said:


> Has it always been like this and is it this way even in rural speech? The first three sound very "modern/urban" to my ear.


Can't say how far back it goes, but both the fat7as and the first word's س are authentic rurally. (The س might have something to do with dissimilation from the ق (?) -- we also say سدّق, ديّق/ذيّق, etc. -- and it's part of a pattern that's more restricted than the Urban Lebanese tendency to ditch emphasis unconditionally)



WadiH said:


> I think a dyed-in-the-wool bedouin would say تِفعيل as well.
> 
> Also what do you mean by فعليق? Can you give an example please?


Nice!
By فعليق I just mean to refer to all words on the pattern CVCCīC (I was using ف ع ل ق as dummy consonants). What I thought was funny is how Fus7a and some Levantine dialects are opposites with respect to this thread's topic: Fus7a prefers CiCCīC except for the one pattern تَفعيل, while our dialects prefer CaCCīC except for the one pattern تِفعيل.


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## HoopoeOfHope

WadiH said:


> I think a dyed-in-the-wool bedouin would say تِفعيل as well.



Depends, there are some differences within the Bedouin dialects themselves. Yes, there are some that say تِفعيل, but in my dialect even the oldest members of my family would say تَفعيل.


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## elroy

I don't have خرتيت either (what does it mean?).

For the others:

I have the same first-syllable vowel in all but عصفور.

عصفور has a "dark" a (IPA [ɑ]) while the others have a "light" a (IPA [æ]~[a]).

In both Standard Arabic and Palestinian Arabic, this is a common phenomenon.  The realization of the "a" depends on the surrounding consonants.  Both pronunciations occur in the environment of ر.  Other than that, the vowel is dark in the environment of emphatics (ص ض ط ظ ق) and light if there are no emphatics.

ص is an emphatic, but in my dialect صندوق is pronounced with a س for some reason, and the ق is pronounced as a همزة, so the "a" is light.  In MSA it's dark. 

عصفور has a dark "a" because of the ص.

Here's me pronouncing all five words in Palestinian Arabic: Vocaroo | Online voice recorder


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## Hemza

I think now everyone is wondering the same question: what does خرتيت mean?


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## HoopoeOfHope

Hemza said:


> I think now everyone is wondering the same question: what does خرتيت mean?


It means rhinoceros. I don't suspect that we also didn't have this word in the past and that we borrowed it from another dialect in recent times (probably Egyptian); the animal itself doesn't live in the peninsula. It's also known as وحيد القرن which is probably the more common name for it.

And the reason why I chose this specific word is because apparently it's خَرتيت in Standard Arabic which is strange to me. So I wanted to know if it breaks the pattern in the dialects but it seems the word isn't even very known.


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## WadiH

It doesn't seem to occur in the old dictionaries, but I always say خِرتيت (I think vowel harmony plays a role and also the analogy with words like خِنزير).


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## wriight

wriight said:


> I don't have خرتيت either, but the others all begin with fat7a:
> 
> سندوق sandūʔ
> عصفور ʕasˁfūr
> خنزير xanzīr
> مكتوب maktūb
> ملفوف malfūf
> 
> There are two exceptions in my dialect:
> 
> Words reborrowed from Fus7a, like تلميذ _tilmīz_ (not *_talmīd_) and قدّيس _ʔiddīs_ (not *_ʔaddīs_ -- but maybe Christians retain the latter?)
> The Form II masdar, which is always تِفعيل. (I like how Fus7a has فِعليق/تَفعيل while we generally have فَعليق/تِفعيل)
> But this one also doesn't hold for masdars borrowed from Fus7a, like تمرين _tamrīn_ and تقريبا _taʔrīban_.


Two additions:

A good example of a word with و borrowed from Fus7a is إنبوب (which is أُنبوب but with my dialect's merger of damme into kasra). Anis Frayha attests أَنبوب in his Lebanese dictionary, though.
A strange exception I had forgotten about is سِكِّينة "knife". It feels weird to say that this word isn't native vocabulary considering how commonplace knives have always been (right?), so I don't know how that kasra snuck in there... Wiktionary even says that it was borrowed from an Aramaic _sakkīnā_, with /a/ in the first syllable. Does anyone say سَكِّين/سَكِّينة?


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## Hemza

Talking about the فتحة to كسرة switch, what I noticed is that in some non Maghrebi dialects, the Standard Arabic مًن (who) becomes مٍن (as I noticed in my Egyptian friend and my Palestinian mates speeches) while in the Maghreb, when من is used, it always remains مَن (sometimes مَنهو/مَنهي).



wriight said:


> Does anyone say سَكِّين/سَكِّينة?


We say /səkkīn/ (always masculine) in Morocco so I suppose the switches comes from the فتحة.


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## HoopoeOfHope

wriight said:


> [*]A strange exception I had forgotten about is سِكِّينة "knife". It feels weird to say that this word isn't native vocabulary considering how commonplace knives have always been (right?), so I don't know how that kasra snuck in there... Wiktionary even says that it was borrowed from an Aramaic _sakkīnā_, with /a/ in the first syllable. Does anyone say سَكِّين/سَكِّينة?
> [/LIST]



Maybe it's different enough because of the ة that it didn't change? Either because the syllabic structure of فعّيل is heavier than فعّيلة and therefore triggers the change of the vowel, or it became a kasra to dissimilate from the final vowel (which is unlikely). How do you pronounce سكين?

That said, I heard سَكينة from some people but I can't recall exactly which dialects use them.


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## HoopoeOfHope

Hemza said:


> in the Maghreb, when من is used, it always remains مَن (sometimes مَنهو/مَنهي)



This is the same in my dialect. We say مَن as well as مَنهو and مَنهي.


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## elroy

wriight said:


> قدّيس _ʔiddīs_ (not *_ʔaddīs_ -- but maybe Christians retain the latter?)


In the usage of Palestinian Christians, I've heard قَدّيس a few times, but قِدّيس is vastly more common.


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## WadiH

We say _sikkīn_ (or _sitsīn_).  Why do you think it’s not “native vocabulary” @wriight ?


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## wriight

I don't! I was saying that that'd be weird to say, as in it feels strange to suggest that the name of something as commonplace as a knife must have been borrowed from Fus7a. Borrowing from Fus7a does suffice to explain why words like تِلميذ have a kasra in dialects like mine even though we overwhelmingly prefer a fat7a in this wazn, but what I meant to point out was that a different explanation is probably needed for سِكِّينة.


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