Egyptian Arabic phonology

This article is about the phonology of Egyptian Arabic, also known as Cairene Arabic or Masri. It deals with the phonology and phonetics of Egyptian Arabic as well as the phonological development of child native speakers of the dialect. To varying degrees, it affects the pronunciation of Literary Arabic by native Egyptian Arabic speakers, as is the case for speakers of all other varieties of Arabic.

Consonants

 * Emphatic consonants are not commonly pronounced by illiterate speakers, which suggests that they are foreign and borrowed from Literary Arabic.
 * Many Egyptians cannot pronounce, which are mostly found in names or loanwords from languages like English, French and Persian, not Literary Arabic.
 * , which can come from the deaffrication of foreign ) in Egyptianized loanwords, tends to merge with . For example, جراش ('garage') is mostly pronounced, even by educated speakers.
 * A few rural speakers away from Cairo pronounce this instead of, but doing so in native vocabulary is not considered prestigious.
 * argues that emphatic are additional consonants in Egyptian Arabic with marginal status.
 * appear in borrowings from Literary Arabic with . In inherited words, the two phonemes regularly became respectively.
 * Non-Egyptianized loanwords with may either be Egyptianized to  or approximated to, with the front vowel  being backed to  in a word having an open vowel in the latter case.
 * in borrowings from Literary Arabic are realized as . A few words with original became with, e.g. from the triliteral root ض-ب-ط as in ضابط turned to ظابط , "police/military officer".
 * Non-Egyptianized loanwords having interdental consonants are approximated to the sibilants,.

Traditionally, the interdental consonants  correspond to the Egyptian Arabic alveolar consonants. This is a feature common to some North African Arabic varieties and is attested in pre-modern, inherited words: However, unlike other North African varieties, in Egyptian Arabic, the Literary Arabic interdental consonants may correspond to sibilant consonants, particularly in more recent learned borrowings.
 * > : ('fox') from  ثعلب (never *). Likewise:  ('ice') from  ثلج,  ('price') from  ثمن,  ('three') from  ثلاثة,  ('plough') from  محراث, and  ('tripped') from * عثر.
 * > : ('tail') from  ذيل and never . Likewise  ('male') from  ذكر,  ('lied') from  كذب, and  ('wolf') from  ذئب.
 * > : ('nail') from  ظفر (never *). Likewise  > :  ('darkness'), from  ظلمة;  ('bone'), from عظم.


 * > : ('revolution'), from Literary  ثورة
 * > : ('broadcasting'), from Literary  إذاعة
 * > : ('clitoris'), from Literary  بظر

The correspondent phoneme of the Classical Arabic j, ج, is realized as a velar in the dialect of Cairo, in the same way as it is in some Arabic dialects of southern Yemen. Thus, ǧabal جبل ('mountain') is pronounced, even in Literary Arabic, as rather than.

The linguist Janet C. E. Watson considers the following to be additional marginal consonants:
 * The emphatic rhotic in some native words, such as  ('my cows',  being 'cows'), which contrasts with  ('cow-like, of cows', a derived adjective). Additionally, in loanwords from European languages, such as  ('parachute').
 * The labial emphatics and  also in loanwords; minimal pairs include  ('patriarch') vs  ('Paopi').

Classical Arabic * became in Cairo and the Nile Delta (a feature also shared with Levantine Arabic), but  is retained natively in some dialects to the west of the Nile Delta, outside of Alexandria, and has been reintroduced as a marginal phoneme from Standard Arabic, particularly relating to certain religious words, besides others such as those deriving from the root, relating to the intellect and culture. may be used to distinguish between homophones, at least in mildly careful speech. For example, قانون may be disambiguated as  ('law') vs. ('kanun, a musical instrument'); قوى as  ('strong') or the colloquial adverb  ('very'). ,, and appear in loanwords such as  ('jacket').

Assimilation

 * Pharyngeal consonants before :
 * The sequence is more commonly pronounced, especially outside of careful speech. For example,  ('opened it(feminine)') →.
 * The sequence is more commonly pronounced  (or sometimes ), especially outside of careful speech. For example,  ('hers') →  or.
 * Velar fricatives before :
 * → : ('her brain') →
 * → : ('[he] scolded her') →
 * before :
 * Often, the sequence of assimilates to.
 * Examples: ('guilt') → ;  ('tube') → ;  ('Allenby') →.
 * Sibilant consonants before :
 * Word-finally:
 * The sequences and  are more commonly pronounced, especially outside of careful speech. For example,  ('didn't kiss') →
 * The sequences and  are more commonly pronounced . For example,  ('wasn't corrupt') →.
 * Intervocalic:
 * → : ('Chipsy sac') →

Voicing and devoicing
For some speakers, there is a voicing and devoicing assimilation for the following consonants:
 * The sequence is more commonly pronounced . For example,   ('didn't montage') →.

When the input consonants are plosives differing only in voicing, the resultant assimilation will be complete.
 * Voiced: → ;  → ;  → ;  → ;  → ;  → ;  →.
 * Devoiced: → ;  → ;  → ;  → ;  → ;  → ;  →.
 * Examples on voicing assimilation: ('he/it confused') → ;  ('outrun') → ;  ('suspected') → ;  ('utter') → ;  ('annoyed') →, a complete assimilation.
 * Examples of devoicing assimilation: ('society') → ;  ('ask forgiveness [of God]') → ;  ('took') →, a complete assimilation.

Vowels
The Egyptian Arabic vocalic system differs from Classical Arabic. The system of vowels is as follows:

The short vowels and  are realized as  and  respectively at the end of a word. The vowel is mostly from non-Semitic words if not in words with emphatic consonants.

The symbols ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩ represent vowels that vary between close-mid and near-close. Their centralized allophones (transcribed with ⟨ɘ⟩ and ⟨ɵ⟩) have the same variable height: and.

The final allophone of varies in height between close  and close-mid  ( when centralized). For the sake of simplicity, only ⟨u⟩ and ⟨ʉ⟩ are used in this section.

and are close-mid.

The phonemes and  are in the process of splitting into two phonemes each, resulting in the four Egyptian Arabic phonemes. The front and back variants alternate in verbal and nominal paradigms in ways that are largely predictable, but the back variants occur unpredictably in some lexical stems, especially those of non-Semitic origin. This is discussed more below.

Vowels and  are often regarded as allophones of the vowels  and  respectively instead of constituting separate vowel phonemes; so they cannot form minimal pairs. For further discussion regarding vowel allophony in Egyptian Arabic, see. Also Watson does not consider the short mid vowels and  as phonemes on their own and says that they are not used by most speakers of Cairene. Woidich argues that educated speakers of Cairene when pronouncing carefully and slowly tend to distinguish short and  as the results of shortened  and  from short  and  which leads to minimal pairs between them, but stresses that this does not happen with normal speech tempo.

and are derived from the Classical Arabic diphthongs  and, respectively, when occurring in closed syllables (i.e. not followed by a vowel). Note that the diphthongs and  also occur in the same environment, due to later deletion of unstressed vowels and resulting contraction, e.g.   ('consultation') from Classical. Minimal pairs such as  ('carrying fem. sg.'  and   ('burden') also occur.  Both of these words are derived from ;  is the phonologically regular outcome, while  is an analogical reformation based on the corresponding participial form  of other verbs of the same class.

Egyptian Arabic maintains in all positions the early post-Classical distinctions between short and. Unlike, for example, Levantine Arabic dialects, which merge and  into  in most positions, and Moroccan Arabic, which deletes,  and  in all positions. In particular, note the different shapes and vowel distinctions between ('book') and  ('beautiful' pl.) vs. ('camels') and ('he chose'); in most Levantine dialects, all the short vowels in these words are elided, leading to the identical shapes, ,.

An epenthetic vowel is automatically inserted after the second of three or more consonants in a cluster to break up such clusters. The epenthetic vowel is analyzed as, even though there is a minimal pair distinguishing in many cases between and , leading to:
 * ('a beautiful girl')
 * ('my girl is beautiful')

Emphasis spreading
Many spoken Arabic varieties have developed two allophones of the Classical Arabic vowels and, with fronted allophones  occurring in most circumstances, but backed allophones  occurring in the vicinity of emphatic consonants. This process is known as emphasis spreading. The exact criteria of both "vicinity" and "emphatic consonant" varies depending on the individual speech variety. In Egyptian Arabic, the occurrence of is no longer completely predictable, suggesting that these sounds have become phonemicized or inherited from the Coptic language, the former language of Egypt; but see below for more discussion.

In Egyptian Arabic, the consonants that trigger emphasis spreading include the pharyngealized consonants, the  , and some instances of  (see below). On the other hand, the pharyngeal consonants do not trigger emphasis spreading; in the prestigious Cairene dialect, the  fricatives  also do not, although this is different in the Saidi variant in which they are.

In general, when emphasis spreading is triggered, the back variants spread both forward and backward throughout the phonological word, including any morphological prefixes, suffixes and clitics. Note that this is different from many other Arabic varieties. For example, in Moroccan Arabic, emphasis spreading usually travels no farther than the first full vowel on either side of the triggering consonant, and in many varieties of Levantine Arabic, emphasis spreading is of indefinite extent but is blocked by the phonemes. Nevertheless, emphasis spreading is not completely reliable, and there is some free variation, especially in the pronunciation of prefixes and suffixes at some distance from the triggering consonant.

Some instances of trigger emphasis spreading, while others do not. Originally, an adjacent to  was considered non-emphatic, while others were emphatic and triggered emphasis spreading. Currently, however, this is no more than a rough guideline, as many exceptions have since developed. This situation has led the linguist Janet C. E. Watson, who mostly studied the Yemeni Arabic dialects, to postulate the existence of two phonemes, which both surface as but where only  triggers emphasis spreading. This analysis is not completely ideal in that these two resulting "phonemes" alternate to a large extent (often unpredictably) in related forms derived from the same root.

Currently, to the extent that the emphatic or non-emphatic variant of can be predicted, it works as follows: If  is adjacent to a vowel, emphasis-spreading is inhibited; otherwise, it occurs. The is able to "see across" derivational but not inflectional morphemes. As an example, ('commerce') and  ('you grow' masc.) both have emphasis spreading, since  occurs adjacent to low  but not adjacent to any non-low front vowel. On the other hand, of the derived forms ('commercial') and  ('you grow' fem.), only the latter has emphasis spreading. In this case, the derivational suffix ('related to') creates a new lexical item in the language's vocabulary, and hence the stem is reevaluated for emphasis, with the non-low front vowel  triggering non-emphatic ; but the inflectional suffix  marking feminine singular does not create a new lexical item, and as a result the emphasis in the stem remains. (For these purposes, past and non-past forms of a verb are considered separate stems; hence alternations can occur like 'he continued' vs.  'he continues'.)

An emphasis-spreading is usually adjacent to a low vowel  (which in turn is backed to ), but that is not necessary, and  also triggers emphasis-spreading: Examples  ('famous') →,  ('project') → ,  ('thin') →.

The alternation between and  is almost completely predictable in verbal and nominal paradigms, as well as in the large majority of words derived from Classical Arabic. It is also irrelevant for the operation of the numerous phonological adjustment rules (e.g. vowel lengthening, shortening and elision) in Egyptian Arabic. As a result, linguistic descriptions tend to subsume both under an archiphoneme. On the other hand, there are a number of lexical items in which "autonomous" tend to occur irrespective of the presence of emphatic consonants. A few are in Aramaic-derived words, e.g. ('water'), but the majority are in words of non-Semitic origin — especially those derived from European languages — where  echo the vowel quality of  in those languages.

Different authors have proposed differing phonemic analyses of this situation: The approach followed here is to ignore the distinction in phonemic descriptions, subsuming as allophones of, but where necessary to also include a phonetic explication (i.e. detailed pronunciation) that indicates the exact quality of all vowels. Generally, these phonetic explications are given for the examples in the section on phonology, and elsewhere whenever autonomous occurs.
 * Some go ahead and treat all occurrences of as separate phonemes, despite the additional complexity of the resulting morphological descriptions;
 * Some treat only "autonomous" occurrences of as phonemes, with all the rest subsumed under ;
 * Some have created new emphatic consonants (e.g. analyzing as, where underlying  surfaces as  but triggers the back allophone );
 * Some have ignored the distinction entirely.

Vowel shortening
All long vowels are shortened when followed by two consonants (including geminated consonants), and also in unstressed syllables, though they are sometimes kept long in careful speech pronunciations of loanwords, as in ('Cairo') and a few other borrowings from Classical Arabic with similar shapes, such as  ('phenomenon'). Long vowel, when shortened collapse with which are, as well, the shortened form of ; as a result, the following three words are only distinguished contextually: It is worth mentioning that vowel shortening is not made by rural speakers of Egyptian Arabic, whose form of speech is in decline.
 * 1)   ('cheese')
 * 2) + →   ('we brought')
 * 3) + →   ('our pocket')

Vowel lengthening
Final short vowels are lengthened when the stress is brought forward onto them as a result of the addition of a suffix.

Vowel deletion (syncope)
Unstressed and  are deleted (i.e. syncope) when occurring in the context /VCVCV/, i.e. in an internal syllable with a single consonant on both sides. This also applies across word boundaries in cases of close syntactic connection.

Vowel insertion (epenthesis)
Three or more consonants are never allowed to appear together, including across a word boundary. When such a situation would occur, an epenthetic is inserted between the second and third consonants.

Before the epenthetic vowel is.

Vowel elision and linking
Unlike in most Arabic dialects, Egyptian Arabic has many words that logically begin with a vowel (e.g. 'I'), in addition to words that logically begin with a glottal stop (e.g.  'very', from Classical  'strong'). When pronounced in isolation, both types of words will be sounded with an initial glottal stop. However, when following another word, words beginning with a vowel will often follow smoothly after the previous word, while words beginning with a glottal stop will always have the glottal stop sounded, e.g.:
 * → or  ('the boy is red)
 * →  ('you [masc. sg.] are very big')

The phonetic pronunciations indicated above also demonstrate the phenomenon of linking, a normal process in Egyptian Arabic where syllable boundaries are adjusted across word boundaries to ensure that every syllable begins with exactly one consonant.

Elision of vowels often occurs across word boundaries when a word ending with a vowel is followed by a word beginning with a vowel, especially when the two vowels are the same, or when one is. More specifically, elision occurs in the following circumstances:
 * 1) When both vowels are the same, one will be elided.
 * 2) When final is followed by initial,  is elided.
 * 3) When any vowel is followed by initial, is elided.

Multiple processes
Multiple processes often apply simultaneously. An example of both insertion and deletion working together comes from the phrase ('the girl is grown up'): Example of insertion and deletion together: Compare ('the boy is grown up'), where neither process applies.
 * Underlying representation:
 * Epenthesis in CCC sequence:
 * Deletion of VCVCV:
 * Surface realization:

Similarly, an example of both deletion and long-vowel shortening appears in the phrase ('friend' fem.): Compare with Classical Arabic.
 * Underlying representation:
 * Deletion of in VCVCV:
 * Vowel shortening in VCC:
 * Surface realization:

The operation of the various processes can often produce ambiguity: Hence, is ambiguous in regards to grammatical gender.
 * → ('I [masc.] want to eat')
 * → →  ('I [fem.] want to eat')

Letter names
In Egypt, the letters are called ألف به or أبجديه, and are even taught in entertainment and children's shows, like the Egyptian version of Sesame Street.

The following table does not contain the characters which have the same names in Literary Arabic.


 * Notes: Traditionally, (ة) and  (ه) were only distinguished in writing if a  is finally pronounced. The final and separate  (ى) are written in the same way they are in Ottoman Turkish and Persian, but two different characters are used electronically. The dental pronunciations of  (ث,&lrm; ذ,&lrm; ظ) are uncommon out of learned contexts.

Syllable structure
Egyptian Arabic has the following five syllable types: CV, CVː, CVC, CVːC, and CVCC.

CVː, CVːC, and CVCC are long, or heavy, syllables. Long syllables bear primary stress, and there is only one stressed syllable per word. Egyptian Arabic has a strong preference for heavy syllables, and various phonetic adjustments conspire to modify the surface pronunciation of connected speech towards the ideal of consisting entirely of heavy syllables. Examples can be seen below:
 * Shortening of long vowels to avoid superheavy syllables (CVːC.CV → CVC.CV)
 * Lengthening of short vowels to avoid light stressed syllables (ˈCV.CV → ˈCVː.CV) or the increasingly rarer cases (ˈCV.CVC → ˈCVː.CVC) or avoiding light syllables and converting them into heavy syllables (CVC → CVːC)
 * Elision of short vowels to avoid sequences of superlight syllables (CV.CV.CV → CVC.CV)
 * Insertion of short vowels to avoid three-consonant sequences, which would result in a superheavy syllable (CVCC.CV or CVC.CCV → CVC.CV.CV)
 * Movement of syllable boundaries across word boundaries to avoid vowel-initial syllables (CVC VC VC → CV.C-V.C-VC)
 * Insertion of a glottal stop when necessary to avoid vowel-initial syllables

An example of these various processes together:

In the following and similar analyses, the normal-form pronunciation is given as the phonetic equivalent of the given phonemic form, although the intermediate steps may be given if necessary for clarity.

Other examples include ('I want to eat') →,  ('I want to eat it') → , and  ('They want to eat it') →.

Stress
The position of stress is essentially automatic. The basic rule is that, proceeding from the end to the beginning of the word, the stress goes on the first encountered syllable of any of these types:


 * 1) A heavy syllable: that is, a syllable ending in either a long vowel (CVː), a long vowel and a consonant (CVːC), or two consonants (CVCC)
 * 2) A non-final light syllable that directly follows a heavy syllable
 * 3) A non-final light syllable that directly follows two light syllables (i.e. ...CVCVˈCVCV...)
 * 4) The first syllable of the word

Because the stress is almost completely predictable, it is not indicated in phonemic transcriptions (but is given in the corresponding phonetic explication).

Phonemic developmental stages
identifies three stages in the phonological acquisition of Egyptian Arabic, ending with completion of the consonant inventory (with the possible exception of ) at approximately age five.

The sound inventory found in the babbling stage does not technically consist of phonemes, but rather vowel- and consonant-like sounds. Therefore, they are not true speech sounds. Like children acquiring other world languages, Egyptian Arabic infants produce consonant-like sounds approximating, , , , , , , , ,.
 * Babbling stage: (~6–10 months)

At this stage children have acquired the basic, , vowel triangle, and the consonants , , , , and. At this stage is only produced word-initially (possibly due to speakers’ tendency to insert a glottal stop on words which begin with a vowel). There is typically no voiced-voiceless contrast and no single-double consonant contrast.
 * Stage I (~1–2 years)

Newly acquired phonemes are:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,. A voiced-voiceless contrast is now apparent in stops and fricatives. Consonant clusters appear but are unstable, often being omitted or simplified (consonant cluster reduction). The newly acquired lateral is frequently used in place of the flap/trill ~ (lateralization). Example: ('school') →
 * Stage II (~2–3 years)

Vowel length distinction, the emphatics, , , ;   (sometimes realized as ) and  (often realized as ) are acquired. A geminated consonant distinction is developing, although children have difficulty with and its voiced pair.
 * Intermediate Stage II-III (~3–5 years)

The flap/trill ~ and all diphthongs and clusters are acquired, and geminate consonant distinction is stable. The phoneme is rare in Egyptian Arabic and is typically only mastered with formal schooling at around age seven or eight, and is realized acceptably in the dialect as.
 * Phonemic Stage III (Adult mastery ~5 years)

Cross-linguistic comparison and phonological processes
Egyptian Arabic phoneme acquisition has been chiefly compared to that of English. The order of phoneme acquisition is similar for both languages: Exceptions are, , and , which appear earlier in Arabic-speaking children's inventory than in English, perhaps due to the frequency of their occurrence in the children's input. Egyptian Arabic differs most from English in terms of age of phoneme acquisition: Vowel distinctions appear at an earlier age in Egyptian Arabic than in English, which could reflect both the smaller inventory and the higher functional value of Arabic vowels: The consonantal system, on the other hand, is completed almost a year later than that of English. However, the lateral is acquired by most Arabic-speaking children by age two, a year earlier than English-speaking children. The most difficult phonemes for young Arabic children are emphatic stops, fricatives, and the flap/trill ~. and, which are relatively rare sounds in other languages, are the most difficult geminate consonants to acquire.

Phonological processes
For children under two, syllable reduction and final consonant deletion are the most common phonological processes. De-emphasis, involving the loss of the secondary articulation for emphatic consonants (e.g., realizing emphatic as ), may reflect the motoric difficulty of emphatic consonants, which are rare in world languages, as well as their relatively low frequency and functional load in Arabic.

The back fricatives and  are unusually accurate at an early age and less prone to fronting than in other languages.

Acquisition of syllable structure
Most children have mastered all syllable types between the ages of two and three. A preference for three-syllable words is evident (CVːC syllables being the most frequently produced) and production rarely exceeds four syllables. Simplification processes like those detailed above may occur to reduce CVCC syllables to CVːC or CVC syllables; however, when children change the syllable structure, they preserve the prosodic weight of the altered syllable in order to maintain stress relations.