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.
Phonemes
Consonants + Egyptian Arabic consonant phonemes Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal plain emphatic plain emphatic Nasal () Stop voiceless () () voiced () Fricative voiceless voiced () () () Flap/trill ~ (~) Approximant ()
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, ('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 turned to , "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: > : ('fox') from (never *). Likewise: ('ice') from , ('price') from , ('three') from , ('plough') from , and ('tripped') from * . > : ('tail') from and never . Likewise ('male') from , ('lied') from , and ('wolf') from . > : ('nail') from (never *). Likewise > : ('darkness'), from ; ('bone'), from عظم . 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.
> : ('revolution'), from Literary > : ('broadcasting'), from Literary > : ('clitoris'), from Literary
The correspondent phoneme of the Classical Arabic , , 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, ('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, may be disambiguated as ('law') vs. ('kanun, a musical instrument'); as ('strong') or the colloquial adverb ('very'). , , and appear in loanwords such as ('jacket').
Allophones 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 . before : Often, the sequence of assimilates to . Examples: ('guilt') → ; ('tube') → ; ('Allenby') → .An Egyptian popular film called, El-Lembi (), named after Allenby, but has no relation to him, it is a light-comedy movie character. 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') → .
Voiced: → ; → ; → ; → ; → ; → ; → . Devoiced: → ; → ; → ; → ; → ; → ; → . When the input consonants are plosives differing only in voicing, the resultant assimilation will be complete. 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:
+ Vowel phonemes Short Long Front Back Front Back Close ~~ ~~ Mid Open
The short vowels and are realized as and respectively at the end of a word. When surfaces as an epenthetic vowel at the end of a word, it is strictly contrasting with the possessive suffix . The vowel is mostly from non-Semitic words if not in words with emphatic consonants.
The symbols and represent vowels that vary between close-mid and near-close . Their centralized allophones (transcribed with and ) 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 and are used in this section.
Long vowels (always stressed): : : : : ,
and are close-mid . The following centralized realizations are possible around emphatic consonants.
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 almost 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 , , .
Partial vowel allophones 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.
Vowel allophones 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.
Epenthesis 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 . An example contrasting possession: ('a beautiful girl', ) ('my girl is beautiful', ) Another example contrasting gender: ('what did you (m.) do?', ) ('what did you (f.) do?', )
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 uvular stop , and some instances of (see below). On the other hand, the pharyngeal consonants do not trigger emphasis spreading; in the prestigious Cairene dialect, the velar fricatives also do not, although this is different in the Saidi variant in which they are uvular .
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.