Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 March 24

= March 24 =

Relative prosodic length of a long vowel in Arabic: 2x or 3x a short vowel?
I was watching a video that gives the rules for the recitation of the Quran and something puzzled me: it said Arabic long vowels have naturally a "madd" مَدّ (that literally means "extending") of twice the length of a short vowel (in their terminology a "madd" of two "harakaat" حركات, one "harakah" حركة being the length of a short vowel). That's the so called natural madd المدّ الطبعيّ and let's not even worry about the other kinds of madd which are irrelevant here. But that would give a total of three "harakaat" for the long vowel which would make it three times the length of a short vowel since the madd is the extension of the vowel beyond the duration of the short vowel, not the total length of the long vowel, that is (again in their terminology) the length of one of the three extension letters that are used to write long vowels in Arabic. In most languages a long vowel is twice the length of a short vowel. Am I misinterpreting their rules or are Arabic long vowels really supposed to be (at least in the context of the recitation of the Quran and possibly the recitation of poetry) three times as long as short vowels? Thanks. 178.51.93.5 (talk) 03:11, 24 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Absolute durations of vowels and consonants measured in milliseconds do not have simple arithmetic relationships with each other, and in many cases if you're looking at a spectrogram, it's very difficult to say precisely where one sound ends and another begins. Usually in various languages, long vowels are enough longer than short vowels that there's a Categorical perception distinction between the two types.  Of course, Qur'anic recitation has special features; what Wikipedia has on the subject is in article Tajwid... AnonMoos (talk) 04:03, 24 March 2024 (UTC)


 * P.S. The traditional Western term for "extension letters that are used to write long vowels" is matres lectionis... AnonMoos (talk) 04:07, 24 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Traditional prosodists (be they Latin, Greek or Indian) make statements like "a long is worth two shorts". I was not concerned with spectrograms and measurements in milliseconds but such statements. My question was: What does Arabic traditional prosody actually say? The way I understand statements made in videos made by people of Arabic origin apparently familiar with traditional Arabic prosody is simply in contradiction with statements made in your article Tajwid such as that "[p]rolongation refers to the number of morae (beats of time) that are pronounced when a voweled letter (fatḥah, ḍammah, kasrah) is followed by a madd letter (alif, yāʼ or wāw). The number of morae then becomes two." (at paragraph "Prolongation"). This is in contradiction with the way I understand Arabic theory which is that "the number of morae is then increased by two" (as opposed to "becomes two"). Your article mixes traditional terminology and Western terminology (what it calls "prolongation" is the "madd" and "morae" are the "harakaat") but its statement is otherwise clear. But is it correct? Did your article misunderstand Arabic theory and was it me? That is basically my question. 178.51.93.5 (talk) 13:46, 24 March 2024 (UTC)


 * When those grammarians say something like "a long is worth two shorts", in a context such as parsing dactylic hexameter verse, they're referring to the "mora" linguistic unit, which strictly speaking is a property of syllables as a whole, though in some contexts moras can be associated with individual vowels or syllable coda consonants. The original purpose of the mora was mainly to serve as a unit of syllable prosodic weight for purposes of determining poetic scansion and/or stress placement, not really as an absolute measurement of vowel length.  I know some things about linguistics and the Arabic language, but nothing about traditional Qur'an recitation, so if there are discrepancies between a Youtube video and the Wikipedia "Tajwid" article (not mine, I don't think I ever edited it), I can't help you in resolving them, sorry... AnonMoos (talk) 18:28, 24 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Thanks for trying. By "your" article I meant Wikipedia's. I meant the collective body of Wikipedia's editors. I can see how my use of "duration" may encourage one to believe I was interested in absolute measurement. I guess "prosodic length" should be clearer. Changed it as I believe strikethrough in section headings messes up searches. There is enough uniformity in various videos and tajweed sites on this point to conclude that this must be a real feature of the Arabic theory and not a random error. Whether I interpret it correctly that's another story. That's why I wouldn't say I'm certain there is a real discrepancy between the article and the traditional theory. That's what I'm trying to find out. I was hoping there would be some knowledgeable Muslims here. The next best option is to contact a couple of creators of those Tajweed resources and ask them directly. I may wait until after Eid al-Fitr though. Thanks again. Cheers. 178.51.93.5 (talk) 19:41, 24 March 2024 (UTC)