# س / ص - pronunciation



## Interprete

Hello,

I know my question can sound a bit provocative, but I've really come to wonder if native Arabic speakers hear such a clear difference between sin and sad because there really is one, or simply because they know which words contain sin and which contain sad and thus 'interpret' the sound they hear to be either one of the two based on their educated linguistic expectations.

When pronounced slowly and in isolation, the difference is clear to me, but in a TV news report for example, in many instances I just don't hear any difference.

This reminds me of the inability for Chinese speakers to hear a clear difference between T and D in French (I guess it's easier to hear in English because you breathe out more air in English than in French when pronouncing these two letters), which to us seems silly, although when you really think about it, you realise that you 'know for sure' that this was a T and not a D simply because you know that word, NOT because the sound difference is blatant - in many cases it actually isn't...

My point being, you could be convinced that you hear two sounds because you know they are supposed to be different, while in reality it is one and the same sound. I'm wondering if it could be the case in Arabic.

So I was wondering what native and non-native speakers of Arabic think about this...

Thanks!

For example, if an English speaker says at TV-reporting speed "Yes these sounds are supposed to be Tifferent but they are often mispronounced". 

Would even a native speaker realise that the TV anchor said Tifferent instead of Different?


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## Milad__7

I find it obvious differentiating between the two... I'll give you this example and I want you to make a native speaker pronounce it... the word The Sky is السماء , make him/her change س into ص like الصماء; it will sure sound different. Try also the name سميرة with ص it will sound really awful and wrongly pronounced.


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## Interprete

Thank you for your reply!

As I explained, this type of differenciation is always very clear. It gets a whole lot blurrier when you say it WITHIN a sentence and at a fast speed. Maybe not 'sa' sound, but for example I would probably not hear the difference between : "blablablabla سفوف blablabla" (pronounced fast) and "blablablabla صفوف blablablabla" (pronounced fast). See what I mean?

By the way, a few hints that led me to this question:
-One day I said هنروح مع بعض to my Egyptian flatmate, and I kind of emphasised the Dad, and he said ma3 ba3d [pronouncing it as a dal], dal, dal, mesh dad! So I said are you sure? I'm pretty sure it's dad. And he replied oh yes, you're right, sorry... (it was a phone conversation).

-On another occasion, I was talking to two Egyptian friends at a cafe, and they could not figure out if they pronounced باهزر or باهظر. They just weren't sure!


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## cherine

Hi,

Can I ask about the education level of your Egyptian friends and flatmate?

What I mean to say is that, most of those who didn't get good education (and I'm saying "good", because having a degree in itself is no longer a garanteed significance of having received a good education  ) don't make any difference between الحروف المُرَقَّقة والحروف المُفَخَّمة , and all the similar sounds just merge into the "lighter" ones:
ص، س>س
ق، ك>ك
ط، ت>ت

(coincidentally, a colleague of mine who didn't get too much education in Arabic, was just talking about كِسَّة when he should be saying قصة ). If the difference isn't clear as you say, I wouldn't have noticed his pronunciation.

But anyone who has a minimal knowledge of Arabic does differentiate, in speech and listening, between these letters.

If you don't make a difference, how can I tell whether you're talking about الفصحى or الفسحة ? or الصيف or السيف ? ...etc.


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## Ghabi

Interprete said:


> This reminds me of the inability for Chinese speakers to hear a clear difference between T and D in French ...


This is supposed to be classified information! How do you know that?



Interprete said:


> ... and they could not figure out if they pronounced باهزر or باهظر. They just weren't sure!


This happens a lot. My old Egyptian teacher often scratched his head when he needed to write down a word on the blackboard. He would keep murmuring to himself: errrm, Sad or sin?

A thought experiment: someone, who has learnt fuS7a purely by his ears, is to derive an alphabet to record what he hears. How many consonants and how many vowels would his system contains? I fancy: 24 consonants (i.e. minus the emphatic ones) and four vowels that can be either short or long (a, aa, A, AA, i, ii, u, uu). In this system, chest=sAdr, friend=sAA7ib, the letter sin=assiin, China=Assiin, the Quranic chapter= assuura, the picture=Assuura.

My Arabic friends would frown upon this, but I think it's _mesh ba3iid_ ...


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## Interprete

cherine said:


> If you don't make a difference, how can I tell whether you're talking about الفصحى or الفسحة ? or الصيف or السيف ? ...etc.


Context? 

But I see what you mean Cherine. I'm actually struggling to find an example to illustrate my problem. Incidentally I'm sure I would have heard the 'kissa' mispronounciation - it so happens that the sin/sad difference in this particular word is very clear (let alone qaf/kaf which is clear to pretty much all nationalities I think). 

I feel that the distinction is very clear in some words, but much more difficult to hear in others.

My flatmate is a law graduate from Alexandria, the other friend is an IT engineer from Bani Suef...



Ghabi said:


> This is supposed to be classified information! How do you know that?


Don't worry, I just can't hear the difference between pinyin 'feng' and 'fang' pronounced with a proper Northern accent, despite years of trying and making my friends repeat these sounds thousands of times.
Sadly history is repeating itself again with sin and sad!


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## WadiH

Ghabi said:


> A thought experiment: someone, who has learnt fuS7a purely by his ears, is to derive an alphabet to record what he hears. How many consonants and how many vowels would his system contains? I fancy: 24 consonants (i.e. minus the emphatic ones) and four vowels that can be either short or long (a, aa, A, AA, i, ii, u, uu). In this system, chest=sAdr, friend=sAA7ib, the letter sin=assiin, China=Assiin, the Quranic chapter= assuura, the picture=Assuura.



The "bahaZZar/bahazzar" example is a red herring. It's perfectly natural that an emphatic consonant can be de-emphasized under certain circumstances or in certain dialects, just as a voiced consonant can become unvoiced. That does not mean that the distinction is imaginary. Also, just because an emphatic consonant is lost in one dialect, that does not mean that the emphatic consonant does not exist in Classical Arabic or in other dialects.


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## Ghabi

Wadi Hanifa said:


> That does not mean that the distinction is imaginary.


No, of course I don't think the distinction is imaginary, but I'm more interested in how a learner would perceive and interpret this distinction.


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## WadiH

I misunderstood your post then (sorry!).


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## elmagnoon

The difference between Seen and Sad is very clear and can easily be identified without context. Sad has a, let's say, deeper sound to it 
It takes practice I guess.

On the other hand, باهزر or باهظر strictly speaking can sound the same by most Egyptian speakers as we do not casually speak formal Arabic (Fusha with Sad) and usually pronounce the ظ as ز  but in this case there's no such thing as   باهظر  so they shouldn't have been confused.
In Fusha ظ is pronounced with your tongue almost between your teeth similar to the way you pronounce "th" in "the" in English, but deeper.


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## rayloom

I think with time and repeated hearing you'll get to appreciate the difference.
Until now, I'm having trouble with some subtle French vowel differences. For example, I can't realize the difference between douzieme and deuxieme. To me they both sound the same, and I apparently pronounce both the same...I know it's not a context issue because both would probably fit just as well in most contexts, so there has to be a difference!! right?!


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## Interprete

rayloom said:


> I think with time and repeated hearing you'll get to appreciate the difference.


I've been on it for like 7 years now. No progress 

But yeah it's true French can bring the same difficulties (I'm thinking of 5000 and 100 000 for example).


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## Ghabi

Wadi Hanifa said:


> I misunderstood your post then (sorry!).


My bad. I should've expressed myself more clearly!


rayloom said:


> ... so there has to be a difference!! right?!


What a familiar sigh of despair! Do you know how many times I ask myself this question every day? As president of the International Association of Frustrated Language Leaners (IAFLL), I sincerely invite you to join the club!


Interprete said:


> I've been on it for like 7 years now.


Perhaps 7 years are not enough and the ephiphany will finally come in the 8th year?

I think there're several issues at hand:

1) The difficulty of acquiring of a new phonemic feature: if the emphatic versus non-emphatic distinction is not found in one's native tongue, then I think it's really hard for one to acquire it. This is not just a new sound, but a completely new phonemic feature. I guess it's like acquring the tones in tonal languages (it happens that I started a thread some time ago about this in the Chinese Forum) or the soft/hard consonants in Russian. For a native speaker the consonantal difference between the emphatic and the plain consonants may be crystal clear, but for a learner what can be perceived may just be the secondary difference (i.e. their effect on their neighboring vowels).

2) The merge of the emphatic and plain consonants (in some words) in a particular dialect: I think this can cause confusion to anyone, not only to learners but also to native speakers (i.e. unless you're especially good at languages).

3) The relationship between listening and comprehension: I think the biggest difference between a native speaker and a learner lies in the fact that the former can usually understand what is being said even though he doesn't hear very well. His intimate knowledge of the language can always helps him to disambiguate and fill in the gaps. I think this holds true for every language, not just for Arabic. For example, there're six tones in Cantonese. Of course they're real, not imaginary, but do I catch the tone of every word when I listen to something? Perhaps I do, but there's an equal chance that I don't and I just guess it right unconciously!


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## outo_otus

I believe it is quite dialect-dependent, in Egyptian the distinction lies mainly on the quality of the vowel(s) surrounding the emphatic (or pharyngealised) consonant. There was some sort of acoustic study done which showed that the distinction has indeed transferred onto the vowels in Egyptian, making it somewhat difficult to hear the difference in some words (especially with short vowels).

In some Khaleji dialects (mostly talking about Bahraini here), the 'aa' is always a 'dark' aa, therefore the emphatic consonants are usually pronounced 'properly' and you can usually hear the difference after a bit of practice.

Also, the more familiar you become with the language, the easier it'll become to distinguish simply because you already know what letter the word contains, and if you don't you'll be more likely to guess it correctly.


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## suma

Interprete, as a non-native speaker of Arabic I hear the difference, and to prove it's not just because I know the context, here's what I mean.

For example, I could be listening to a show on Jazeerah or something and within the dialogue the speaker uses a word that I'm not familiar with at all but I distinguish which sounds were spoken by him whether س or ص  with no problem. So later I can reproduce the exact word to a native speaker to get its meaning.



Ghabi said:


> ...  In this system, chest=sAdr, friend=sAA7ib, the letter sin=assiin, China=Assiin, the Quranic chapter= assuura, the picture=Assuura.
> 
> My Arabic friends would frown upon this, but I think it's _mesh ba3iid_ ...


 
Ghabi, chest=sAdr, friend=sAA7ib both ص perhaps you meant
سين / الصين
السورة / الصورة
سليب / صليب
سفير / صفير


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## cherine

Interprete said:


> Incidentally I'm sure I would have heard the 'kissa' mispronounciation - it so happens that the sin/sad difference in this particular word is very clear (let alone qaf/kaf which is clear to pretty much all nationalities I think).


Hi,
I thought about this some more, and I think that what helps more in distinguishing is that when a word has an emphatic sound, the other sounds in that word get changed to a degree or another (and sorry if I'm mis-using the terms, I'm a total ignorant in what concerns phonetics, phonology and many other things ).
You don't pronounce the خ the same way in خَس as in خُص (some kind of hut). Nor pronounce the alif the same way in أستاذ as in أسطي (where the س and أ both become emphatic because of the ط , as in contrast with the ت in the other word that helps keep the س as it is). And this is why it's easy to perceive the changed pronounciation in قصة when it becomes كِسّة (it's because both emphatic sounds/letters become مُرَقَّقة ).


> I feel that the distinction is very clear in some words, but much more difficult to hear in others.


This may be true.
A few days ago, I was listening to the song of a tv serial تمثيلية/مسلسل and the words were about how things changed in the society. Among the things said, a line was about الفصحى بقت فُسْحَى (criticizing how people don't know about الفصحى any more and mis-pronounce many words). The singer's pronunciation of the first word was not clear enough, and I thought at first that he was pronouncing the two words the same way. It's only after I heard the song a second time, that I could realize he pronounce the first one الفصحى slighly more emphatically than the other one.


> My flatmate is a law graduate from Alexandria, the other friend is an IT engineer from Bani Suef...


Unfortunately, university degrees are not a garantee of good education any more, I mean in language. But, when I re-read your other post:


Interprete said:


> -One day I said هنروح مع بعض to my Egyptian flatmate, and I kind of emphasised the Dad, and he said ma3 ba3d [pronouncing it as a dal], dal, dal, mesh dad! So I said are you sure? I'm pretty sure it's dad. And he replied oh yes, you're right, sorry... (it was a phone conversation).


Apparently, you friend got the distinction between ض and د , his problem was figuring out whether بعض is written with this letter or that. Luckily he got it right at the end. 


> -On another occasion, I was talking to two Egyptian friends at a cafe, and they could not figure out if they pronounced باهزر or باهظر. They just weren't sure!


I think I can explain this one.
We pronounce the ب a bit مفخَّمة here. So, it's normal to doubt, at least for a moment, whether our pronounciation of the ز is also مفخّمة . I think we pronounce it a bit in between.
And we can't write it with a ظ because we pronounce the word هزار with a clear ز , so we can't imagine or accept that it changes into ظ when turned into verb, even if we pronounce it as a ظ or closer to it.

But this is just my "analysis". I can be wrong of course.


suma said:


> Ghabi, chest=sAdr, friend=sAA7ib both ص


I just want to say that, in Egyptian Arabic, we pronounce صدر as sidr سِدر . But we do know that it's written with a ص .


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## clevermizo

suma said:


> Ghabi, chest=sAdr, friend=sAA7ib both ص perhaps you meant
> سين / الصين
> السورة / الصورة
> سليب / صليب
> سفير / صفير



He was noting a difference in vowel with the "dark" fatħa/alif written as A/AA and the "light" fatħa/alif written as a/aa.



cherine said:


> Hi,
> I thought about this some more, and I think that what helps more in distinguishing is that when a word has an emphatic sound, the other sounds in that word get changed to a degree or another (and sorry if I'm mis-using the terms, I'm a total ignorant in what concerns phonetics, phonology and many other things ).



Yes indeed! In Western descriptions of Semitic languages this is call _emphasis spreading_. It's also a classic example from introductory phonetics/phonology courses as to how phonetic features can spread from single phonemes to the rest of words  .


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## princeipeazul

*صاص*، *ساص*، *صاس*

Suppose these were real words in Arabic, would you pronounce them in the same manner? Or there would be a slight difference in pronunciation?


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## Mahaodeh

As a native speaker I obviously find no difficulty in distinguishing the two. I know I hear the difference and not just know the langauge well enough to fill the gaps because I can tell that some dialects don't pronounce the Saad clearly, although I can still hear it somewhere between a seen and a Saad.



cherine said:


> What I mean to say is that, most of those who didn't get good education (and I'm saying "good", because having a degree in itself is no longer a garanteed significance of having received a good education  ) don't make any difference between الحروف المُرَقَّقة والحروف المُفَخَّمة , and all the similar sounds just merge into the "lighter" ones:
> ص، س>س
> ق، ك>ك
> ط، ت>ت


I have noticed this among Egyptians. I can understand the قاف because it's not normally pronounced in the dialect. Now I can't say that the صاد وطاء are pronounced سين وتاء, I still hear the difference but they seem to be lighter than they are pronounced in Palestinian or Iraqi; actually even in other Levantine and Gulf dialects they are still quite clear. I have also noticed this as a more recent development, if you listen to the older Egyptian movies (say, 1940s or 1950s) you will find them pronounced much clearer.

I have also noticed something else, the حاء turning into هاء in certain cases. In old movies I can hear the حاء clearly (although a little lighter than it should, sometimes quite faint but I can hear it nonetheless) in words like حيعمل أو حيقول, whereas now I can't hear it at all and all I hear is هيعمل وهيقول.

What I'm saying is that it's probably not about education as Cherine says, I think it's more about dialect. But this is just a guess.

Discalimer: I don't know why this is hpening, this is based on my personal observation.



princeipeazul said:


> *صاص*، *ساص*، *صاس*
> 
> Suppose these were real words in Arabic, would you pronounce them in the same manner? Or there would be a slight difference in pronunciation?


صاص is an actual word in Iraqi Arabic, it means sauce as in "hot sauce" and "barbeque sauce" but not "tomato sauce" or "white sauce"   .

Well, in dialects it's hard to say, but there is a high probability that they would be all pronounced صاص. I'm basing this on current trends in PA and IA - when there is an emphatic sound too close to a سين أو تاء, they are pronounced صاد أو طاء (also personal observation). For example, both the words صوت وسوط are pronounced identically in both dialects, both are pronounced صوط that, as far as I know, is not a word in Arabic!


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## momai

A Sin before a ra' is in some cases pronounced as Saad even in the Quran it is صراط instead of سراط.
In Syrian Arabic navel is pronounced as Sirah instead of a simple sirah سرة.
The opposite also happens, in Damascene Arabic they say for example سندوء and سدء instead of صندوق and صدق


Mahaodeh said:


> For example, both the words صوت وسوط are pronounced identically in both dialects, both are pronounced صوط that, as far as I know, is not a word in Arabic!


Interesting. In SA it is a bit different.
سوط SuuT
صوت Soot but with possessive pronouns it is SooT, e.g. صوتو SawTo


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## Hemza

I'm not a native speaker although I'm familiar with Arabic sound system since I'm a kid since my parents use them. Yet, as most (if any?) native French speakers and in spite some years studying Arabic, I still have sometimes some troubles to distinguish between long vowels and short ones when I hear a word and I have to write it down (but it's much less the case now). My other issue appeared when I met Egyptians. In Morocco, most letters are easily distinguishable, the ض cannot be confused with the د, the ز isn't with the ظ and the ك isn't with the ق. But on my Egyptian friend tongue (as well as the others I could speak with) I sometimes had hard times to distinguish the sounds. The ق/ك one is peculiar to my friend, his ق sounds very very light to the point it sounds like a ك to me and in many instances, when he used words unknown to me, I had to ask him to repeat it several times before I could figure out it is a ك or a ق. The same goes with the ز and the ظ that I pronounce differently and the first time I heard my friend and up to this day, both letters sound exactly the same to me on his tongue  and by the way, there is this word, بايظ that I always thought it wasبايز  until he told me with it is written "طاء مع نقطة". I'm not implying that he has an issue but it's his pronunciation added to my non Egyptian native ear (+ the fact I'm not an Arabic native) that led me to many confusions .


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## Interprete

When I was in Egypt my friends would often poke fun at me for over-emphasizing my emphatic consonants, and when correcting me, I could almost not hear the difference between how they pronounced it and how they would have pronounced a non-emphatic consonant. Obviously my accent is very, very far from perfect, but Egypt is the only place where I was ever told this.
And same as you Hemza, I hear the word  بايظ  with a very closed A (as if it was near an emphatic letter) yet I hear it followed by a ز sound. Which has caused me to never really know how I should pronounce it...
Regarding the qaf, there's been this regular joke about low-class males calling themselves "a sadiki" with kaf instead of qaf, and probably also sin instead of sad, although I'm not so sure about the latter.
There was also a few years ago a Facebook post showing pictures of animals with their Arabic names under each one of them, and the viewers were invited to spot the mistake. None of the Egyptians noticed that giraffe had been spelled ظرافة, which strongly points to how small (in any!) the difference they make between ظ  and ز.
Maybe Cherine could comment on those as well?


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## cherine

Good remarks, Interprete!
Your description of our pronunciation of baayez and how your friends said you over emphasize the emphatica made me pronounce the word as I normally do then  pronounce it with a “clearly emphasized” ظ (which sounded funny) and I think I could finally understand the problem.
In words like بايظ we kind of move the emphasis to the first part of the word, which shows in the vowel as you described, thus rendering the last letter closer to a ز. For زرافة I believe many Egyptians pronounce it a bit emphatically which is why some may think it’s written with a ظ.


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