Consonants and Vowels in Ahwazian( Khuzestani) Arabic and English: A comparative study By: Saeed Khojaste Nam Iran

University of Science and Technology Saeedsoha@yahoo.com 2011

Abstract A great many theoretical and practical contrastive studies have been car ried out on different levels of language by teachers, linguists and psycholingui sts in the field of Contrastive Analysis. Mainly there are three levels which ar e made use of in CA studies: 1) phonology 2) grammar 3) lexis. From these three areas the area of phonology and specifically the sound systems of English and Kh uzestani Arabic are compared and contrasted in this study. Practically this stud y juxtaposed the consonants and vowels of English and Khuzestani Arabic and prov ided examples from both languages to draw out the similarities and difference. Keywords: contrastive analysis; consonants; vowels; similarities, differences

Introduction With regard to the roots, Arabic is the Semitic language of the Arabs, w ritten from right to left in a cursive script. It is the mother tongue of about 300 million people. Arabic is the descendant of the language of Quran, the sacre d book of Islamic religion. Arabs have their culture and identity and their lang uage which is spoken in numerous dialects throughout much of the Middle East and parts of North Africa. It is a branch of Afro-Asiatic family of languages inclu ding Hebrew, Aramaic and certain ancient languages such as Phoenician. The Arabi c language has a standard pronunciation, which is basically the one used to reci te the Quran. Meliani & Kopczynski (1993) in their paper noted that MSA is the v ariety that has evolved from Classical Arabic and is used throughout the Arab wo rld from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Gulf by educated Arabs not only in re ligious rites but also in science, education, and mass media. Away from the stan dard Arabic there are a lot of varieties. Shah (2007) in an article states that there are over 30 diverse varieties of col loquial Arabic which include: 1) Egyptian spoken by 46 million people in Egypt and perhaps the most wide ly understood variety, due to the popularity of Egyptian-made films and TV shows . 2) Algerian spoken by about 22 million people in Algeria. 3) Moroccan/Maghrebi spoken in Morocco by 19.5 million people. 4) Sudenese - spoken in Sudan by 19 million people. 5) Saidi spoken by 19 million people in Egypt.

6) Leventine spoken in Lebannon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine and Syria by 15 million people. 7) Mesoptamin spoken by 14 million people in Irag, Iran and Syria. 8) Najdi spoken in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordon, and Syria by 10 million peop le. Khuzestan is a province located in the southwest in Iran. There are about five m illion people in this province speaking in a variety of Arabic named Khuzestani Arabic. This variety can be included in the Najdi variety since it is so closer to the Iraqi accent. Iranian Arab communities are also found in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Frye (2007) says that Most Iranian A rabs in Khuzestan Province are bilingual, speaking Arabic as their mother tongue , and Persian as a second language. The variety of Arabic spoken in the province is Khuzestani Arabic, which is a Mesopotamian dialect shared by Arabs across th e border in Iraq. Of course it has substantial Persian influence and may be hard er to understand by other Arabic-speakers around the world. English is the language of England, America and Australia, written from left to right not in a cursive script, now used in many varieties throughout the world. It is known as the Germanic language of England. Considering its family, English is a branch of the Indo-European language family that includes German, Dutch, a nd Scandinavian. Historically English originated from several dialects, now call ed old English which were brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in th e 5th century. Unlike Arabic, English is taught as a foreign or second language in many countries all around the world; it is an international language or the c ommonest language used for international business, trade, travel, communication, etc. Only a relative handful studies have specifically compared the sounds in Arabic and English. Therefore the scarcity of information in this area persuade d the researcher to shed the lights on the nature of consonants and vowels in bo th Khuzestani Arabic and English, eliciting similarities and differences. With r egard to the speech sounds, Consonants are speech sounds in which the breath is at least partly obstructed and which can be combined with a vowel to form a syll able. Fromkin (2003) says that the feature [consonantal] is present whenever som e part of the vocal tract moves significantly away from the pre -speech position and forms an obstruction to the air stream in the oral cavity. Vowels are speec h sounds which are produced by comparatively open configuration of the vocal tra ct and which capable of forming a syllable. "The feature [vocalic] pertains to t he position of the vocal cords and the passage of the air stream through the ora l cavity" (Fromkin, 2003). These two salient features can be found in mostly all languages all around the world including Khuzestani Arabic and English. There a re some similarities and differences in uttering these consonants and vowels in English and Khuzestani Arabic; so the researcher decided to elaborate on the sim ilarities and differences by representing the sounds of both languages and givin g the readers examples of the speech sounds produced by Khuzestani Native speake rs and English-Native speakers. Comparative studies in linguistics have a long history. Teachers, linguists and psycholinguists have always been interested in errors produced by second languag e learners, either in their speech or writing or both. They worked on the source s of the errors whether they are based on similarities or differences between th e mother language and the target language. "There have been two major approaches to study learners' errors, namely Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis" (Kes havarz, 2007). Brown (2000) reported that in fact Contrastive Analysis was consi dered as the last panacea for language teaching problems. Meanwhile a series of contrastive studies began to appear. As a matter of fact there are many studies that investigate the variations in Arabic dialects as well as making different comparisons either between Arabic dialects or between Arabic and other languages . In a study, Al-sawad (1983) in a study contrasts modern standard Arabic and English tense, aspect, and the structure of these two languages based on the gra mmatical features. In fact, he checks the similarities and differences in both l

anguages. Brustad (1991) works on a number of these Arabic dialects: Moroccan, E gyptian, Syrian and Kuwaiti. The focus of her study was on certain syntactic fea tures that differ from one dialect to another. After comparing and contrasting t hese dialects she found that although minor differences have been emerged, the s yntactic structure of these four Arabic dialects is similar. In a study Dahir (1 998) focuses on the linguistic variation in the Syrian speech community. He shed s the lights on the dissimilarity in mens and womens use of standard and colloquia l variants of three phonological variables, /q/, //, // and /aw/ /ay/. He conclude s that both standard Arabic and Syrian Arabic function as speech norms. He adds that the variation in / and aw/ay is not different in men and women; whereas, the variable / / is socially marked in the sense that men tend to use it in its stan dard value while women mostly change it into /? /. The present study juxtaposes the two sound systems of Khuzestani Arabic and English and works on them. Howev er, the writer tried to provide more information on the Kuzestani Arabic system because it is assumed that a lot of our readers will be less familiar with this special Arabic dialect than English. This study attempted to contribute to the knowledge base by: A) Comparing the two vocalic systems, English and Khuzestani Arabic and compare the results using examples. B) Creating a situation in which practicing teachers and learners could evaluate the theoretical and practical aspects of contrastive analysis. Rationale: Generally the study presents a picture which shows us what Contras tive Analysis is and how it is done in the area of phonology. Contrast It is worth noting that this study is pedagogical and aimed at predictin g and solving learners' problems. Here we discuss the two sound systems of Arabi c and English and then compare the results. Vowels Arabic has far fewer vowels and diphthongs than English and articulation is more stressed than English. There is also the use of glottal stops before initial vo wels. Lets work on these vowels and draw out the similarities and differences in both languages. General comparison: Unlike English there are two types of vowels in Arabic; 1) short vowels 2) long vowels 1) Short vowels also known as Harakat /a/ / i / merely oral, and used only in teaching texts for guiding the learner 2) Long vowels / : / / i:/ to slightly lengthen the short vowels /u/ which are

The t ble below describes Khuzest ni Ar bic vowels nd gives the ch r cteristics of them.

D mm is n postrophe-like sh pe written bove the conson nt which prec edes it in pronunci tion. It represents short vowel u (like the "u" in "but").

N me D mm

Isol ted Sound Description

Pronunci tion

/ /

which their function is

Ww is the long vowel (like the "oo" in "moon"). It lso represents the c nson nt w. When W w is used to represent the long vowel, d mm ppe rs bove the preceding conson nt. F th F th is di gon l stroke written bove the conson nt which precedes it in pronunci tion. It represents short vowel ( little like the "u" in "but" ; short " h" sound). Alif Alif is the long vowel ( long " hh" sound s in English "f ther"). : K sr K sr is di gon l stroke written below the conson nt which precedes it in pronunci tion. It represents short vowel i (like the "i" in English "pit") . e Y ' Y ' is the long vowel (like the "ee" in English "sheep"). It lso repres ents the conson nt y. When Y ' is used to represent the long vowel, k sr ppe r s bove the preceding conson nt. i: T ble 1: Ar bic vowels Vowels re different in English. They h ve tr dition lly been cl ssified ccordi ng to:

: Ww

The front vowels re: /i/ /I/ /e/ // The centr l vowels re: /: / / / // The b ck vowels re: /u: / /u/ /: / : / The t ble below illustr tes the English vowels

Rounded Unrounded B ck Centr l Front : u I High Mid x : : Tense

i :

x 3:

Tense

ow

1) 2) 3) 4)

How high is the tongue? Wh t p rt of the tongue is involved? Wh t is the sh pe of the lips? How tense re the muscles of the voc l tr ct?

T ble 2: English Vowels Specific comp rison:

1) The rticul tion of the short vowel 'f th ' / / is simil r to th t of the low front vowel // EXAMP E: English: /s t/ /h t/ Ar bic: / d/ "limit" /r dd/ " nswer" 2) The rticul tion of the short vowel 'k sr '/ e / in Ar bic is simil r to the mid front /e/ in English. EXAMP E: E: / e d/ /r e d/ A: /q e f/ "stop" / e n / " llow" 3) The rticul tion of the short vowel 'D mm ' / :/ in Ar bic is simil r to the m id b ck rounded vowel/ :/ in English. EXAMP E: E:/t :t/ /br :t/ A:/s :b :l/ "w ys" /q :b l/ "kisses" 4) The rticul tion of the long vowel / :/ in Ar bic is simil r to the British vo wel /:/. EXAMP E: E: /:ns / /:sk/ A: /:kher/ end /Q:l / s id 5) The rticul tion of the long vowel / i:/ in Ar bic is simil r to the high fro nt vowel /i:/ in English. EXAMP E: E:/si:t/ /fi:d/ A:/t md i:d/ "extention" / d i:d/ "iron"

It is worth noting th t vowels which re bsent in Ar bic nd present in English must be le rned bec use they will c use trouble for the Ar bs who re le rning English. Differences: Differences in rticul tion le d the Khuzest ni Ar bic students le rning E nglish to m ke Erroneous pronunci tion of English vowels. Th t is why "differenc es re referred to s problem tic re s or difficulties in contr stive n lysis" (Brown 2000).

The m in difference is th t there re just six short nd long vowels in Ar bic, where s there re twelve vowels in (British) English. Therefore the l ck of

6) The rticul tion of the long vowel / u: / in Ar bic is simil r to the high b ck rounded vowel/u: / in English. EXAMP E: E:/fru:t/ /pru:v/ A:/r u: / "soul" /d b u: s/ "pin"

Simil rities: The resembl nce between some sounds is evidently helpful for the Khuzest ni Ar bic students le rning English. evel zero of Contr stive An lysis is Tr nsfer wh ich me ns "no difference or contr st is present between the two l ngu ges; the l e rner c n simply tr nsfer sound from the n tive l ngu ge to the t rget l ngu ge" (Kesh v rz, 2007).

six English vowels is problem tic for lmost ll Ar bic n tive spe kers includi ng the Ar bs in Khuzest n nd without pr ctice they f il to rticul te them perf ectly. EXAMP ES: 1) Consider the English word curl /k:l/ , since the mid centr l vowel/:/ is not in t he c tegory of Khuzest ni Ar bic vowels, the Khuzest ni n tive spe ker m y repl ce it with the short vowel /e/ in Ar bic, rticul te the word s /kerl/. Ar bic words:/erk b/ "get on" /ermi/ "shoot" English words:first /f:st/ hurt /h:t/ 2) Consider the English word but /bt/: since the low centr l // is not existed in Ar bic, the Ar bic n tive spe kers m y repl ce it with the long vowel / : / in Ar b ic, rticul te the word s /b :t/. Ar bic words:/r:d/ "will" / (h) :b/ "dis ppointed" /z : r/ "met" English words:won /w n/ cut /k t/ month /m n/ 3) Consider the English word llow / l u/:since the mid centr l vowel / / is non in t he c tegory of Ar bic vowels, the Ar bic n tive spe ker m y repl ce it with the short vowel //in Ar bic, rticul te the word s /l u/. Ar bic words: / m r / "building" / k l / " te" English words: bove / bv/ bout / b ut/ Conson nts

Gener l comp rison: There re 25 conson nts in (British) English, where s the number of conson nts i n Ar bic is 33. English conson nts: p b t d k g ? f v s z h m n l r w y

The t ble below describes Ar bic conson nts nd gives the ch r cteristics of the m nd provides you with ex mples. Re ding the t ble well you will get more infor m tion bout the ch r cteristics of the Khuzest ni Ar bic conson nts nd their d ifferent forms.

N me ' lif B' T'

Isol ted Sound Dscription Pronunci tion long unrounded low centr l b ck vowel ' ' voiced bil bi l stop 'b' s in 'bed' voiced spir ted stop '' s in 'tent'

s in 'f ther'

And the four n Khuzest ni fici l l ngu nts re the

below conson nts re bsent in modern st nd rd Ar bic but present i Ar bic. These four conson nts re tr nsferred from Persi n, the of ge in Ir n, into Khuzest ni Ar bic. Ch r cteristic lly these conson s me s the four in English.

Ar bic conson nts: ( lif) ?(h mze) b z m n w y

(dh) (kh) d r z s ( in) (gh in) f

Focusing on conson nts we drew out the simil rities Khuzest ni Ar bic nd English.

nd differences in both

Th' voiceless interdent l fric tive ' ' s in 'think' Jm voiced p l t l ffric te 'j' s in 'j m' H' voiceless ph rynge l constricted fric tive only in Ar bic; constr icted English 'h' Kh' voiceless vel r fric tive 'ch' s in Germ n 'B ch' Dl voiced dent l stop 'd' s in 'deer' ( pprox.) Dhl voiced interdent l fric tive 'th' s in 'there' R' voiced dent l trill 'r' s in 'run' ( pprox.) Zy voiced dent l sibil nt 'z' s in 'zoo' ( pprox.) Sn voiceless dent l sibil nt 's' s in 'sit' Shn voiceless p l t l sibil nt 'sh' s in 'shut' Sd voiceless post-dent l sibil nt emph tic the counterp rt of Sn; ll the 'e mph tics' re pronounced with the b ck of the tongue slightly r ised Dd voiced post-dent l emph tic stop the counterp rt of Dl T' voiceless post-dent l emph tic stop the counterp rt of T' Z' voiced post-interdent l emph tic fric tive the counterp rt of Dhl c yn voiced ph rynge l fric tive purely Ar bic -constriction of the t hro t nd n expulsion of the bre th with the voc l cords vibr ting Gh yn voiced uvul r fric tive close to French 'r' s in 'P ris' -- like ge ntle g rgling F' l bio-dent l voiceless fric tive 'f' s in 'free' Qf voiceless un spir ted uvul r stop 'k' in the b ck of the thro t; c omp re 'cough' with 'c lf' Kf voiceless spir ted p l t l or vel r stop 'k' s in 'king' m voiced dent l l ter l 'l' s in 'lift' Mm voiced bil bi l n s l 'm' s in 'moon' Nn voiced dent l n s l 'n' s in 'net'

g f e

Voiced postdors l

g as in gun

Voiced coronal palatal as in closure pe Voiceless bilabial stop plosive p as in pick e Voiceless coron l lveol r as in church

Table 3: Arabic consonants The table below illustrates the English consonants. Standard English consonant phonemes Labial labiodental interdental Alveolar Alveopaltal palatal velar Glottal

H' Ww Y' H mz m tions -- e.g.

voiceless glott l fric voiced bil bi l glide voiced p l t l glide voiceless glott l stop 'oh-oh'

tive 'h' s in 'house' 'w' s in 'wonder' 'y' s in 'yellow' not phoneme in English but found in some excl

Nasal m Stop voiceless p voiced b Fric tive voiceless f voiced v Affricate voiceless voiced Retroflex l ter l Glides w

t d s z

k g h

T ble 4: English Conson nts Specific comp rison: Simil rities: The rticul tion of most conson nts in Khuzest ni Ar bic is identic l to th ose of English. et's work on these resembl nces with ex mples from both l ngu g es. 1) The rticul tion of /b/ English: /bi:d/ bid Ar bic: /b l/ "r ther" 2) The rticul tion of / E: /In/ thin Arabic: /ur/ "bull" 3) The rticul tion of / E: /Is/ this A: / rr / "spot" Note: the double r in this example shows the intensification of that sound in Arab ic. 4) The articulation of /f/ E: /fi:/ fish A: /farIs/ "rider" 5) The articulation of /d/ E: /dId/ did A: /d a r/ "room" 6) The articulation of /s/ E: /si:m/ seem A: /s r/ "w ll" 7) The rticul tion of // E: / Ip/ ship A: / r/ "evil"

8) The articulation of /z/ E: /zu:m/ zoom A: /z r/ "force" 9) The rticul tion of // E: /u:n/ June A: / mi:l/ "be utiful" 10) The rticul tion of /m/ E: /mu:n/ moon A: /m : d : n/ "cities" 11) The articulation of /n/ E: /nu:n/ noon A: /n r/ "light" 12) The rticul tion of cle r /l/ E: /leIm/ l me A:/l m/ "me t" 13) The rticul tion of d rk /l/ E: /bbl/ b bble A: / llah/ "God" 14) The articulation of /w/ E: /we r/ we r A: /w l d/ "boy" 15) The articulation of /y/ ( E: /yeld/ yield A: /y rmi:/ "shoot" 16) The articulation of /g/ E:/gi:v/ give A: /gal/ said 17) The articulation of /p/ E: /pIk/ peak A: /t pha/ ball 18) The articulation of / / E: /kl : / closure A: / i: b / bring it 19) The articulation of / / E: / ek/ check A: / mm l/ dded

Differences: Reg rding the differences, let us first focus on some conson nts which re present in Khuzest ni Ar bic but not in English. 1) // : sh rp /h/ like in the n me 'H s n' in Ar bic 2) // (kh) : pronounced from the front of the thro t e.g. / mr/ "wine" 3) / z / : close to // but sh rper e.g. / z rf/ "cont iner" 4) / d / : close to / z / but sh rper e.g. / d id/ " g inst" 5) // ( in): Its pl ce of rticul tion is lower th n the conson nt /?/ in English . e.g. /u n/ "eyes" 6) // (gh in): the s me s the /r/ in French words like " u revoir" 7) /q/ (gh f): simply like // but sh rper e.g. /q lb/ "he rt" 8) //: very close to /s/ but sh rper e.g. / lb/ "tough" Conson nts which re bsent in Ar bic but present in English re to be le r ned by Ar bic le rners of English bec use not le rning or reinterpreting them (g

1)/p/: bil bi l conson nt like /b/ in st nd rd Ar bic 2) /g/: vel r conson nt close to/k/ in st nd rd Ar bic 3) //: n lveo-p l t l conson nt close to // in st nd rd Ar bic 4) //: n lveo-p l t l conson nt close to // in st nd rd Ar bic This conson nts re bsent in modern st nd rd Ar bic nd Khuzest nic Ar bic but present in English.

The bsence of these sounds in one l ngu ge nd their presence in nother l ngu ge is problem tic for le rners nd should be worked on more th n the sound s v il ble in two l ngu ges. In Contr stive An lysis When " n item in the n tiv e l ngu ge is bsent in the t rget l ngu ge" (Brown, 2000) th t is under differe nti tion. On the contr ry," new item entirely, be ring little if ny simil rit y to the n tive l ngu ge item, must be le rned" (Brown, 2000) th t is over diffe renti tion. Conclusion nd Ped gogic l implic tions This study w s conducted to probe the sound systems of both Khuzest ni A r bic nd English by presenting the sounds of e ch l ngu ge nd their ch r cteri stics. In f ct we provided the re der with ex mples from both l ngu ges nd b se d on these ex mples we drew out those sounds which resemble e ch other nd those which differ from e ch other in rticul tion. The rese rcher, working on the ex mples from both l ngu ges, h s illustr ted th t simil rities c use level zero o f Contr stive An lysis nd help the le rners tr nsfer the n tive l ngu ge item t o the t rget l ngu ge e sily. On the contr ry, differences re found s problem tic. They m y c use either under differenti tion or over differenti tion in the re of phonology which is one level of CA. The ped gogic l outcome of this rese rch, nd the body of inform tion produced in the corpus of l ngu ge collected t hroughout the study c n serve l ngu ge rese rchers, educ tion l policy m kers, t ext-book uthors, te chers nd students in their quest for better underst nding the process of le rning nd te ching English s Foreign ngu ge.

1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

/r/: retroflex lveol r conson nt very close to// in Ar bic /t/: n lveol r conson nt very close to the dent l /t/ in Ar bic /k/: vel r conson nt very close to the p l t l/k/ in Ar bic //: vel r conson nt which is tot lly bsent in Ar bic /v/: l bio-dent l conson nt close to /f/ in Ar bic

iving them new sh pe or distribution) will influence the n tive like ccent ne g tively. This conson nts re bsent in modern st nd rd but present in Khuzest ni Ar bic nd English (these four conson nts re tr nsferred from the Persi n l ngu ge).

REFERENCES

Brown, H, D. (2000). Principles of l ngu ge le rning nd te ching. n.

ondon: ongm

Brust d, K. E. (1991). The comp r tive synt x of four Ar bic di lects: An investig tion of selected topics. Ph.D. dissert tion, H rv rd University, United St tes, M ss chusetts. D hir, J. (1998) inguistic V ri tion in D m scus Ar bic: A Qu ntit tive An lysis of Mens and Womens Speech. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University. Fromkin. (2003). An introduction to language. London: Longman. Frye, R, N. (2006). Peoples of Iran. Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved December 14, 2008, from, http://www.iranica.com.html Keshavarz, M, H. (2007). Contrastive analysis and error analysis. Tehran: Rahnama Press. Kopczynski, A. &, Meliani, R. (1993). The Vowels of Arabic and English. Paper and studies in contrastivelinguistics. 184-192. Shah, S. (2007). Arabic: a profile. London SIG Bilingualism.1-13.

Al-Asw d, M. K. (1983). Contr stive n lysis of Ar bic nd English verbs in tense, spect, nd structure. Ph.D. Dissert tion, University of Michig n, United St tes, Michig n.