Arabic Phonetics Quiz

IPA stands for the International Phonetic Alphabet — a universal system where one symbol always maps to one sound. It matters for Arabic because romanisation systems (like DIN 31635 or ALA-LC) are inconsistent across textbooks. IPA gives you an unambiguous pronunciation guide. For example, Arabic ح is /ħ/ (voiceless pharyngeal fricative) — which no English letter can represent, but IPA can.

Emphatic (or pharyngealised) consonants are produced with the back of the tongue raised toward the pharynx, creating a "dark" quality. Arabic has four: ص /sˤ/, ض /dˤ/, ط /tˤ/, and ظ /ðˤ/. They darken adjacent vowels — "a" sounds like a deep "ah" — and change word meaning completely (e.g. سبع = seven vs صبع = finger).

ه /h/ is the light breathy "h" as in English "hat" — produced at the glottis. ح /ħ/ is a voiceless pharyngeal fricative — much deeper, produced by narrowing the pharynx. Think of fogging up a cold mirror: the rush of warm air is close to /ħ/. The two letters are completely distinct in Arabic and confusing them changes word meaning.

أ / ء (hamza) is a glottal stop /ʔ/ — the brief catch in the throat in the English expression "uh-oh". ع (Ayn) /ʕ/ is a voiced pharyngeal fricative — the throat constricts but air still flows with voicing. Ayn requires active muscular contraction of the pharyngeal walls; a glottal stop is a complete closure only at the glottis. Both are unique to Semitic languages.