1980/02/01 by A. M. Sallam, Abdel-Moneim Mohammad Sallam · 1 citation
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Arabic #History #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Linguistics #Multilingual Education and Policy #Norm (philosophy) #Optimality theory #Philosophy #Phonetics and Phonology Research #Phonology #Psychology #Unconscious mind #Variation (astronomy)
paper · doi:10.1017/s0041977x00110559
openalex publication_date 1980/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
Phonetic adjustment in conversational exchange between Arabs of different nationalities is a fundamental, subtle aspect of Educated Spoken Arabic in Egypt and the Levant (ESA). More often than not educated Arabs adjust to a ‘classical norm’ of a voiceless uvular plosive (q), usually corresponding to a voiced velar plosive (g) or a glottal plosive (ʢ) in most vernaculars of our region, in a conscious or unconscious attempt both to elevate and to ‘koineize’ their speech. What follows attempts, inter alia , to show something of the relationships between the variants of this diaphonemic entity and such extra-linguistic factors as the biographies of collocutors and speech function, and to illustrate the fact that items with [q] serve the purposes of modernization in the area.