Imāla
Vowel shift in many Arabic dialects
title: "Imāla" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["phonetics", "arabic-language", "arabic-phonology", "lebanese-arabic"] description: "Vowel shift in many Arabic dialects" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imāla" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Vowel shift in many Arabic dialects ::
ar (also ar; ) is a phenomenon in Arabic comprising the fronting and raising of Old Arabic toward or , and the old short toward . ar and the factors conditioning its occurrence were described for the first time by Sibawayh. According to as-Sirafi and Ibn Jinni (10th century), the vowel of the ar was pronounced somewhere between and , suggesting a realization of .
Sibawayh primarily discusses ar as a shift of to in the vicinity of or , an allophonic variation that can be characterized as umlaut or i-mutation. Additionally, Sibawayh's ar subsumes occurrences of a phonemic vowel resulting from the collapse of Old Arabic triphthongs. For this reason, not all instances of ar can be characterized as a vowel shift from an original towards the .
ar was not a general phenomenon, occurring only in some of the old dialects. Yet, the grammarians regarded it as a legitimate phenomenon from the normative point of view when it occurred in certain conditionings. In the context of Arabic dialectology, the term ar is also used to describe a variety of phenomena involving mid-vowels in place of the Standard Arabic low-vowel. ar also features in several ar (styles of recitation) of the Quran.
''Imāla'' in the grammatical tradition
Sibawayh's description of ar is based on the linguistic situation prevailing in his time and environment, mainly al-Basra and its surroundings in southern Iraq. The description of ar by all later grammarians is based on that of Sibawayh. Historically and anciently, ar was a feature in both verbs and inflected nouns. There are several processes which the term ar describes, of the most common are outlined below:
''i''-mutation
The type of ar which figures most prominently in Sibawayh's discussion is the shift of to in the vicinity of or . The shift is blocked whenever there are emphatic or uvular consonants (ṣ, ḍ, ṭ, ẓ, ġ, q, x) adjacent to the or following it, but is not blocked if the umlaut-triggering stands between the blocking consonant and a following . The blocking effect of emphatics is shown in the following examples:
- Reflexes of CāCiC: ar 'worshipper' vs. ar 'guarantor'
- Reflexes of CaCāCiC: ar 'mosques' vs. ar 'pluck of animals'
- Reflexes of CaCāCīC: ar 'keys' vs. ar 'bellows'
III-''w/y imāla''
Sibawayh says that nouns with final root consonant w (III-w) do not undergo ar, eg. ar 'back', ar 'stick'. On the other hand, nouns with root-final y (III-y) and feminine nouns with suffix -y undergo ar, eg. ar 'goat', ar 'pregnant'. Such ar is not blocked by emphatic consonants, eg. ar 'gifted'.
According to Sibawayh, a similar ar applies to defective verbs regardless of the underlying root consonant: ar (III-w) 'he raided', ar 'he threw' (III-y). However other grammarians describe varieties in which imāla applies to III-y verbs, but not III-w verbs. Sibawayh also describes a system in which only III-y nouns and feminine nouns with suffix -y have ar, it being absent from verbs altogether.
II-''w/y imāla''
According to Sibawayh, ar is applied to hollow verbs (II-w or II-y) whose has an vowel, such as ar ( ar) and ar ( ar). Sibawayh said that this was the practice for some people of Hijaz. Additionally, al-Farra' said that this was the practice of the common people of Najd, among which Tamim, Asad, and Qays.
''Imāla'' in Quranic recitation
Many ar of the Quran implement ar at least once. Some, like those of Hafs or Qalun, use it only once, but in others, ar affects hundreds of words because of a general rule of a specific ar or as a specific word prescribed to undergo ar.
Lexically determined ''i''-mutation
While i-mutation is non-phonemic in Sibawayh's description, its occurrences in the Quranic reading traditions are highly lexically determined. For example, Hisham and Ibn Dhakwan apply i-mutation to CaCāCiC plural ar 'drinks' (Q36:73) but not ar 'the predators' (Q5:4) or ar 'positions' (Q36:39).
III-''w/y imāla''
Al-Kisaʾi and Hamza are known for having phonemic as the realization of alif maqsura in III-y nouns and verbs, as well as in derived final-weak forms and forms having the feminine ending written with -y, such as ar 'pregnant'. Warsh, from the way of al-Azraq, realizes this extra phoneme as .
Other readers apply this ar only sporadically: Hafs reads it only once in ar (Q11:41). Šubah only has it in ar 'he saw', ar 'he threw', and ar 'blind' in its two attestations in Q17:72.
II-''w/y imāla''
Hamza applies ar to ar 'to increase', ar 'to want', ar 'to come', ar 'to fail', ar 'to seize', ar 'to fear', ar 'to wander', ar 'to be good', ar 'to taste' and ar 'to surround'. Some irregular lexical exceptions where Hamza does not apply it include ar 'he died', ar 'they measured them', ar 'she ceased', and ar 'she wandered'.
''Imāla'' in modern Arabic dialects
''i''-mutation
In the modern ar dialects of Iraq and Anatolia and in the modern dialect of Aleppo, the factors conditioning medial ar (i-mutation) correspond to those described by Sibawayh in the 8th century. In these modern dialects, medial ar occurs when the historical vowel of the syllable adjacent to was or . For instance:
- *ar ar 'dogs' in Christian Baghdadi, Mosul, Anatolia, and Aleppo
- *ar ar 'mosque' in Christian Baghdadi, Mosul, and Anatolia
- *ar ar 'knives' in the Jewish dialect of Mosul.
It does not occur in the proximity of ə
- *ar ar 'baker' in Jewish Baghdadi
- *ar ar 'inhabitants' in Jewish Baghdadi.
In addition to the mentioned dialects, this type of medial ar occurs in the ar dialect of Deir ez-Zor, the dialects of Hatay and Cilicia in Turkey, and the dialects of some Bedouin tribes in the Negev.
III-''w/y imāla''
Sibawayh's description of the final ar (III-w/y ar) is also, in general, similar to that prevailing in the modern ar dialects and in the dialect of Aleppo. One of the most striking points of resemblance is that in some dialects in Sibawayh's time, this final ar occurred only in nouns and adjectives, and not in verbs; in the modern ar dialects and in Aleppo the situation is exactly the same, as illustrated by the examples ar (
Consonantally conditioned medial ''imāla''
Many modern dialects outside Iraq have an ar completely conditioned by the consonantal environment of . This type of ar does not correspond to any type mentioned by Sibawayh. It occurs in many Lebanese dialects, in the Druze dialects of Hauran and the Golan, in the dialects of the Syrian desert oases Qariten and Palmyra, in the Bedouin dialects of Sahil Maryut in Egypt, and in the Jabali dialect of Cyrenaica.
Effect on other languages
The accent of Andalusia in Moorish Spain featured ar, and many Arabic loanwords and city names in Spanish still do so. A notable example is the name of Andalusia's largest city, Seville, deriving from the Arabic ar, from the Latin Hispalis.
References
- Word-final imaala in contemporary Levantine Arabic : a case of language variation and change, Durand, Emilie Pénélope, University of Texas, Austin, 2011, read online
References
- Levin, Aryeh. (2011-05-30). "ʾImāla". Brill.
- Putten, Marijn van. (2022-02-10). "Quranic Arabic". Brill.
- Putten, Marijn van. (2022-02-10). "Quranic Arabic". Brill.
- International Arabic Dialectology Association. Conference. (2014). "Alf lahǧa wa lahǧa : proceedings of the 9th Aida Conference".
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