# pronunciation of ظ - ض (resemblance to ب /b/, و /v/)



## Bilbo Baggins

Hello again:
I'm using the ALif Baa textbook with DVDs to study the alphabet and pronunciation. My text says that ض is pronounced as an emphatic د . However, in quite a few examples, it obviously sounds like an emphatic  ب . Can anyone help me with this? Thanks!


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## Talib

That's strange. The only answer I can think of is that the emphatic consonants are often (as far as I can tell) labialized, that is, pronounced with rounded lips (like the consonants [w] and *.) This may be what's causing this misperception for you. With practice, you'll get better at hearing the phonemes of Arabic.*


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## elroy

My advice: Listen more carefully or get another DVD.  

ض is most certainly *not* an emphatic ب.


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## Bilbo Baggins

Hum.....It definitely sounds like a "b" in certain words on that DVD. This isn´t the first discrepancy Í´ve noticed either.


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## Nikola

Try this http://www.arabic2000.com/arabic/alphabet.html


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## Mahaodeh

I agree with elroy, even if the pronnounciation was wrong it would still sound nowhere near a b, emphatic or not.

Buy a new CD, get new headphones or check your CD player.


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## clevermizo

ض is always** an emphatic [D].  Not that that hasn't been stated enough in this thread. I've listened to the DVD exercises you're using and I don't remember noticing it even sounding like a emphatic *.


**Except in some dialects where it sounds the same as ظ, [Dh]. This would not be on the DVD and the DVD exercises would always pronounce it as [D].*


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## Ghabi

This thread has made me remember something. 

When we learnt the Arabic alphabet, and came to ظ, everyone in my class said that what they heard from the VCD (from the Georgetown University series) was a "b"-like sound. At that time I thought "well, perhaps it's just the Chinese ears."

Now that the thread makes me wonder: does ظ really sound like a "b" to non-native ears, at least occasionally?


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## HBZ55

No, it sounds like a strong Th (th as in that or there). I'm not sure how to describe "strong", but think of it as ص (S) is a strong س (s), in the same way Th(or Dh , ظ ) is a strong th ( ذ ).
My description sucks but I hope you get the gist of it.
On another note, there is another letter that kind of sounds like ظ which is ض . To be honest, I don't make any distinction whatsoever, since in our dialect we pronounce both as ظ . And even when reading MSA out loud I don't pronounce them any differently. There is a difference between them, but I hope someone more knowledgeable than me would be able to explain it since I don't have any clue about it.


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## Ghabi

Thanks for your response. The dilemma is that we know how we _should_ pronounce it, but what we _actually_ hear doesn't meet our expectation. I just wonder if other learners have similiar experience.


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## clevermizo

HBZ55 said:


> No, it sounds like a strong Th (th as in that or there). I'm not sure how to describe "strong", but think of it as ص (S) is a strong س (s), in the same way Th(or Dh , ظ ) is a strong th ( ذ ).



Technically, we describe "strong" as you mean it as _pharyngealization_ or _velarization_. Which means articulating the back of the tongue up and back while the consonant is executed. In Semitic linguistics this strength is called "emphasis." This is an ambiguous word but the reason is that this "strength" contrast between "plain" and "emphatic" exists in most Semitic languages however the exact physics of its production differ from language to language. The emphatic T ط in Arabic may be cognate with a "strong" T sound in Amharic, but in Arabic the sound is _velarized_ and in Amharic it would be _ejective_. The word "emphatic" enables you to discuss cognate lexicon and sound change, without speaking of the actual mechanism which can vary.

Furthermore this sound ظ has never sounded like "b" to me so I find that strange that a non-native speaker would think so. However sometimes the audio quality from instructional DVDs and tapes is not the best, so maybe it is slightly garbled.


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## Ghabi

I checked out the VCD and found that I made a mistake. The letter in question should be ض. 

The female speaker in the VCD pronounces ض as a ب sound when it's word-initial. For example, she pronounces ضباب as [bɑ'bɑ:b].

Dear all, please tell me if you've heard something similar.


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## azeid

We called the arabic language the language of 9' " لغة الضاد " because the sound of this letter doesn't exist in any other language but some Linguists said that isn't true because the Albanian and Nibalian languages have letters like ض

Any way, This letter ض is really very difficult to pronunce,it needs more practicing and listening to it.
in some dialects they pronunce it as ظ or د but both are wrong and no one pronunces it as ب - as i know -as it is very far from ض


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## Ghabi

azeid said:


> We called the arabic language the language of 9' " لغة الضاد " because the sound of this letter doesn't exist in any other language but some Linguists said that isn't true because the Albanian and Nibalian languages have letters like ض



According to the linguists, the ancient pronunciation of ض was actually different from what we utter nowdays. That's like the _ll_ in Welsh, but "voiced" and "emphatic". But it's a bit off-topic.



azeid said:


> ...no one pronunces it as ب - as i know -as it is very far from ض



Yes, that's why I found that حاجة غريبة.


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## tabyyy

I actually thought it sounded kind of like an emphatic 'b' at first, but I thought that didn't make sense, since the transliteration of the sound is "TH" or "Z". Once I listened again, closely, I was able to hear the sound correctly.


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## clevermizo

Ghabi said:


> The female speaker in the VCD pronounces ض as a ب sound when it's word-initial. For example, she pronounces ضباب as [bɑ'bɑ:b].
> 
> Dear all, please tell me if you've heard something similar.



Never. I'm sure she doesn't pronounce it that way and it's just distortion due to audio quality.


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## Deccard

Mod note: I merged this new thread to the previous one discussing the pronunciation of the sound ظ as it was the closest existing topic.

I found website

web.uvic.ca/hrd/hist455/listening

which has nice listening and reading exercises. The exercises are done by first listening a word and then selecting the same word from five different options.

While doing the exercises I came across couple of words that I just couldn't hear as the right right answer was written. In below I'll show how I heard them.

In the exercise 26 there are words:
ظُلْمٌ, ظاهِرٌ, فَظُّ, كَظَبَ
which I heard as with IPA just to be precise:
بُلْمٌ [bʊlmun]
واهِرٌ [vɑ:hirun] note: not w in like west but v in like vest
فَقُّو [faq:u:]
كَبَمَ [kæbɑmɑ]

In the exercise 27 there are words
ضَبابٌ, صِيامٌ
which I heard like
بَباتٌ [bɑbɑ:bun]
صَيامٌ [sᵞæjæ:mun]

Note that each exercise contains five words in random order.

Do I hear the pronunciation wrong and how actually the speaker is pronouncing the words?

Also, which Arabic dialect you suspect the speaker to speak natively?

As I constantly heard ظ as [b]-sound, is the emphatic [ð]-sound sometimes, or in some dialect actually realized as an emphatic b-sound or some other emphatic voiced obstruent?

Can i-vowel be ralized as [æ] when it is followed by an emphatic consonant?

If you answer this thread, please mention if you are native Arabic speaker and/or phonetician.

I am not native arabic (of course), but my native is Finnish.


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## Finland

Hello!


Deccard said:


> In the exercise 26 there are words:
> ظُلْمٌ, ظاهِرٌ, فَظُّ, كَظَبَ
> which I heard as with IPA just to be precise:
> بُلْمٌ [bʊlmun]
> واهِرٌ [vɑ:hirun] note: not w in like west but v in like vest
> فَقُّو [faq:u:]
> كَبَمَ [kæbɑmɑ]


In my ears the pronunciation of these words was perfectly standard, not at all a b sound. And note that the second word is ظاهر and not واهر.


Deccard said:


> In the exercise 27 there are words
> ضَبابٌ, صِيامٌ
> which I heard like
> بَباتٌ [bɑbɑ:bun]
> صَيامٌ [sᵞæjæ:mun]


Again, I heard these words completely normally, and in my eards the ض was not a b sound but an emphatic d.


Deccard said:


> Do I hear the pronunciation wrong and how actually the speaker is pronouncing the words?


I am afraid you hear the words wrong. Your computer loudspeakers are probably to blame.


Deccard said:


> Also, which Arabic dialect you suspect the speaker to speak natively?


That I cannot tell, the pronunciation sounds so standard to my ears.


Deccard said:


> As I constantly heard ظ as [b]-sound, is the emphatic [ð]-sound sometimes, or in some dialect actually realized as an emphatic b-sound or some other emphatic voiced obstruent?


No, ظ can be realised e.g. as an emphatic [ð], [d] or [z], but never as a b sound.


Deccard said:


> Can i-vowel be ralized as [æ] when it is followed by an emphatic consonant?


Not that I know of. In the case of this exercice, I heard the first vowel of صيام as a normal kasra.


Deccard said:


> If you answer this thread, please mention if you are native Arabic speaker and/or phonetician.
> 
> I am not native arabic (of course), but my native is Finnish.


My native language is the same as yours.

HTH
S


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## clevermizo

I think there was a thread sometime ago with someone mishearing ظ as [v] or [b]. Anyway, it's just audio distortion if anything. These are not known pronunciations for this letter.

As for hearing صيام as [Sæ...] and not [Si...] - that's because under the influence of ص's velarization or pharyngealization , the kasra is a little more centralized, to something more like [ɨ], which may account for hearing it as something other than what a non-native speaker would expect.


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## Ghabi

I tick the words that I hear the same. I suspect there's some assimilation effect operating here (note the neighboring bilabial in ظُلْمٌ and ضَبابٌ), but I'm only a beginner, so I can't judge. I need to train my ears more anyway.


Deccard said:


> In the exercise 26 there are words:
> ظُلْمٌ, ظاهِرٌ, فَظُّ, كَظَبَ
> which I heard as with IPA just to be precise:
> بُلْمٌ [bʊlmun]
> واهِرٌ [vɑ:hirun] note: not w in like west but v in like vest
> فَقُّو [faq:u:]
> كَبَمَ [kæbɑmɑ]
> 
> In the exercise 27 there are words
> ضَبابٌ, صِيامٌ
> which I heard like
> بَباتٌ [bɑbɑ:bun]
> صَيامٌ [sᵞæjæ:mun]


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## المعتصم

I heard the sounds, and I found that if you don't hear the beginning sound properly, you may say that they are like above, not completely..
the sound is a female sound, standard, but the sounds of ض&ظ aren't that clear, as an amount people pronounce.


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## Deccard

I have now listened the words again with different headphones, and now I can hear some of the words right. For example, in كظم and فظ I can now hear the emphatic  [ð]-sound. However, the buzzing of the [ð]-sound has quite low sonority making it sound like a full obstruent.

Some of the other words I still hear wrong thought. I suspect that some kind of noise reduction has been done to the audio making some the ظ sound unclear.


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## Duris1112

Hello everyone,

In learning the pronunciation of daad (ض), it appears to me that it takes a "b" sound sometimes, such as in: ضاد , ضباب , ضال .

Is this correct or am I not fully comprehending the pronunciation ?

Thank you !


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## Ghabi

After some years of listening, I've become quite convinced that some speakers pronounce the emphatic consonants with distinct labialization, and I think this is not surprising as velarization and labialization often go hand in hand.


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## AndyRoo

I recently saw a transcription of an audio where the word عرب had been transcribed by a native Arabic speaker as عرض. It goes to show these two letters can be confused, but I don't think they really are being pronounced as each other.


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