# Emphatic consonants and their effects on vowels



## Tensor78

Hi,

In MSA, do emphatics affect the following vowels, the preceding vowels, or both?

Thanks.


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## WadiH

It affects both.


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## Tensor78

Thanks.........


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## rayloom

I guess it's common to hear both vowels affected by an emphatic consonant (depending on the background dialect of the speaker). However, normally it should be just the following vowel.


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## WadiH

I disagree.  Consider these words:

نضْرب
باص
جاط
تربّصنَ
ثبّطتها
متراصّات
بصَلة

The preceding vowel is always affected in these words, regardless of the native dialect of the speaker.


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## rayloom

Not always.

I'll start with تربصن and متراصات
You're probably referring to the vowel preceding the ص Sad in both words. But notice that the vowels follow the R. In MSA (like Classical Arabic) the R has 2 allophones depending on the following vowel (or lack thereof). The standard (classical) R is an emphatic consonant, only when followed by a kasra does the R become non-emphatic.
If you take Egyptian Arabic, which still retains the 2 allophones on the R (Urban Hijazi Arabic generally doesn't have an emphatic R) + emphatic consonants affect the preceding vowel in EA:
-You'll notice for example that in the Egyptian adhan, akbar is pronounced akb*a*r, unlike most other adhans.
-Same thing with أقدر a2d*a*r (or agd*a*r).
In Classical/Standard Arabic, even though the R would be emphatic, the preceding vowel would be pronounced normally.

نضرب ثبطتها بصلة only the vowel following the emphatic should be affected. You can hear how the word نضرب is pronounced in Quranic reading.
http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=29&verse=43
http://www.alawfa.com/Sounds/29_43.mp3

In Egyptian Arabic for example, بصلة would be pronounced b*a*S*a*l*a* (all the vowels would be affected, correct me if I'm wrong native EA speakers). While in UHA, it would be pronounced baS*a*la.

As for باص and جاط, I can't explain much. My guess is that those words were borrowed with a form of fixed pronunciation which has persisted in borrowing dialects, and in MSA. But take for example باق. How would you pronounce it. Would you pronounce the alif in باق like the alif in باص?
Both precede an emphatic, and an alif following a qaf or a Sad would be retracted. You can listen to باق for example here:
http://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=16&verse=96
http://www.alawfa.com/Sounds/16_96.mp3

As for the difference between dialects regarding which vowel is affected, you can read this cited part here:
(taken from wikipedia)
"However, the actual rules governing vowel-retraction are a good deal  more complex, and have relatively little in the way of an agreed-upon  standard, as there are often competing notions of what constitutes a  "prestige" form.[6] Often, even highly proficient speakers will import the vowel-retraction rules from their native dialects.[7]  Thus, for example, in the Arabic of someone from Cairo emphatic  consonants will affect every vowel between word boundaries, whereas  certain Saudi speakers exhibit emphasis only on the vowels adjacent to  an emphatic consonant.[8]  Certain speakers (most notably Levantine speakers) exhibit a degree of  asymmetry in leftward vs. rightward spread of vowel-retraction."


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## إسكندراني

I agree with Rayloom; it may affect the whole word (even consonants) in some dialects, but in Hafs' reading of the Qur'an it should only affect the following vowel (except in rare cases if I remember correctly).


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## WadiH

Are we talking about MSA or Hafs's reading of the Quran?  There must be something wrong with my hearing because even in Urban Hejazi I've never heard _beSal_.  In Egyptian Arabic you get words like هطلع, بَص, باصص, etc. where I could swear the preceding vowel is affected.


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## إسكندراني

Isn't the Qur'an the ultimate standard for how Arabic 'should' sound? I don't want a newsreader saying بصلة like boSolo!
In Egyptian, you are right, even preceding _consonants_ are affected.


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## rayloom

I agree with Iskandarani.
Even from a non-religious point of view. The standardization of Arabic has always been based on Quranic Arabic. Not only so, Standard Arabic (FuSHa) phonology is based on Quranic phonology, and not on regional variations. I don't see why MSA would be any different.

P.S. It's not only Hafs' reading, every reading of the Quran treats emphatic consonants the same way. Some differ in the way that some don't have the allophonic variation of the R, and regarding the imala's (occurs only once in Hafs) after emphatics.

P.P.S. baSal would be pronounced baS*a*l, not beSal. Both with an /a/ vowel, however, the quality of the /a/ before the Sad differs from the quality of the /a/ after the Sad. Even in some local varieties of Urban Hijazi Arabic where the /a/ is even darker, the distinction in the quaity of the vowel remains (the vowel after the emphatic becomes darker). That applies also to similar words like ba6al, 7a9al...etc.
Also, how do you hear Urban Hijazi speakers say الرياض, the alif is never retracted, as opposed to the Najdi pronunciation of الرياض, which almost always (if my hearing is correct) has a retracted alif.


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## إسكندراني

I thought that some قراءات featured vowel shifts immediately before the emphatic consonant?


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## rayloom

Are you referring to changes in the quality of vowels? Not that I'm aware of.


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## Duris1112

Hello everybody,

As I learn the emphatic letters, I am wondering if only the vowels that are next to the emphatic letters change to a deeper pronunciation? Or would all the vowels within the same word change as well? Sorry for the general question but my textbook does not fully explain this.

For example, in طَيّار. Is only the fatHa on Taa deepened or also the Alif?

Thanks !


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## analeeh

As you can see from the previous posts, this depends very much on the dialect of the speaker. For me both vowels are darkened, but the second one is darkened because of its proximity to /r/, not because of the ṭ.


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## Duris1112

Thanks Analeeh,

I have read the above explanations (although a bit more advance than my level)......I am concentrating on Egyptian Arabic. Given from the above: "Thus, for example, in the Arabic of someone from Cairo emphatic consonants will affect every vowel between word boundaries, whereas certain Saudi speakers exhibit emphasis only on the vowels adjacent to an emphatic consonant.[8] Would Egyptian Arabic follow more or less this explanation or should I still be open to incorporating pronunciation varieties as they come? It sounds to me that a specific Arabic dialect may still be prone to a mesh of other dialect pronunciation.


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## analeeh

I think an Egyptian from Cairo is likely to follow those rules subconsciously. But when pronouncing MSA they might incorporate other learned elements into their pronunciation. Also note that there hasn't been that much work done on the exact conditions triggering vowel colouring of this kind in different dialects and the exact process remains for a lot of dialects only vaguely described. Take these rules as a vague indicator I guess, but prioritise imitating actual native speakers. Eventually you'll probably adopt the system that people around you are using and apply it subconsciously - you'll start to know how to pronounce the vowels by analogy with other similar words.


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## Duris1112

That sounds like a good place to start. Thanks again Analeeh


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## Duris1112

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]
Hello everybody,

As I am learning the emphatic letters, I come across a word that contains the deep sound of a vowel but there are two consonants in the word that could be the emphatic letters producing this deep sound. Is there a way to distinguish which emphatic consonant is actually present ?

For example : the word I appear to have heard is *صَديق*

So the deep sound in the fatHa could have been produced from the (ص) or the (ق), is that correct ? Or only from the (ص) ?

I hope this makes sense.

Thank you


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## fdb

Duris1112 said:


> So the deep sound in the fatHa could have been produced from the (ص) or the (ق), is that correct ?


No


Duris1112 said:


> Or only from the (ص) ?


Yes


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## Duris1112

Got it, thank you. So in general, the presence of an emphatic consonant doesn't automatically deepen ALL vowels in a word ? Only the one next to it ?


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## fdb

That is basically true in classical Arabic, but the situation in the dialects differs from case to case.


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## Duris1112

Thanks again


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