Gulf and Levantine dialects

Gulf and Levantine dialects

A comparison between Kuwaiti and Lebanese dialects

Written by : Hayatt Alyaqout
January 2002

Exposition :

Arabic has many dialects that have their deviations from the original standard Quranic Arabic. Each geographical "block " has its own phonological system which is a result of the influence by other languages as in the cases of colonization, trade, or dominance of other languages that existed in this geographical spot before Arabic.

Gulf and Levantine dialects have multifarious manifestation of phonology> I've chosen Kuwaiti as a sample of gulf Arabic, and Lebanese as a sample of Levantine Arabic, yet this is not considered a case study for there are many differences between gulf dialects themselves and so is the case with Levantine dialects.

The study approaches the two dialects in terms of consonants and vowels both phonemically and phonologically.

The following might be useful to help you best understand this study :

-IPA Chart
-phonetics and phonology site

A ) Consonantal Perspective

// And // :
Lebanese accent uses / / sound while Kuwaiti has retained the Quranic //, it seems that Lebanese accent was influenced by the French mandate since / / sound is a distinct feature of French, this can be noticed in Syria , Morocco , Algeria , who were all colonized by France . The absence of affricates (// and / /) in French phonology is a prominent characteristic. This is reminiscent of Christophe Pierret's quote : "Lebanese is essentially Arabic with a French accent".

/ / however , is usually pronounced as /j/ in Kuwaiti accent , we can account for this by stating that / / and /j/ are both palatal sounds , it seems that old Kuwaiti dialect turns all / /sounds in to /j/ , yet modern Kuwaiti dialect is exercising some restraint due to cultural interaction factors . For example, old Kuwaiti used to pronounce the proper name Majed as /m jI d/ , and Jaber as /j bI r/ , while modern Kuwaiti dialect uses /m I d/ and / bI r/ respectively. However certain frequently used words such as /jIdi:d/"new" , and /ja:r/ "neighbor" are pronounced with /j/. Historical references say that Banu Tamim tribes , from which many Kuwaiti tribes descend ,many Kuwaiti tribes belong- used to turn // into /j/.

// / / // // //
Kuwaiti, like other gulf dialects, retained interdental sounds / / / / and velarized emphatic interdental / / / /, while colloquial Lebanese, like most Levantine dialects, which were influenced by Aramaic and Syriac, replaced / /with /s/or sometimes /t/ as in /t m n/"price" ,& /s w b/"reward", and / / with /z//zeIkr /"memory" or /d/ as in /dbleIn/ "wilted" .
// Sound can appear in two ways in Lebanese; either as a velarized /z/ transcribed as / / like in /za:hIr/ "shown" , or as velarized // sound like in / dmI/ "bone " . It seems there is no rule of changing / / sound in to the usual Lebanese / / or / / sound ; a Lebanese would say / hIr/ "back" , yet would say /rf/ "circumstance ".
Kuwaiti dialect is no better; all Kuwaitis, except highly cultivated ones, mix between // and / / sounds because both are voiced , emphatic, fricative, velarized sounds ,and the only difference is that place of articulation . A Kuwaiti will pronounce /r\ / "banned" and / r\ /"attended" the same way: /r\. Historical references demonstrate that such a mistake was common in Sicily island ,after being conquered by the Arabs , and in Iraq starting the 3 century of the hijrah . The Moslem Linguist Sibawayh called this / / "week/ /.

/ / /q/
// sound in Lebanese has no problems, while /q/ sound is articulated as a vowel or roughly as a glottal stop, resembling other Levantine dialects and Egyptian dialect as well . Yet , it's noteworthy that rural areas of Lebanon produce /q/ sound like Quranic Arabic , a peasant Lebanese will tell you /qdeI/ "how much" unlike urban pronunciation of the phrase as /deI/ replacing the /q/ with a vowel.

Kuwaiti has a lot to say about / /and/q/. //and/q/ are somewhat interchangeable; Kuwaiti dialect applies (affrication) to these two sounds. A Kuwaiti will say /qdI:r/"mighty" meaning /dI:r/ "stream" and vice versa. This affrication is applicable in all // sounds ; /r\ /"bottle" is pronounced as /qr\, and if the /q/ is not pronounced as /g/ or // , it is "affricated" to //. Most educated Kuwaitis try to avoid this. This can be explained by the fact that both sounds are uvular, fricative ,and voiced . Some tribes in Sudan , and the inhabitants of some towns in the south of Iraq (affricate) or cluster the two sounds.

But this is not the end of the story, Kuwaiti /q/ can be pronounced as // or as/g/. Kuwaitis say / Il/ meaning /qIl/ "sane ", this happens only if the /q/ is preceded or succeeded by a front vowel. The phonological reason behind this is that when front vowels, which are articulated by the front part of the tongue, meet with the uvular /q/, they pull it the front because they are front vowels , and when the /q/ is pulled to the front it gets near the palatal area where // sound in articulated .It's noteworthy that this feature of Kuwait accent is getting relatively obsolete; old Kuwaitis uses //as in /twfi: / "success " , while modern Kuwaiti tends to use classical Arabic pronunciation /twfi:q/.However, some words are kept like /sI / "hardhearted " , and / Iri:b/ "near" .

/q/ can be pronounced as /g/ as in /ga:l/ "said" and /g/ "cut", it happens when the /q/ sound is preceded or succeeded by any phoneme except front vowels. Phonologically, uvular/q/ and velar /g/ have a close point of articulation, in addition, they are both voiced fricatives. Turning /q/ into /g/ was a common feature of Banu Tamim's dialect. It seems that most Bedouin tribes tend to do this , this can be inferred by noticing the availability of this feature in the tribes of the Arabian peninsula , Egyptian tribes in Sinai , and the tribes of Libya ,Jordan and Palestine .

/k/ and / /
Lebanese has no problem with /k/ sound , while it has no// sound influenced by French which has no affricates . Kuwaiti on the other hand, has what I like to call ( the /k/ and // dilemma ) ! . A listener might be puzzled why Kuwaitis say /IsmI/"fish" with //, while they say /mku:r/"thanked" with /k/. according to some historians, Banu Tamim tribe used to do this or used to turn /k/ into //.

Phonologically, /k/ turns to // in two cases :
1- the possessive /k/ of feminine second person addressee like in /kItbI/"your book "
2- when the /k/ sound is preceded or succeeded by a front vowel
/ba:Ir/"tomorrow".

Because /k/ is a velar sound, it's pulled to the front when proceeded or succeeded by a front vowel, this results in a shift in its place of articulation leading it to the palate, and resulting in the fricative // sound. This feature is found in Latin too , for example the Latin words cantor "singer" , and Canem "dog " were developed to be Chanteur and chien respectively in French .However , /k/ is attained when the word is of a forgein root , or not common in Kuwaiti i.e. : kamil , zaki , caviar, break.

/h/ and /m/ in morphological contexts
The /h/ sound as a possessive pronoun has different manifestation :
it's not pronounced , Lebanese stops on the preceding vowels as in /bejt / "her house" ,/zawt /"his wife ", /Ibsejni:/"cat" /instead of /beIth / , /zth/ and / in Kuwaiti dialect .Moreover ,Lebanese lengthens the vowels preceding final unpronounced /h/ as in /Ibsejni:/ "cat" , /ejmi:/"tent" if the preceding consonant is not marked with "fathah" (a vowel point in Arabic ) which will change the pronunciation in to a regular not along vowel ; /ba:/"merchandise" not/ba:i:/.

Lebanese changes the /m/ sound that accompanies plural second and third person addressees with /n/ sound, as in /bejtn/"their house" , /ki:fkn/ "how are you -plural" , as apposed to / beIthm/ and /lnkm/ in Kuwait dialect .

Consonantal clusters in Kuwaiti and Lebanese dialects
Both Lebanese and Kuwaiti share the property of inserting a vowel before words that begin with a consonant that has no "vowel point " on it ; consonants marked with "sukoon" cannot form the beginning of a word in Arabic , and thus a vowel is inserted .This is evident in /I bsejni:/"cat" in lebanese and /I smI/"fish" in Kuwaiti dialect .

Emphaticized and non-emphaticized sounds
Kuwaiti tends to turn /s/ sound to velarized // sound , or in other words it "emphaticizes " it , while Lebanese retains /s/ sounds as is .
Kuwaiti dialect changes /wsI /"dirty" into /wI / for instance . Phonologically , this happens when the /s/ sound is followed by / /sound , so /s/ sound is changed to its velarized empathic counterpart which is // sound .

B ) Vowels and Diphthongs Perspective

Lebanese has a very diverse system of vowels , and , it seems , that French has played a very big role in that . This can be inferred by comparing the Lebanese vowel system with that of Algeria, and Morocco , after omitting barbarian elements which will lead to prove this hypothesis. Kuwait as well has its own vowels system, which is not as diverse as Lebanese, yet it has its own original touch.

Lebanese had retained many diphthongs found in classical Quranic Arabic. For example the word summer is pronounced in most of the other Arabic dialect as /eIf/ or /i: f/ in some other, while the Lebanese pronunciation is /ejf/ with a tense diphthong. Other words are /ejn/"eye" ,/wejn/"where" . I suggest calling what other Arabic dialects do "MONOPHTHONGIZATION" . However, Lebanese "monophthongizes some words as well ; /ki:f/ "how " instead of Arabic /kejf\ / and /i:/"something " instead of Arabic /ej/.

Another distinctive feature of the vowel system of Lebanese is the Diphthongization of / / in to /eI / sound . So , /I ns n/ "human being " changes into /InseIn/ . Other examples are /lIbneIn/ "Lebanon" ,/InweIn/"address" and /beIb/ "door". However , this is not applicable to all words ; the word /ba:/"merchandise" is not diphthongized , and so is the word / ba:j / "young ladies " .

/w/ sound has retained its Arabic diphthong . both classical Arabic and Lebanese say /mwt/"death " , where as other Arab Dialect monophthongize it saying /mt/.

Kuwaiti diphthongizes vowels in three cases:
-A: in an imperative verb to feminine singular second person addressee as in: /Iklej/"eat" , /t a:lej/"come "
-B: in an imperative masculine , plural second person addressee /gu:lw/ "say" ,
/ru:w/"go"
-C: in /I nt\ w/ "you " plural second person addressee pronoun

Conclusion :
All in all , Kuwaiti and Lebanese show a diverse phonological system which retained many standard Quranic Arabic characteristics , yet has added a lot to it , and changed, altered ,and distorted a lot too.