# How, exactly, does ﹼ influence pronunciation of ي ?



## קטן

Hi again,

what exactly is the difference in the pronunciation of ي in the following enteties:
1.
ٱلْسَّعُوْدِيَّة 
2.
ٱلْعَرَبِيَة
3.
Notice the difference regarding ﹼ. 
(No comments on ٱ, please, I know it's usually omitted except in sacred contexts. If you want to give pronounciation, please specify syllable structure, too, and use phonetic notation such as IPA.)

Kind regards.


----------



## analeeh

There's no difference between those two words, because ي should be written with shadda in both of them.

You can transcribe them like this:


/as.sa.ʕu:.ˈdij.ja/


/al.ʕa.ra.ˈbij.ja/

Or with nominative case vowels:


/as.sa.ʕu:.ˈdij.ja.tu/


/al.ʕa.ra.ˈbij.ja.tu/

In both cases, the /j/ is geminated, and the syllable before it is stressed as a result.

You can compare an example where there is no shadda, العاريَ 'the naked one' (accusative), with one where there is, الإعاريَّ 'borrowing-related':


/ˈʕa:.ri.ja/


/ʔiʕa:.ˈrij.ja/

The second one is stressed on the first syllable, the second one on the penultimate syllable (the syllable with shaddah), which is geminate.

Edit:

I might add that in more relaxed pronunciations of MSA, _final_ -_i _and_ iyy _are often pronounced the same, which might be the source of your confusion. So for example إعاري and عاري can be pronounced:


/ʕa:.ri/


/ʔiʕa:.ˈri/

But this doesn't apply when suffixes like the feminine ending _-a _are added. And some people still distinguish them (as _-i_ and _-iyy_) even when not pronouncing all the case vowels.


----------



## קטן

Thanx for prompt, precise, matter-of-fact, extensive, but not verbose reply.

I'll carefully digest your answer and probably be back with further comments...I always have problems with an (maybe imaginary or putative) i-j-ɪ trichotomy (traditional IPA notation).


----------



## WadiH

Just a correction on السعودية:

It's السُّعُودِيَّة with a _Damma _on the سـ, not السَّعودية with a _fatHa_.  The latter is a common error made by our friends from Lebanon especially.


----------



## fenakhay

It is not an error. It is the only form used in the Maghreb.


----------



## analeeh

As far as I know, the form with Dammah is the less common one! But it does have the distinction of being the form used by Saudis themselves. I did consider mentioning it in the post, but I thought I'd just stick with the original.


----------



## קטן

1.
Both terms occur, with َّ  and ُ , respectively, I can confirm.
2.
Regarding main topic, just one more question:
How to pronounce the one and only دِ in ٱلْسَّعُوْدِيَّة ?
And, for comparison, how to pronounce مِن (from) ?


----------



## HoopoeOfHope

קטן said:


> Regarding main topic, just one more question:
> How to pronounce the one and only دِ in ٱلْسَّعُوْدِيَّة ?
> And, for comparison, how to pronounce مِن (from) ?



In the standard pronunciation, they are /di/ and /mi/ with the same vowel. Keep in mind that the full syllables are /dij/ and /min/.


----------



## קטן

For comparison, how to pronounce فِي ?


----------



## HoopoeOfHope

It is pronounced /fiː/. This is distinct phonetically from فِيّ /fijj/ which means "in me" when said before a pause. The consonantal ي /j/ is more closed compared to the short /i/. So in narrow transcriptions they would be:

/fiː/ →[fiː]
/fijj/ → [fɪjj]

As for the differences between a consonantal ي /j/ and the long vowel /iː/, I would still say that the consonant is more closed than the vowel and therefore there is a distinction in their phonetic value, however, it is hard to confirm this since it is hard to make these sounds in isolation.


----------



## קטן

In summary :
(α)
فِي ~ [fiː]
This shows that ﹺ (in conjunction with ي) can be part of a representation of [i(ː)], without any [j] or [ɪ] in the word at all.
(β)
مِن ~ [.mɪn]
This shows that ﹺ on its own can represent [ɪ] without any [j] or [i(ː)] in the word at all.
(γ)
Additionally, 
يَاء ~ [.jaːʔ]
shows that ي can represent [j] withount any [i(ː)] or [ɪ] in the word at all.

Conclusions:
(א)
ي alone in some cases represent just [j]. See (γ).
In other cases it represents just [i(ː)], possibly in conjunction with ﹺ. See (α).
It never represents [ɪ], I conjecture.
(ב)
ﹺ alone in some cases represent just [ɪ]. See (β).
In others it indicates just [i(ː)], possibly in conjunction with ي. See (α).
ﹺ without following ي never indicates [i(ː)], I conjecture.

This is all very clear.
Here's my problem:
Based on the above, I'd process ٱلْسَّعُوْدِيَّة as follows:

(step 0/ input):
ٱلْسَّعُوْدِيَّة 

(step 1):
 ٱلْسَّعُوْدِيْيَة

(step 2/ result):
[ʔas.sa.ˌʕuːˈdiː.ja]

This is straightforward analysis. It is compliant with the rules above. The latter are pretty much universally true.
Instead, I find all kinds of complicated 'explanations' on the net...


----------



## HoopoeOfHope

I think you are overcomplicating things here and mixing up what is phonemic and what is phonetic. The vowel in the word السعودية is a short vowel both in quality and quantity and not a long one, and it's distinct enough that everyone will tell you that it's a short vowel followed by the consonant ي:

/ʔas.sa.ʕuːˈdij.ja/ -> [ʔas.sa.ʕuːˈdɪj.ja]

Now, it is true that there is something special here which is that the sequence /ijC/ (and /uwC/) doesn't exist in Arabic with /C/ being any other consonant besides /j/ (or /w/). A word like /fijk/ doesn't exist and instead must be /fi:k/* while /fijj/ is allowed, but this has nothing to do with the exact phonetic value of /i/ or /j/.

* (The long vowels when followed by a consonant other than /j w/ or nothing /i:C u:C ~ i:∅ u:∅/ can be analysed as a vowel-consonant sequence /ijC uwC ~ ij∅ uw∅/ since this doesn't contradict the phonemic system, but it is better to just analyse them as long vowels because they can be shortened to their short counterparts in some cases. This is also not how native speakers see these sequences as. Whichever way you choose to analyse them doesn't affect the actual pronunciation.)

Sorry if this ended up looking more confusing than helpful, I tried to add as much as I can without overcomplicating things.

Edit: I confused myself while writing this. Hopefully everything now is written well.


----------



## Qureshpor

WadiH said:


> Just a correction on السعودية:
> 
> It's السُّعُودِيَّة with a _Damma _on the سـ, not السَّعودية with a _fatHa_.  The latter is a common error made by our friends from Lebanon especially.


Thank you for this gem of information @WadiH . I will have to admit I was not aware that the word sa3uud is in reality su3uud! One learns something new every day!


----------



## Qureshpor

analeeh said:


> Edit:
> 
> I might add that in more relaxed pronunciations of MSA, _final_ -_i _and_ iyy _are often pronounced the same, which might be the source of your confusion. So for example إعاري and عاري can be pronounced:


Hi @analeeh. I often wondered whether in such a word, the final part is -iiyah (long vowel + yaa2 + taa marbuutah) or -iyyah. Do you think the end result is the same?


----------



## WadiH

fenakhay said:


> It is not an error. It is the only form used in the Maghreb.



That doesn't mean it's not an error, it just means people in the Maghreb are misinformed about the word.



analeeh said:


> As far as I know, the form with Dammah is the less common one! But it does have the distinction of being the form used by Saudis themselves. I did consider mentioning it in the post, but I thought I'd just stick with the original.



Depends what you mean by common. If we're talking about news broadcasters, then perhaps.  If we're talking about academia or scholarly works is almost always transliterated as Su'uud (e.g. Encyclopedia of Islam).  If we're talking about Arabic scholarly works, it is also always rendered with a _Damma_.

This isn't a matter of opinion or preference.  سعود is a proper Arabic word with a known derivation.  It is the plural of سعد, hence the zodiac sign سعد السعود and the famous Ottoman jurist Ebussuud (also a common Egyptian surname). It was a common given name throughout the region and is not inherently linked to the modern state of Saudi Arabia.  To my knowledge no dialect renders the plural form فعول as _fa3uul _(though in Peninsular and some other dialects, the _Damma_ is either omitted completely or becomes a very short schwa).  So, the reason some people say سَعود is because they are unfamiliar with the word and so are not applying the correct pattern to it.  In any case, we are talking about FuSHa, and in FuSHa it can only be سُعود.

We had an old discussion about it here.



קטן said:


> 1.
> Both terms occur, with َّ  and ُ , respectively, I can confirm.



Yes many things occur that are erroneous, as explained above.


----------



## fenakhay

WadiH said:


> That doesn't mean it's not an error, it just means people in the Maghreb are misinformed about the word.


When it is the most used form, it is not longer an "error". Yesterday, one of the Saudi players had Saud on his jersey. So some Saudis are also misinformed lol?


----------



## WadiH

fenakhay said:


> When it is the most used form, it is not longer an "error".



We're talking about FusHa Arabic, and FusHa Arabic has rules.  The rules say that the plural of سعد is سُعود.  There is no such thing as a Maghrebi FuSHa and a Mashriqi FuSHa. And yes there is such a thing as a common error.  If I mishear your name and spread the misunderstanding in my local area, it's just an error that has spread in my local area, not a change in the rules.  By the same token, if I ask a Maghrebi to form the plural of سعد they certainly would not say it's سَعود, which further shows that what we have here is a misunderstanding of a particular name, not an evolution in the rule.  No one really knows what the "most common" form is anyway.



fenakhay said:


> Yesterday, one of the Saudi players had Saud on his jersey. So some Saudis are also misinformed lol?



That is the standard spelling in English and there are historic and aesthetic reasons behind it (namely that lay people are not going to write a word with "u'uu" in it), but it's not a transliteration and it has nothing to do with the Arabic word.  When the word is transliterated academically, it is always Su'uud, and when Saudis pronounce it they always say سُعود* (though I'm sure there are Saudis who mistakenly think it is سَعود in FuSHa because mistakes happen).

* or its vernacular reflex سْعود.


----------



## tracer2

Just as a footnote to this very interesting thread:
In English, *Saudi* is the usual spelling but the *USA* pronunciation is /*sawdi/ *(like in *"jaw" *or *"law"*). There is no "uu" sound at all.  So you get:  "He's a "sawdee."  "He's from "s*aw*dee ar*ay-*bya." 

The *"ay"* in "ar*ay*bya"is another item but I won't discuss it here, except to say the "accent" or "stress" on this word is very noticeable on this *"ay"* (like in the word *"*hoo*RAY!" *(عَظِيم  or  مبروك) )
_(sorry, I don't know any phonetic spelling system)._


----------



## rarabara

I was thinking like this but I may highly be wrong really if so sorry.
in ٱلْسُعُودِيَّة : there exists a nisba adjective. so the gemination is available for the pronunciation ٱلْسُّعُودِيَّة whereas ٱلْعَرَبِيَة does not contain nisba adjcetive so there is no gemination for it.

notation: unfortunately you can either accept me as "I do not know IPA" or as "I do not want to bother myself with that" ,I also see this thread is NOT in fact a grammatical topic but in case it is way far from the topic I request mods to delete it or I can do based on forthcoming comments. Thanks for your understandings.


----------



## akhooha

tracer2 said:


> Just as a footnote to this very interesting thread:
> In English, *Saudi* is the usual spelling but the *USA* pronunciation is /*sawdi/ *(like in *"jaw" *or *"law"*). There is no "uu" sound at all.  So you get:  "He's a "sawdee."  "He's from "s*aw*dee ar*ay-*bya."


a footnote to your footnote: perhaps it's a regional thing (I'm from California) but it's my experience that the usual USA pronunciation of Saudi is "sowdee" as in "cow" and "wow"


----------



## HoopoeOfHope

rarabara said:


> in ٱلْسَّعُوْدِيَّة : there exists a nisba adjective. so the gemination is available for the pronunciation ٱلْسَّعُوْدِيَّة whereas ٱلْعَرَبِيَة does not contain nisba adjcetive so there is no gemination for it.



The ي in both words is ياء النسب "nisba" and both of them are geminate:

ال)سعود+ يّ+ة = السعوديّة)
العرب+يّ+ة = العربيّة


----------



## קטן

@HoopoeOfHope:
I didn't talk phonemes, and I used [ and ], not /.
Talking of phonemes, what precisely are the MSA phonemes that can be represented by the graphemes ي and ﹻ ?


(@all: Participation in this thread is voluntary, I suppose, and grapheme-sound relations are grammar.)


----------



## tracer2

akhooha said:


> a footnote to your footnote: perhaps it's a regional thing (I'm from California) but it's my experience that the usual USA pronunciation of Saudi is "sowdee" as in "cow" and "wow"


You're right.  I've heard both.....Sowdee and Sawdee. Who says one or the other, I'm not sure.  BUt I recall most newscasters will say "Sawdee" for some reason.


----------



## קטן

Each time I give this site a try I'm motivated more to launch my own. Thank you for the motivation ! Seriously.

How about SUBthreads to enable trees, or even forests of posts in a topic ?
Much better than a linear thread of divergent posts.

I mean, st*ckexchange at least enable post-bound secondary posts besides the primary posts in a topic.


----------



## קטן

OK. Still open questions...

1.
What are the phonemes represented by the graphemes ي and ﹻ, respectively ? (According to MSA.)
2.
Pronunciation of
بُحَيْرَة طِبَرِيَّا
3.
What is the function of ﹻ in فِي ?

Considering the lack of on-topic posts I provide solutions myself:
1.
The phonemes are /j/ and /iː/ for ي.
The phonemes are /ɪ/ for ﹻ. Some insist on the designation /i/ for this phoneme. I don't understand this position since, essentially, the difference between ﹻ and vocalic ي is the difference between [bɪn] and [biːn] (pronunciation of 'been' in American and British English).
2.
بُحَيْرَة طِبَرِيَّا ~ [bʊˈ.ħaj.ra] [tˤ˭ɪ.ba.ˈrɪj.jaː]
(pausal pronunciation, interword linking ignored)
3.
In فِي the ﹻ has sound value ∅ (not ø or Ø) and indicates following of a vowel [iː], as opposed to semivowel [j], which could be indicated by preceding  ﹿ.
This example shows that ﹻ is rather ambiguous. Sometimes it represents /ɪ/ (with or without following [j]) as in طِبَرِيَّا, in other cases it is a soundless indicator of following vocalic ي.

Thus we have a pretty clear iː-j-ɪ trichotomy, which is carried in written stuff by ﹻ and ي. Whether the former is phonemic is irrelevant if your aim is correct pronunciation.
Correct pronunciation is about sounds, not phonemes.
Average human learners think in and aim at sounds, not phonemes.
Phoneme is a linguistic idea for the advanced.
How did you come to language, by thinking in phonemes or practicing sounds (and glyphs) ?


----------



## HoopoeOfHope

I'm sorry, but I don't know what your question is anymore. You asked the question and then answered yourself.

The sound value of the kasra is determined by the following letter like you said. It can be short or long though prototypically when we talk about it out of context we mean the short vowel.


קטן said:


> The phonemes are /ɪ/ for ﹻ. Some insist on the designation /i/ for this phoneme. I don't understand this position since, essentially, the difference between ﹻ and vocalic ي is the difference between [bɪn] and [biːn] (pronunciation of 'been' in American and British English).


Again, you're mixing the phonemes with the actual sounds of the language. The symbol used is to show the relevant parts of the sound within the language's phonology. Here, choosing /i/ or /ɪ/ won't change the sound of the actual short vowel.

There are reason for choosing /i/ too which are the fact that Arabic distinguishes the two vowel sets by length not by quality /a u i/ /a: u: i:/, and the fact that it is conventional to represent it as /i/. Also native speakers don't consider the exact quality to be a distinguishing factor unlike English which you mentioned, which perhaps is more noticeable to you from your perspective.


----------



## wriight

I would like to expand on this by asking for clarity on who uses [ɪ ʊ] and when. (This isn't in line with the thread title, but it directly relates to post #26 and two of the questions in it I think)

In the MSA pronunciation scheme I myself picked up, kasra and damma are [i u] in open syllables and [ɪ ʊ] in closed syllables *unless* the syllable ends in a semivowel, in which case we get [i u] again. For بحيرة طِبريا I would read [b*u*ħajrat ṭ*i*bar*i*jja], but for بِن I would read [bɪn].

But I have this impression that a speaker of a really stereotypical Egyptian dialect would also use [ɪ ʊ] invariably in MSA. Is this accurate for any Egyptians? And who else outside of Egypt would use only [ɪ ʊ]?

I also understand that [i u] are used invariably in (some?) tajwid standards and maybe some regions' natural MSA traditions. What regions and reading traditions is this true of?

And if there are other ways of alternating between the two than what I described for my own MSA, what are they and who uses them?


----------



## HoopoeOfHope

It's hard to tell what the exact pronunciations is. To be honest, I myself don't know how I would transcribe the way I pronounce them and I don't know if it is the same way that the people close to me would pronounce them. If I'm being very articulate then they're probably [i u]. If I'm just talking quickly then I feel like there's a difference between the qualities of the short and long vowels. I can't tell if the syllable structure or surrounding consonants affect them.

Again, just to clarify, the main distinguishing factor is the length; the exact quality of the short vowels can slightly differ but that doesn't hinder understanding them.


----------



## קטן

In preparation of further posts on my part I'd like to present the following questions:

A.
How would average adult US natives answer the following question:
"How do 'did' and 'deed' differ in sound ?"
B.
How would average adult Germans answer the (German equivalent to the) following question:
"How do the nouns 'Miete' (rent) and 'Mitte' (middle) differ in sound ?


----------



## קטן

I cannot know for sure, but chances are a clear majority of participants would essentially answer as follows:

In case of A:

'short i versus long e'.
Actually, the difference is much more specific.
Actually, the difference corresponds to the difference between [iː] and [ɪ].
The difference is both quantitative and qualitative.
The participants give essentially naïve answers, mostly due to lack of phonetic awareness.

In case of B:

'long i versus short i'.
Actually, the difference corresponds to the difference between [iː] and [ɪ].
Additionally, there is weak t-gemination in 'Mitte' as opposed to 'Miete'.
Careful representation would be [ˈmiː.tə] and [ˈmɪt̚͜.tə], respectively.
The difference is both qualitative and quantitative.
The participants give essentially artless answers, mostly due to lack of phonetic awareness.

Here's my point:
It may well be a similar story with Arabic ي and  ﹻ , and Arabic و and  ﹹ.
Some participants here are correct in that there is difference in vowel duration.
However, there's considerable qualitative difference, too.
Both designations /i/ and /ɪ/ are in a sense justified: /i/ because the phoneme is a short relative of the phoneme /iː/.
/ɪ/ because it is also qualitatively different from /iː/.


----------

