Phonetic Variation of Qaf and Jim in Egyptian and Saudi Arabic Dialects: Insights from Youtube Audiovisual Data and Popular Music

Salsa Hauna  Ajidin; Yanda  Rismawati; Asep Ajidin; Farhan Alfaruq  Ajidin

doi:10.24239/albariq.v6i02.123

Authors

Salsa Hauna Ajidin Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Yanda Rismawati Universitas Islam Negeri Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Asep Ajidin STIH Putri Maharaja Payakumbuh, Indonesia
Farhan Alfaruq Ajidin Al Azhar University, Egypt

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24239/albariq.v6i02.123

Keywords:

Qāf, Jīm, Arabic dialects, phonetics, Arabic learning

Abstract

Abstract

This study analyzes the phonetic differences in the pronunciation of the letters Qaaf (ق) and Jiim (ج) in the Egyptian and Saudi Arabic dialects. Using a qualitative descriptive approach, the research draws data from audiovisual sources such as popular songs and YouTube videos featuring native speakers. The findings reveal that in Egyptian Arabic, Qaaf is frequently realized as a glottal stop (/ʔ/), and Jiim as a voiced velar stop (/g/). In contrast, in Saudi Arabic, both letters tend to retain their Classical Arabic pronunciation: /q/ for Qaaf and /d͡ʒ/ for Jiim. These phonetic differences are not merely articulatory; they also carry sociolinguistic significance, reflecting social identity, formality level, and cultural values. This research contributes to modern Arabic language learning by emphasizing the importance of understanding dialectal variation in pronunciation, especially in real-life communication across Arabic-speaking regions.

Keywords: Qaaf, Jiim, Arabic dialects, phonetics, Egyptian Arabic, Saudi Arabic, sociolinguistics, language learning

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Abdelali, Ahmed, Hamdy Mubarak, Younes Samih, Sabit Hassan, and Kareem Darwish. “QADI: Arabic Dialect Identification in the Wild.” WANLP 2021 - 6th Arabic Natural Language Processing Workshop, Proceedings of the Workshop, 2021, 1–10.
Abdul-Mageed, Muhammad, Chiyu Zhang, Abdel Rahim Elmadany, Houda Bouamor, and Nizar Habash. “NADI 2022: The Third Nuanced Arabic Dialect Identification Shared Task.” WANLP 2022 - 7th Arabic Natural Language Processing - Proceedings of the Workshop, 2022, 85–97. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2022.wanlp-1.9.
Ahmed, Ahmed Haj, Rui-jie Yew, Xerxes Minocher, and Suresh Venkatasubramanian. “Navigating Dialectal Bias and Ethical Complexities in Levantine Arabic Hate Speech Detection,” 2012.
Alhafni, Bashar, Sarah Al-Towaity, Ziyad Fawzy, Fatema Nassar, Fadhl Eryani, Houda Bouamor, and Nizar Habash. “Exploiting Dialect Identification in Automatic Dialectal Text Normalization.” Proceedings of The Second Arabic Natural Language Processing Conference, 2024, 42–54. https://aclanthology.org/2024.arabicnlp-1.4.
Ali, Ahmed, Najim Dehak, Patrick Cardinal, Sameer Khurana, Sree Harsha Yella, James Glass, Peter Bell, and Steve Renals. “Automatic Dialect Detection in Arabic Broadcast Speech.” Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, INTERSPEECH 08-12-September-2016 (2016): 2934–38. https://doi.org/10.21437/Interspeech.2016-1297.
Althobaiti, Maha J. “Automatic Arabic Dialect Identification Systems for Written Texts: A Survey,” 2020. http://arxiv.org/abs/2009.12622.
Arak, Mahmoud Hammoud. “Digital Transformation and Its Impact on Arabic Language Evolution in Social Media,” 2024, 174–86.
Auliya, Ayu, Devi Surya Aljanah, Rumadani Sagala, Umi Hijriyah, and Fachrul Ghazi. “The Digital Revolution in Arabic Language Learning : An Analysis of Trends , Results , and the Future of Language Education in the Digital Age,” no. Riicis (2024).
Keleg, Amr, Sharon Goldwater, and Walid Magdy. “ALDi: Quantifying the Arabic Level of Dialectness of Text.” EMNLP 2023 - 2023 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, Proceedings, 2023, 10597–611. https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2023.emnlp-main.655.
Kheir, Yassine El, Hamdy Mubarak, Ahmed Ali, and Shammur Absar Chowdhury. “Beyond Orthography: Automatic Recovery of Short Vowels and Dialectal Sounds in Arabic † +,” 2023.
Moftah, Walaa I. “ةيتوص ةسارد : ءانيس يف لئابقلا نم ضعب تاجهل نيابت ةساردلا صلختسم ةقطان ةلود رصم . ءانيس يف تاجهللا يف تافلاتخ ﻹ ا ةساردلا هذه لوانتت يف ةيلبقلا تاجهللا فلتخت . ةيميلقإ تافلاتخا كانه ، كلذ عمو ةيبرعلا ةغلل تافلاتخ ﻹ ا قيثوت ةساردلا ةذهل يسيئرلا فدهلا . قطن” 14, no. 1 (2025): 73–88.
Philosophy, European. “INHALTSVERZEICHNIS – TABLE DES MATIÈRES,” n.d.
Situbondo, Universitas Ibrahimy. “Lahjah Arabiyah Lahjah Arabiyah” 2, no. 1 (2021): 30–39.
Situbondo, Universitas Ibrahimy, Universitas Yudharta Pasuruan, and Universitas Ibrahimy. “Analisis Kesalahan Dalam Menggunakan Lahjah Arabiyah Pada Maharah Kalam 1 1” 4, no. 2 (2023): 159–70. https://doi.org/10.35316/lahjah.v4i2.159-170.
Verlag, Harrassowitz. “Siwa and Its Significance for Arabic Dialectology Author ( s ): Lameen Souag Source : Zeitschrift Für Arabische Linguistik , No . 51 ( 2009 ), Pp . 51-75 Published by : Harrassowitz Verlag Stable URL : Http://Www.Jstor.Org/Stable/43525858” 51, no. 51 (2016): 51–75.
Yafooz, Wael M.S. “Enhancing Arabic Dialect Detection on Social Media: A Hybrid Model with an Attention Mechanism.” Information (Switzerland) 15, no. 6 (2024). https://doi.org/10.3390/info15060316.