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 Egyptians when pronouncing Literary Arabic, as is the case for speakers of all other varieties of Arabic.

Consonants

 * Not all Egyptians can pronounce which are mostly found in names or loanwords (not from Literary Arabic).
 * (which can be a reduction of ) of Egyptianized loanwords tends to merge with ; example: "garage" جراش is mostly pronounced even by educated speakers.
 * A few rural speakers away from Cairo pronounce instead of, but doing so in Egyptianized words is not considered prestigious.
 * Some people lack some or all emphatic consonants.
 * Watson argues that emphatic are additional consonants in Egyptian Arabic with marginal status.
 * are pronounced only in Literary Arabic loanwords.
 * Non-Egyptianized loanwords with may be Egyptianized to  or if approximated to  in a word having an open vowel, the front vowel  is backed to.
 * Literary Arabic words having, are normally substituted with , with the front vowel in these words being backed to.
 * Non-Egyptianized loanwords having interdental consonants are always approximated to 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 words:
 * > :, "fox", from ثعلب (and never ). Likewise: , "ice", from  ثلج; , "price", from  ثمن; , "three", from  ثلاثة; , "female", from ??; , "plough", from  محراث; , "tripped/found", from  عثر.
 * > :, "tail", from ذيل and never . Likewise , "male", from  ذكر; , "lied", from  كذب; , "wolf", from  ذئب
 * > :, "nail", from ظفر and never . Likewise  > : , "darkness", from  ظلمة.

However, unlike other North African varieties, in Egyptian Arabic, the Literary Arabic interdental consonants  may correspond to sibilant consonants. This has been specially the result of modernisation and the increase of literacy, and the classicisation practice in official media, as well as a tendency to imperfectly imitate the pronunciation of the Levant and Arabia as it is commonly perceived more suitable for Islamic religious preaching, and as a trait of Egyptian diaspora. But also due to historical influence by Levantine dialects which constitute the eastern influx of the Arabic continuum.


 * > :, "revolution", as opposed to ثورة
 * > :, "broadcasting", as opposed to إذاعة
 * > :, "clitoris", as opposed to بظر

Classical Arabic reflex ǧīm ج is realized velar in most of Egypt in the same way as it is in some southern Arabic dialects since antiquity and still present in Yemen and Oman. So that ǧabal جبل, "mountain", is pronounced, even in Literary Arabic as rather than ~.

Other consonants are more marginal. In addition to appearing in native words, also appears in loanwords from European languages, such as, "parachute", and native words with guttural vowels, such as , "my cows", vs , "cowlike"/"from cows". Labial emphatics and  also come from loanwords; minimal pairs include, "pope/pontiff/patriarch", vs , "Paopi". Classical Arabic became  in Cairo and the Nile Delta (a feature shared with Lebanese and other forms of 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 in other dialects, particularly relating to certain words (e.g. words deriving from the root Ṯ-Q-F, relating to culture) and in mildly careful speech to distinguish between words that would otherwise be identical (e.g. قانون: either, "law", or , "kanun"; or قوى: either , "powerful, strong, mighty", or  "very", although  could be used for both meanings). ,, and also appear in loanwords, such as , "jacket".

Allophones

 * Pharyngeal consonants before :
 * The sequence is more commonly pronounced . In careful speech can be pronounced.
 * Example: 'opened+it(feminine)'   →
 * The sequence is more commonly pronounced  (or sometimes ). In careful speech can be pronounced.
 * Example: "hers"   →  or.
 * The sequence is more commonly pronounced . In careful speech can be pronounced.
 * "didn't+montage(verb)" →.

Assimilation

 * before :
 * Often, the sequence of assimilates to.
 * Examples: "guilt" → ; Allenby →.


 * Sibilant consonants before :
 * The sequences and  are more commonly pronounced . In careful speech can be pronounced  and, respectively.
 * "didn't+kiss"   →
 * The sequences and  are more commonly pronounced . In careful speech can be pronounced  and, respectively.
 * "didn't(+be)+corrupt" →.

For some speakers, but not all speakers, there is a voicing and devoicing assimilation for the following consonants: However, for some words, such as "annoyed" and "took", they are more commonly pronounced with assimilation,  and , respectively.
 * Voicing and devoicing
 * Voiced: → ;  → ;  → ;  → ;  → ;  → ;  → ;   →.
 * Devoiced: → ;  → ;  → ;  → ;  → ;  → ;  →.
 * Examples on voicing assimilation: "confuse"  → ; "outrun"   → ; "suspected"   → ; "utter"(noun)   →.
 * Examples of devoicing assimilation: "society"  → ; "ask forgiveness [of god]"   →.

Vowels
The Egyptian Arabic vocalic system has changed from the Classical system. The system of vowels is as follows:

For some speakers, the higher vowels tend to be more centralized in emphatic environment: The Classical Arabic 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 European-language origin. This is discussed more below.

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" < 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. Contrast, for example, Levantine Arabic Dialects, which merge and  into  in most positions, and Moroccan Arabic, which merges  and  into  in all positions. In particular, note the different shapes and vowel distinctions between  "book",   "beautiful (pl.)" vs. "camels",  "he chose"; in most other Levantine dialects, all the short vowels in these words are elided, leading to the identical shapes, ,.

The epenthetic vowel is automatically inserted after the second of three or more consonants in a cluster, to break up such clusters, because they are completely disallowed in Egyptian Arabic. The pronunciation of is, as for , but it remains  even when  surfaces as , leading to minimal pairs: We prefer to denote the epenthetic vowel as for clarity, to clarify the fact that it is epenthetic rather than an inherent part of any of the underlying words.
 * "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 definition 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; 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 standard Cairene dialect, the  fricatives  also do not, although this is different in many Saidi dialects 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 many linguists 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 /r/ 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 (masc.) grow" 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 (fem.) grow", 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  "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 /r/ is usually adjacent to a low vowel (which in turn is backed to ), but that is not necessary, and  also triggers emphasis-spreading: Examples maʃhuuṛ  "famous", maʃṛuuʕ  "project", ṛufayyaʕ  "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 Arabic-derived words, e.g. "water", but the majority are in words of foreign origin — especially those derived from European languages — where  echo the vowel quality of /a/ 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 under the archiphoneme, 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 (but sometimes kept long in careful speech pronouncing loanwords, as in "Cairo" and a few other borrowings from Classical Arabic with similar shapes, e.g.  "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:
 * 1)   "cheese"
 * 2) + (literally "brought+our") →   "we brought"
 * 3) + (literally "pocket+our") →   "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 vowel (always pronounced ) is inserted between the second and third consonants.

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.:
 * (lit. "the – boy – red.masc.sg.") → or  "the boy is red"
 * (lit. "you.masc.sg – big.masc.sg – very") →  "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. Example of insertion and deletion together: Compare "the boy is big", where neither process applies.

Example of both deletion and long-vowel shortening: Compare with Classical Arabic.

The operation of the various processes can often produce ambiguity: Hence,  is ambiguously masculine or feminine.
 * → "I (masc.) want to eat"
 * → →  "I (fem.) want to eat"

Syllable Structure
Egyptian Arabic has the following five syllable types: CV, CV:, CVC, CV:C,and CVCC.

CV:, CV:C, 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 (CV:C.CV → CVC.CV)
 * Lengthening of short vowels to avoid light stressed syllables (ˈCV.CV → ˈCV:.CV) or the increasingly rarer cases (ˈCV.CVC → ˈCV:.CVC) or avoiding heavy syllables and converting them into superheavy sullables (CVC → CVːC)
 * Elision of short vowels to avoid sequences of light 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.

Another example:
 * Sentence, analyzed morphologically:
 * Literally:I – wanting(masc.) – I.eat
 * Meaning: "I want to eat."
 * Continuous pronunciation (phonemic):
 * Normal-form pronunciation:

Another example:
 * Sentence, analyzed morphologically:
 * Literally:I – wanting(masc.) – I.eat+it
 * Meaning: "I want to eat it."
 * Continuous pronunciation (phonemic):
 * Normal-form pronunciation:

Another example:
 * Sentence, analyzed morphologically:
 * Literally:They – wanting(pl.) – they.eat+it
 * Meaning: "They want to eat it."
 * Continuous pronunciation (phonemic):
 * Normal-form pronunciation:

Stress
The position of stress is essentially automatic. The basic rule is that, preceding from right to left in a word, the stress goes on the first encountered syllable of any of these types:

1. A heavy syllable: i.e. a syllable closed with (a) a long vowel (i.e. ...CV:...) or (b) with two consonants (including a geminate)(i.e. ...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. ...CVCVC'VCV...)

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
Omar (1973) identified 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 tap /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 tap/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 tap /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.