Lebanese: Difference between revisions

| oː (ō)

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*Historically /a/ could only be a short vowel, because it's long counterpart became pronounced [oː]. 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 (𐤊𐤀𐤓𐤕 ''kārt'', plural ''karahūth'', "credit card") and in some words (''wāw'' - the canonical name for the letter "𐤅", however variants ''wô'' and ''wū'' can often be found in various texts).

There are 10 vowel phonemes in total (11 if counting the marginal [aː]). They often alternate with each other when the stress shifts or while declining words. In some Central Lebanese varieties there is a distinct phoneme "ô" (usually pronounced [oː] while "ō" is [ɔː]), while it merged into "ū" in all other dialects, including the stardard Lebanese and in the Northern and Tyrian dialects "ê" merges into "ī" (thus words, like 𐤌𐤌 mêm "water", are pronounced [miːm]). In Sidonian, however, "ē" typically merges "ê" and both are mid [eː]. In modern Lebanese only stressed vowels can be distinctly long or short, while the duration of unstressed vowels is stays more or less the same. Arabic speakers typically also merge some short vowels, called 𐤕𐤍𐤅𐤏𐤅𐤕 𐤒𐤈̇𐤍𐤅𐤕 ''tunūʿūth qiṭannūth'' ("reduced vowels") into a single phoneme that varies from [æ] to [ɒ] depending on its environment. These reduced vowels are pronounced the same as other short vowels, but in Phoenician their pronunciation might have been different. 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.