tontonton

The Arabic Language

Arabic script is an Abjad, which is a writing system which only normally writes the consonants (leaving out the vowels). Vowels are sometimes added in dictionaries or other standard word references or teaching materials, but not in normal writing. The vowel diacritics are called Tashkeel. Standard Arabic is a version of Arabic writing which is taught in schools, and is the official language of many countries. In Standard Arabic, the letters are actually how they are pronounced, with very little irregularities or things outside the rules. But the Arabic that is typically spoken in countries such as Morocco or Egypt is slighly different when it comes to pronunciation and the written form.

We use the IPA when we can, for Egyptian Arabic, because that is more accurate a way to speak. But we fall back to the Standard Arabic if there are no IPA transcriptions available.

Arabic Script Consonants to Tone Mappings

Here are the consonants in Arabic script mapped to Tone Text.

Arabic Script Vowels Mapped to Tone

The Arabic fatha is the aaa diacritic. The kasra is for a iii, and the damma for uuu. There are a few others as well.

Consonant Phonology for Arabic

Here are the 30 fundamental consonants used when speaking Arabic.

For a complete list of possible consonants a human voice might make while speaking a natural language, check out the consonants page.

This language has aspirated consonants and pharyngealized consonants.

Vowel Phonology for Arabic

These are the 3 base vowels used when speaking Arabic.

Also, a complete list of possible vowels a human voice might make while speaking can be found here.