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only to confuse the reader—namely, the different kinds of s, d, t, and z,—the following transcription is given, and should he continually referred to by the learner until he is familiar with it.
| a short, | for the | sound of | u in but. |
| ā long, | ,, | ,, | a in father |
| e short, | ,, | ,, | e in met, |
| i short, | ,, | ,, | i in tit-bit. |
| ī long, | ,, | ,, | ee in meet, |
| o short, | ,, | ,, | o in work.[1] |
| ō long, for the sound of o in pole. | |||
| u short, | ,, | ,, | u in put. |
| u long, | ,, | ,, | oo in soon, |
| āi (or āy), | „ | „ | i in wine. |
| ey | ,, | ,, | ai in wain. |
| an | ,, | ,, | ow in cow. |
'a, 'e, 'i, 'o, 'u, for the different vowel-inflections of the غ 'aīn, as bit'a (' belonging to'), sab'īn ('seventy') , and 'amr
| kh | for the sound of ch in loch and German ich, but it is not nearly so soft, and is more raucous. |
| h | for hard h, as in subḥ (' morning'), saḥīḥ ('true'). |
| gh | ar|ghāin), as in Meghagha (station south of Cairo). |
A comma following a letter, as in rā,is ('head,' or ' foreman'), represents the hamza inflection, which is a sort of catch in the voice. The difference in the pronunciation is exemplified by the difference between a nice house and an ice house.
All other letters given will be pronounced as in English. In a few cases the acute accent has been inserted for the accented syllable, as katábna, 'we wrote.'
'Notes on the Tonic Accent.—The tonic accent or stress falls naturally on a syllable containing a vowel marked with along or an acute accent; e.g., tāra, ghorāb, marākbi, talámza, moskówi, alláh.
It is also indicated by the duplication of letters and by the occurrence of the hard ḥ; e.g., makhad'dah, arbag'gi, feluk'kah, eḥ'na, istah'kam.
The غ ('ain), except in the rare case of its being final, re- quiring more effort to pronounce, also indicates the accent ; e.g., bit'ai.
In many instances where the stress is not specially indicated, it falls quite naturally on the right syllable; e.g., heytah, tarabeyzah, dunanmah (hey'tah, tarabey'zah, dunan'mah).
In other cases, where no vowel in a word is accented, the syllables have equal stress laid on them ; e.g., ghada, nafas, ishrab, maksab, sanamat et yamal.
The final ah of nouns and adjectives, representing the aspirate g , must from its nature have less stress than the preceding syllable in two-syllable words: it has not been thought necessary, therefore, to accent such words as labwah, wardah.
- ↑ Approaching the short u in valuo.
