Comparing English and Arabic Phonemes

I Consonants

1-Stops

The English stops are /p/,/b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, and /g/.The
/p/, /t/ and /k/ sounds are strong voiceless consonants
while the /b/, /d/ and /g/ are weak voiced consonants.
In stops the breath is stopped by the lips while
pronouncing /p/ and /b/, by the tongue tip while
pronouncing /t/ and /d/ and by the back of the tongue
while pronouncing /k/ and /g/. The /p/, /t/ and /k/ sounds
are aspirated , for example: pool /pu:l/ , bit /bit/, top
/top/ and queen / kwi:n/.

On the other hand, Arabic stops are /‫ج‬/،/‫د‬/ ، /‫ب‬/ .

The /p/ sound is missing from the colloquial Arabic. It only
exists as an allophone and not as a separate phoneme e.g.
‫كتبت‬-‫سبت‬ . This causes a serious phonemic problem
e.g. “ I need a pill – bill”. The /p/ and /b/ sounds are
confused. The /b/ sound is used for both.
The /t/ and /d/ sounds are dentals in Arabic, where as in
English the /t/and /d/ are alveolars. This creates a
phonetic problem. Strong stops in Arabic are unaspirated
while in English they are aspirated.

b- Fricatives
English fricatives are /f/,/v/,/s/,/z/,
/∫/,/z /and /h/. These sounds are produced
by letting the air stream pass through a narrow opening.
All these sounds are accompanied by a friction noise,
and that’s why the are called friction consonants.
The /f/,/s/, and /∫/ are strong voiceless
consonants, while the /v/, /z/, and /z / are weak
voiced consonants. The voiceless consonants are
produced with more friction than the voiced ones.

The /v/ sound does not exist in colloquial Arabic, but it

exists in the loan words such as vase and villa .
However, we don’t find difficulty in pronouncing this
sound because we are exposed to the sound in many
foreign words.

The and  sounds exist in classical Arabic but they do

not exist in colloquial Arabic. In Arabic, the minute we
drop, we do not create a phonemic problem; for example
‫ ذهب‬becomes ‫دهب‬ and ‫ ثعلب‬becomes ‫تعلب‬.
However, in English if you drop them, as a result of
imitating your mother tongue, it will cause a phonemic
problem; for example think becomes sink and thank
becomes sank.

The /h/ sound in English is restricted to the initial position

and always occurs before vowels such as hurry and here .
However, in Arabic it is not restricted to a fixed position,
we can pronounce it initially and finally and it causes no
problem.
c- Affricates

English affricates are /t∫/ and /dz /. They are produced

with a definite friction. They start as stops and end as
fricatives. /t∫/ sound is a strong voiceless consonant while
/dz / is a weak voiced consonant. Examples for the use of
these sounds in English are: chin / t∫in /, child / t∫aild/
and joke /dz uk/.

The /t∫/ and /dz / sounds are missing in Arabic. We don’t

have a phoneme similar to /t∫/ as in church /t∫3:t∫/or
/dz / as in/dz  uk/. The /t∫/ sound is used for both.
Though /dz / does not give difficulty in practice, /t∫/
and /dz / are often confused in Arabic. If they are
substituted they cause a phonemic problem as in chair -
share .

d- Consonants Clusters
A consonant cluster is a combination of two or more
consonants. There are some initial clusters in English that
do not exist in Arabic. Examples of these clusters might
be : /sp/ as in splash /splæ∫/ and /pr/ as proud /praud/.
All clusters with /p/ sound cause a phonemic problem
because the /p/ sound doesn’t exist in Arabic. They also
cause a problem as Arabic speakers always insert the vowel
(e ) between the two initial , and this ruins the stress of
the word, for example, spell becomes espell or sepell or as
in tense that becomes tenis. In spell, we have a double
problem, /p/ is changed into /b/, in addition to the
insertion of the (e) vowel mentioned above. More over, all
English three element consonant cluster create a problem
by inserting a vowel (e) or (i) as in splash that becomes
esplash.

e- Final Consonant Cluster

In English sequences of consonants at the end are more

varied than at the beginning because /s/ and /z/ are added
to nouns to form the plural as in /kæts/ and /dogz/, or
because /t/ and /d/ are added to verbs to form the past
tense as in /riskt/ and /reizd/. Also /is added to form
nouns as in /stren/ and /bred .

The Arabic, on the other hand shares the 2 element final

English clusters as /nd/ in ‫ هند‬, /nt/ as in ‫ بنت‬and /nz/
as in ‫ برونز‬. Yet, Arabic has some clusters that are not
found in English. We have less consonant clusters in Arabic
than in English.