3)
Notice that [
] does not render the sound /u/. Even though [
] resembles
in shape to the short /u/ [
], they are NOT pronounced the same way!
[
] sounds like /w/ as in [wagon, water, boy] or as in the somewhat equivalent Spanish
/ju/ [cual, ueva] and the French [watt, sandwish] (rare in French, except words taken
from the English):
Besides the three major vowels, there are three other types of vowel sounds we
must consider before going further. They are written this way: [
-
-
] and
pronounced respectively as /an/-/in/-/un/.
The double stroke adds an /n/ sound to each long three consonants. This happens for
grammatical reasons. For instance, the word “kitaab’ [
] means one book;
“kotuboon” [
] means ‘books’; “kitaban” [
] means ‘two books’.
The sound /u/ becomes /un/ as in [moon, soon] or as in Spanish [ secunda, algun
] and in French [ clown ]. It is written over the consonant it influences acoustically in a
slightly different manner. It looks like that [
-
]. Example:
.
The vowel /a/ becomes /an/ as in English [ban, can] or the Spanish [Juan, pan]
and the French [grand, plan]. Example:
The vowel /i/ gives the sound /in/ as in [green, inn], the Spanish [sin, in] and the
French [insuline, fine]. Example:
[
-
-
] or respective;y /an/-/in/-/un/ are both called ‘Tanwiyn’, pronounced:
/tanween/.
OTHER IMPORTANT DIACRITICS
In order to pronounced a sentence correctly in Arabic, you need to know the last
three more important diacritics (lines of stoke over the letters):
1) Shaddah [
]: This diacritic mark is very small; it announces to the reader that
he has to double the consonant situated right under the shaddah. It appears like the
number [3] turned at a forty five degree angle. It is commonly used in the word Allah
[
], meaning 'one god'.
The shaddah can look like this: [
/
].
This is how it appears in a word:
= /haajjaka/
2).Sukuwn [
/
]: the sukuwn, pronounced /sookoon/ is rendered by this mark: [
]
over a letter in a word. This diacritic tells the reader that the letter it is topping do not
have any vowel, so the letter must be pronounced alone, without a vowel, like the English
‘s’ and ‘p’ in the word [grasp].
Example:
= /majjaahum/ the last letter, i.e., [
] ‘m’ bears a
Sukuwn, showing the letter is not pronounced.
3) Maddah: The Maddah is rendered like this [
]. It can appear over different letters.
Examples: [
].
The Wasla implies a lengthening of the voice over the letter it is topping.
Example:
= /jaajjaka.
The second word on the left is not pronounced /alamar/ but it is actually
pronounced /alaaaamaaaar/ because of the presence of the two waslas over the
consonants [
] (l) and [
] (m).
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