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Phonological variation in educated spoken Arabic: a study of the uvular and related plosive types1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

A. M. Sallam
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Extract

Phonetic adjustment in conversational exchange between Arabs of different nationalities is a fundamental, subtle aspect of Educated Spoken Arabic in Egypt and the Levant (ESA). More often than not educated Arabs adjust to a ‘classical norm’ of a voiceless uvular plosive (q), usually corresponding to a voiced velar plosive (g) or a glottal plosive (ʢ) in most vernaculars of our region, in a conscious or unconscious attempt both to elevate and to ‘koineize’ their speech. What follows attempts, inter alia, to show something of the relationships between the variants of this diaphonemic entity and such extra-linguistic factors as the biographies of collocutors and speech function, and to illustrate the fact that items with [q] serve the purposes of modernization in the area.

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Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , February 1980 , pp. 77 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1980

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