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Beirut Arabic

Phylum: Semitic

Genus: Arabic

Lat/lon: 33.889285, 35.496557

ISO code: apc

Consonants

Basic short series

bilabiallabio-velarlabio-dentalalveolarpostalveolarpalatalvelarpharyngealglottal
stopbt, dkʔ
trillr
fricativefs, zʃ, ʒx, ɣħ, ʕh
nasalmn
approximantwj
lateral approximantl

Short pharyngealised series

bilabialalveolarglottal
stopbˤtˤ, dˤʔˤ
trillrˤ
fricativesˤ, zˤ
nasalmˤ
lateral approximantlˤ

Vowels

Basic short series

frontcentral
closeɨ, ʉ
midə
near-openæ

Long series

frontcentralback
closeiː
near-closeʊː
close-mideː
open-midɔː
openaː

Licit initial clusters

CC

Licit finals

CC

Licit syllabic templates

(C)CV(ː), (C)CV(ː)C, (C)CVCC

Source: Naïm, Samia. 2006. Beirut Arabic. Kees Versteegh (ed.), Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. Vol. 1. Brill: Leiden; Boston. 274–286.

Comments: Initial homorganic clusters assimilated to geminated consonants with an ultra-short prothetic vowel. In final position, two-consonant clusters are split with an /ᵊ/ before a pause.

Contributed by: Dmitry Nikolaev (dnikolaev@fastmail.com)