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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
stoptˤ, dˤʔˤ
trill
fricativesˤ, zˤ
nasal
lateral approximant

Vowels

Basic short series

frontcentral
closeɨ, ʉ
midə
near-openæ

Long series

frontcentralback
close
near-closeʊː
close-mid
open-midɔː
open

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)