# Is Arabic a tonal language?



## rarabara

there are some clear clues for me to conclude so, for instance saddah and some haraka.but not sure.
can we clearly conclude that arabic was a tonal language?


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## Ghabi

What is a tonal language?


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## rarabara

Ghabi said:


> What is a tonal language?


I think you should better know this as I overview that you are from china.
but  again I shall make an explanation: tonal here succintly means, when on a word the tone changes,the meaning also changes. (e.g. chinese and as I know burmese are tonal. I also had had some indonesian friends and while I am not sure that indonesian is wholly tonal (refers to some of its dialects), their togue was very tonal. The tone's was really different. but I am not sure that specifically indonesian was a tonal language ,I only remember in one book stating it was a tonal language.

but of course I wonder whether arabic was also tonal. especially what native arabs think ,I wonder.


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## Ghabi

The meaning of an Arabic word changes when its tone changes?


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## rarabara

Ghabi said:


> The meaning of an Arabic word changes when its tone changes?


I think yes. as I stated in the thread saddah is one example,isn't it?


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## Ghabi

So the words waqafa and waqqafa have different "tones" because one of them has a shadda?


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## rarabara

Ghabi said:


> So the words waqafa and waqqafa have different "tones" because one of them has a shadda?


I think yes, but if you are not pleased with this proposition, I can give one other proposition.
but first,I have to summarize one point. in chinese there are four general tones, one of them is "rising" tone,the other one is "falling ", and other twos are "falling and rising "and "neutral" tones.

for instance can't we make an analogy between maddah and rising tone or ,ah I forgot, there is more tone "high level" tone. maybe between this and maddah?


Ghabi said:


> So the words waqafa and waqqafa ?


you probably wanted to claim that it was only being read with double "q" ("ق") here. (stating that these two qualifications would be different things or meanings)


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## Ghabi

I didn't mean to claim anything. I just wanted to know what you mean by "tone". If having a shadda ("gemination") means having tones, then surely Arabic is a tonal language, and so are Japanese, Finnish and many others.


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## rarabara

Ghabi said:


> I didn't mean to claim anything. I just wanted to know what you mean by "tone". If having a shadda ("gemination") means having tones, then surely Arabic is a tonal language, and so are Japanese, Finnish and many others.


I do not think that your that claim would be correct (means I do not think that that example was equivalent of "gemination",if it was so, why don't we write that word with double "ق". in turkish, I can give such samples (but these words are not accepted as originally turkish words and in fact it is true.


Ghabi said:


> I didn't mean to claim anything. I just wanted to know what you mean by "tone". If having a shadda ("gemination") means having tones, then surely Arabic is a tonal language, and so are Japanese, Finnish and many others.



don't additionally forget please "maddah"


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## Ghabi

What is a "maddah"? How do you use it?


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## fufuswaffles

Arabic is not a tonal language by the linguistic definition (tonal... changing the pitch of a word alters the meaning of the word or grammar of a sentence). You can speak Arabic in very different pitches and it would have no impact on the grammar or meaning of a word.


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## rarabara

Ghabi said:


> What is a "maddah"? How do you use it?


mm ok but I am not sure, as i know , it should be like  long and oblique/folded type of fathah but when we see it, the relevant letter is being read 4 times longer than standard. like in this general sentence: لَا اِلَهَ اِلَّا اللهْ   the morphology is presumably this one : "~" on "ل"
generally this happens at the time of call to prayer.(on "lam" at the beginning of the sentence (only).)


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## Ihsiin

Arabic is not a tonal language. The شدة imparts gemination and this is not different from gemination in any other language (for example in Italian). In modern written Arabic the مدة is used to signify the sequence ءا, that is to say _ʔā. _In the Qur'an the مدة is used to indicate extended vowel length, but this is only in تجويد and is not part of the actual phonology of the language which only distinguished between long and short vowels. Regardless, none of these have anything to do with tone.


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## Ghabi

rarabara said:


> it should be like long and oblique/folded type of fathah


So tones are about long and short? So بَل and بال have different tones, right?


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## fufuswaffles

How long you say a syllable is not pitch.  if you took a recording of someone saying "mother" in Mandarin and changed the pitch so that it goes down then up, then the recording would not longer be saying "mother" it would be saying "scold. But with Arabic, changing the pitch won't alter the meaning. You can play around with the pitch of a recording saying "لا اله الا الله" and it will still have the same meaning. In Tajweed, they style and rules about reciting but this is for the Quran and Arabic. If you don't follow the rules of Tajweed you will still be understood. Arabic language doesn't have tones. Arabic has stressing.


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## Qureshpor

I am a speaker of a tonal language (Punjabi) and I know a little bit about Arabic. Based on my knowledge of both, I can safely say that Arabic is not a tonal language.


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## elroy

In case further confirmation is needed, Arabic is 100% not a tonal language.


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## Lu'y

rarabara said:


> there are some clear clues for me to conclude so, for instance saddah and some haraka.but not sure.
> can we clearly conclude that arabic was a tonal language?


No. Arabic is not a tone language.


rarabara said:


> there are some clear clues for me to conclude so, for instance saddah and some haraka.but not sure.
> can we clearly conclude that arabic was a tonal language?


No. Arabic is a not a tone/tonal language. In certain languages, like Chinese, for example changing the tone changes the meaning for the word as in the famous example of the Chinese words for mother, horse, or the verb to bother are pronounced "ma" but with different tonal variations. There is nothing like that in Arabic. The shadda is simply the same letter repeated twice but written once with the shaddah mark making it a different word mot by tone by by virtue of fusing two identical letters in one.


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## WannaBFluent

I might understand why OP had this misconception, probably because of vowel alteration in certain position. But no it's not a tonal language as it doesn't change the meaning of the word. I'd even say that if there's one kind of languages that are the complete opposite of tonal languages, it's certainly the semitic ones, as (short) vowels have little incidence on meaning. As an example كلّ is prononced kull, kell, kill depending on the region, and still has same meaning. As it works with patterns, as soon as you can recognize the pattern, the short vowels can be altered without problem.


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## Qureshpor

Please allow me to provide just one example from Punjabi of tone.

koRaa (R is a retroflex sound) = bitter
k_hoRaa (think of h as a superscript above the k) = horse
ko_hRaa (think of h as a superscript above the o = leper

My transcription does n't quite do justice to the actual sounds. Voice files would be more helpful no doubt.


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