Lebanese: Difference between revisions

All short vowels in modern Lebanese have long counterparts, but their phonetic values do not exactly match up with each other with the short vowels being centralized. The vowel length itself is not distinctive in modern speech and native Lebanese speakers tend to distinguish them by their qualities instead. Two vowels, spelt as "ê" and "ô" vary greatly among different speakers and are not present in most dialects, where they merge into [iː] (or with [ɛː] into a mid [eː]) and [uː] respectively even in the formal speech. In other speakers, who still distinguish them, these phonemes vary from true mid to close-mid vowels.

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*Historically /a/ could only be a short vowel, because it's long counterpart was lost. In the modern language [aː] appeared from the contraction of [aʕa] after the weakening of /ʕ/ (not indicated in writing), from compensatory lengthening after the loss of [ʔ] in some words (𐤕𐤔̄𐤀 ''tissā'' "you take"), new borrowings (𐤊𐤓𐤕 ''kārt'', plural ''karahūth'', "credit card") and in some words (''wāw'' - the name for the letter "𐤅", however the variant ''wô'' can often be found in the old texts).

There are 12 vowel phonemes in total. They often alternate with each other when the stress shifts or while declining words. In the North Lebanese dialect "ô" merges into "ū" and (along with the  Surian dialect) "ê" merges into "ī" (thus words, like 𐤌𐤌 mêm "water", are pronounced [miːm]). In Sidonian, however, "ē" typically merges "ê", and "ō" - into "ô". Thus, in general, only 10 distinct phonemes are present in most dialects. Arabic speakers typically also merge short "e", "o" and "a" into a single phoneme that varies from [æ] to [ɒ] depending on its environment. Many North Lebanese speakers also often merge short "e" and "o" into "i" and "u", but it only occures in a colloquial speech, especially when speaking fast.

===Stress===

Stress is mobile in Lebanese. There are two frequent patterns of lexical stress: on the last syllable and on the penultimate syllable. Final stress is usually more frequent, than other types. Contrary to the prescribed standard, some words exhibit stress on the antepenultimate syllable or even further back, usually in loanwords, e.g. 𐤐𐤅𐤋𐤉𐤈𐤉𐤒𐤀 (''polīṭiqa'' - "politics") /pʰɔ.ˈliː.tɪ.ka/. The stress pattern is typically predictable, depending on syllable weight (that is, vowel length and whether a syllable ended with a consonant): 𐤔𐤌𐤌 ''samêm'' /sa.ˈmeːm/ ("sky"), 𐤀𐤕̄𐤊̄ ''ettekki'' /ʔɛ.ˈtʰɛ.kʰɪ/ ("I give to you").