# All dialects: sun/moon letters



## jonquiliser

صباح الخير!

Recently I saw some words beginning with خ transcribed as geminating with the laam of the definite article (this in a glossary/phrasebook), though I can't find them right now. The book is meant to reflect MSA, but I find an error like that strange; akh-khxxx instead of al-khxxx is hardly an easy-to-make typo. What I wonder is, does this occur in some dialects, does it occur in some specific words only, or should I just take it it's a mistake?

شكراً!


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## elroy

What I can tell you for sure is that  الخـ is never pronounced _akh-kh-_ in MSA, so yes I would consider that a mistake.  I can also tell you that there _is _some variation between dialects and MSA (and probably across dialects) regarding sun and moon letters.  For example, in MSA ج is a moon letter, so you would say "al-jaziira" for example but in Palestinian Arabic it's a sun letter so we say "ij-jaziire."  Whether there are any dialects in which خ is a moon letter, I wouldn't be able to tell you.


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## jonquiliser

Wow, that was quick! شكراً - thanks for the info, I'll consider it an error then. Though interesting to know jeem is a sun letter in PA - I wonder if there's not something similar going on behind the error in this book.


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## djamal 2008

خ is a moon letter. So is ج.


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## jonquiliser

Right, yes. That's what I thought and also found when googling. However, the misspelled words made me doubt, and now I also found this, according to which jeem can be variously a sun or a moon letter in some Moroccan dialects: http://www.telefonica.net/web2/jmtru/arabe/alal.en.html


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## djamal 2008

الجيل ؛ هنا يمكن أن يكون الجيم حرف شمسي؛ هل من يؤكد؟=generation


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## Andrew___

djamal 2008 said:


> خ is a moon letter. So is ج .



Yes but as we discussed on a recent thread, ج is only a moon letter in academic fuS7a.  

In 3ammiyya ج is pronounced as a sun letter.


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## londonmasri

I have heard Iraqi people say Taa as a moon letter e.g. Al-Tayyibeen al-Taahireen (not ATTayyibeen...)


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## Mahaodeh

^The person was either trying to stress on the word; or trying to be correct by pronouncing the lam but forgot that it's a sun letter (probably because he didn't pay attention at grammar class in school ) because Iraqis definitly pronounce it as a sun letter; it's very مُصْطَنَع to pronounce it as a moon letter.


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## Ali.h

Is there any Arabic dialect in which the sun letters are not emphasized? For example one would say al shams WITHOUT skipping the lam. What made me curious to ask this was that in my own language (Farsi) other than in tajweed the sun letters "rule" is ignored and the lam is NOT skipped, so I'm just wondering do Arabs do this themselves?


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## Salem-F

^^ No,, on your example al sham "الشام" the Lam skipped usually.it will be  odd if u spell it like that (with Lam).


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## WadiH

Ali.h said:


> Is there any Arabic dialect in which the sun letters are not emphasized? For example one would say al shams WITHOUT skipping the lam. What made me curious to ask this was that in my own language (Farsi) other than in tajweed the sun letters "rule" is ignored and the lam is NOT skipped, so I'm just wondering do Arabs do this themselves?



No.  All Arabic dialects distinguish between "sun" and "moon" letters.  There may be one or two letters that are treated differently in some dialects than others (notably _jiim_, and, so I've heard, _qaaf_ in northern Iraq), but the general rule is still the same.


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## Finland

Hello!


Wadi Hanifa said:


> No. All Arabic dialects distinguish between "sun" and "moon" letters. There may be one or two letters that are treated differently in some dialects than others (notably _jiim_, and, so I've heard, _qaaf_ in northern Iraq), but the general rule is still the same.



Kaaf as well in some dialects (I remember hearing something like ik-kalima but don't remember if it was in Egypt or where).

S


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## abu l-bisse

Wadi Hanifa said:


> All Arabic dialects distinguish between "sun" and "moon" letters.



The Arabs in Khorasan (Eastern Iran, near the border to Afghanistan) treat every Consonant as sun letter, they have no moon letters.  They say for example _aḥ-ḥurme_ "the wife", _ab-bāǧir_ "the cow", _aʕ-ʕarūṯ_ "the bride", _ag-gubbe_ "the house", _ah-hūl_ "the fear", _aʔ-ʔitīm_ "the orphan". 

Really strange. I never heard of another Arabic dialect without moon letters. 

They use also an idefinite article _fal-,_ they say for example _faḥ-ḥurme_ "a wife", _fab-bāǧir_ "a cow" and so on, but this is not so strange, it's found also in other bedouin dialects.

Greetings
abu l-bisse


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## WadiH

abu l-bisse said:


> The Arabs in Khorasan (Eastern Iran, near the border to Afghanistan) treat every Consonant as sun letter, they have no moon letters.  They say for example _aḥ-ḥurme_ "the wife", _ab-bāǧir_ "the cow", _aʕ-ʕarūṯ_ "the bride", _ag-gubbe_ "the house", _ah-hūl_ "the fear", _aʔ-ʔitīm_ "the orphan".
> 
> Really strange. I never heard of another Arabic dialect without moon letters.



That's very interesting.  I hope there are recordings available of these exotic Central Asian dialects.



> They use also an idefinite article _fal-,_ they say for example _faḥ-ḥurme_ "a wife", _fab-bāǧir_ "a cow" and so on, but this is not so strange, it's found also in other bedouin dialects.
> 
> Greetings
> abu l-bisse



Bedouin dialects do not employ an indefinite article. This is in fact a feature of "Mesopotamian" dialects (that is, Iraqi and Iranian Arabic dialects), where they use the word _fard_ > _fad_.  Other sedentary dialects use similar constructions, e.g. خد لك شي سيارة, though I wouldn't describe شي or فد as a definite article per se.  It's more like the word "some" in English.


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## abu l-bisse

Wadi Hanifa said:


> That's very interesting.  I hope there are recordings available of these exotic Central Asian dialects.



There are 3 recordings available on the German Semitic Languages Archives:
http://semarch.uni-hd.de/dokumentgruppen.php4?ST_ID=4&DT_ID=37&lang=de


Wadi Hanifa said:


> Bedouin dialects do not employ an indefinite article. This is in fact a feature of "Mesopotamian" dialects (that is, Iraqi and Iranian Arabic dialects), where they use the word _fard_ > _fad_.  Other sedentary dialects use similar constructions, e.g. خد لك شي سيارة, though I wouldn't describe شي or فد as a definite article per se.  It's more like the word "some" in English.



Yes, you are right, it is not a bedouin but a Mesopotamian feature (see also Blanc p. 119). 

In Palestine _wāḥad_ ist somtimes used like an indefinite article _wāḥad masīḥi w-wāḥad mislim_ "a christian and a muslim" (beginning of a joke).


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## Mahaodeh

I think the wahad differs here; it is in fact a number as in 'one Christian and one Muslim'.


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## cherine

Hi Maha,
If it's like Egyptian, then it is an indefinite article: a Christian and a Muslim.
Another example waa7ed we wa7da: a man and a woman.


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## Ali.h

abu l-bisse said:


> The Arabs in Khorasan (Eastern Iran, near the border to Afghanistan) treat every Consonant as sun letter, they have no moon letters. They say for example _aḥ-ḥurme_ "the wife", _ab-bāǧir_ "the cow", _aʕ-ʕarūṯ_ "the bride", _ag-gubbe_ "the house", _ah-hūl_ "the fear", _aʔ-ʔitīm_ "the orphan".


Wow you are telling me things I did not know about my own country, I thought the only Arabs (tribes) in Iran were situated in the province of Khuzestan specifically in the city of Ahwaz, which is near Iraq, but definitely nowhere near khorasan, are you referring to the ancient times or contemporary times? because if any Arabs migrated to khorasan area of Iran then they must've been mixed with the Iranians overtime and thus they no longer speak Arabic, because I am from khorasan and this is the first time I hear of Arabs being in khorasan, not that you're wrong maybe I'm just ignorant about it, I mean khorasan is a big province in Iran, but could you tell me if you are referring to contemporary times or ancient times?


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## abu l-bisse

The recordings which I mentioned below are from 1996. These Arabs are in Khorasan since ancient times. 

You know that Merv - now located in Turkmenistan - was in times of the Arabic conquest a big Arabic colony, over 50.000 soldiers lived there and they didn't come alone, a large trek of nomads, their families and parts of their tribes, came with them and settled in ancient Khorasan or lived as nomads in the area.

There exists today a lot of tribes in Eastern Iran, in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan who call themselves "Arabs" and who are descendants of these settlers.  But most of them don't speak Arabic any more but changed to Persian or Turkish.

But in the area of Birjand (Khorasan), Buchara (Uzbekistan) and Balkh (Afghanistan) you can find villages of Arabs who still speak Arabic. A really strange and old Arabic with a lot of influences from the surrounding languages. Khosasan-Arabic for example has so many loans from Persian that other Arabs often don't recognize it as Arabic.  But it is good and pure Arabic. Like the Persian and the Turkish language has a huge amount of Arabic loans, but the language is still Persian and Turkish, not Arabic.

There exists a small, English written article "Arabs in Central and Eastern Iran" from Sven-Olof Dahlgren in the Journal "Orientalia Suecana" Vol LI-LII (2002-2003) pp. 89-94.


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## Jamal31

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

I heard that in some dialects that ك is read as a Sun Letter, so that for example الكتاب will be read as 'Ak-Kitab' instead of the Fusha 'Al-Kitab'. I was wondering what dialects have different Sun and Moon Letters from the standard ones?

The Sun Letters in Fusha are:
ﺕ ﺙ ﺩ ﺫ ﺭ ﺯ ﺱ ﺵ ﺹ ﺽ ﻁ ﻅ ﻝ ﻥ

And Moon Letters are:
 ء ﺏ ﺝ ﺡ ﺥ ﻉ ﻍ ﻑ ﻕ ﻙ ﻡ ﻭ ﻱ ه


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## AndyRoo

Iraqi has ج as a sun letter, e.g. aj-jaysh.


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## analeeh

Most dialects have j as a sun letter.

In Egyptian - presumably thanks to j > g, though who knows - k is also a sun letter.


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## Jamal31

Thanks guys. So as of right now I have:

Iraqi: ج
Egyptian: ج and ك


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## analeeh

Levantine dialects also have ج as a sun letter. I would expect Arabian dialects do too.


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## sooorad

abu l-bisse said:


> There are 3 recordings available on the German Semitic Languages Archives:
> http://semarch.uni-hd.de/dokumentgruppen.php4?ST_ID=4&DT_ID=37&lang=de


Unfortunately that link is no longer working, and Archive doesn’t have the recordings saved. Are there or any other recordings of Khorasani Arabic available anywhere?


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## WadiH

sooorad said:


> Unfortunately that link is no longer working, and Archive doesn’t have the recordings saved. Are there or any other recordings of Khorasani Arabic available anywhere?



That link was so precious.  I hope the recordings are still preserved somewhere safe (and if someone knows if they're available I hope they post the link!).


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## sooorad

Wadi Hanifa said:


> That link was so precious.  I hope the recordings are still preserved somewhere safe (and if someone knows if they're available I hope they post the link!).


My thoughts exactly. :’(


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## Hemza

I don't know the previous recordings but here are some videos where the title suggests that the dialect spoken is Afghani Arabic (I cannot listen to it right now to make sure of my statement) It is a French page but scroll down you will find many videos

Les Arabes d’Asie-centrale (Kurassan Afghans Tadjiks Uzbeks etc)


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## I.K.S.

To whom it may concern, I contacted  dr. ulrich seeger yesterday;  he is the owner of the recordings, asking him if he can re-upload the recordings once again, he replied me today and sent me this link where you can listen to them  <Ulrich Seeger The Arabic Dialect of Khorasan> 


Hemza said:


> Les Arabes d’Asie-centrale (Kurassan Afghans Tadjiks Uzbeks etc)


Good, i can see one of his videos among that list.


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## Derakhshan

Here are some papers in Farsi about the dialect of Arabkhāna in south Khurasan:

http://ensani.ir/fa/article/download/376669

https://www.sid.ir/FileServer/JF/4037113950106

These dialects apparently related to qəltu (North Mesopotamian) Arabic, with common features like fa(d) as an indefinite article.


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