1. English and Arabic phonemes

2. Phonemic systems Each language has its own phonemic system.
Systems may show similarities or differences.
Comparing English and Arabic, we reach 3 results:
There are phonemes common to both languages.
There are phonemes existent in English only,
There are phonemes existent Arabic only.

3. Types of Phonemic DifferencesL1 L2 1 + 2 - 3

4. Common Consonants: 1 /b/ Bait/ball باب 2 /t/ Tail, toy تأمل/تفكر 3 /d/
No.
Common phoneme
English example
Arabic example 1
/b/
Bait/ball
باب 2
/t/
Tail, toy
تأمل/تفكر 3
/d/
Day, dark
دافع/ديك 4
/k/
Kite/car
كثير/كان 5
/dʒ/
Judge/jug
جاء/جلب 6
/f/
Fix/fast
فاز/في

5. Common Consonants: 12 /h/ High/hat هذا/هواء 7 /θ/ Three/thin ثلاثة 8
No.
Common phoneme
English example
Arabic example 7
/θ/
Three/thin
ثلاثة 8
/ð/
They, then
ذلك/ذكر 9
/s/
Sing, sign
سبيل/سأل 10
/z/
Zero/zoo
زال/زيادة 11
/ʃ/
Shine/shake
شدد/شبكة 12
/h/
High/hat
هذا/هواء

6. Common Consonants: 13 /l/ Light/law ليت/ليل 15 /n/ now نبيل/نادر 16
Common phoneme
English example
Arabic example 13
/l/
Light/law
ليت/ليل 14
/m/
May, mother
ماء/مسألة 15
/n/
now
نبيل/نادر 16
/w/
Why, water
وسيلة/وكيل 17
/r/
rite/right
ربيع/رياح 18
/y/
Yellow/university
يتحدث/يأكل

7. There are 18 common consonants between English and Arabic.
They may not always be identical:
/t/ and /d/ are alveolar in English but dental in Arabic;
/h/ occurs in initial and medial positions in English only as in horse, behave
/h/ occurs initially, medially and finally in Arabic as in
هتف، مهمة، وجه

8. Consonants restricted to English
No.
Consonant
English example
Arabic example 1
/p/
Pen - 2
/g/
good - 3
/tʃ/
Chair/chat - 4
/v/
Vast - 5
/ʒ/
Measure - 6
/ŋ/
Sing/singer -

9. Notes:
Although /p/ is a distinct phoneme in English, it is an allophone in Arabic in a conditioned environment.
Example: لَبْس /b/ is pronounced as /p/ because it is followed by a voiceless sound.
2. /g/ is restricted to English but it can exist in some Arabic dialects as in the Palestinian dialect: قَلّي
3. /ʒ/ is restricted to English but it exist in Arabic dialect as in جبل in Syrian or Lebanese dialects.
4. /ŋ/ does not exist in Arabic. It exists word medially and finally in English as in finger, sing

10. Consonants Restricted to Arabic:
No.
Consonant
Arabic example
English example 1
/T/ ط
طالب - 2
/q/ ق
قال - 3
/?/ ء
أكل - 4
/D/ ض
ضرب - 5
/S/ ص
صام/صاح - 6
/X/ خ
خاف - 7
/H/ ح
حرب/حمار - 8
/D/ ح
حرب/حمار - 9
/G/ غ
غريب - 10
/9/ ع
عمل -

11. Consonant cluster
Consonant cluster is a group of consonants coming together without a vowel sound between them.

12. Consonant clusters Notes: Two consonants: sphere, sleep, cuts, dogs.
Three consonants: street, risked, holds
Four consonants: texts
Notes:
Maximum number of English consonant clusters is 4 and only final, while the maximum number in Arabic is 2.

13. Consonant clusters
Consonant clusters come at initial or final positions in English words. The following are the commonest cases:
Two consonants at the beginning of words:
st = step
sp = spot, spin
sk = sky, school
sl = sleep,
sw = sweat, sweep
sn = snail, snow
sm = smart, smith
st = stove, steel

14. Consonant clusters /spr/ = spray, spread, spring.
2. Three consonants at the beginning of words:
/spr/ = spray, spread, spring.
/str/ = street, struggle, strict.
/skr/ = scream, screen, screw, script.
/stj/ = stupid, student,
/spl/ = splash, splendid, split.

15. Consonant clusters Word Medial Clusters: two types
Intra-syllabic consonant cluster: The sequence of consonants in the word medial position which belong to the same syllable is called intra-syllabic cluster. Examples include:
camping, reply, windy, extra
2. Inter-syllabic cluster: If the consonants forming the cluster belong to two different syllables, we have an inter-syllabic cluster as in:
blackboard /kb/
description /skr/
extra /kstr/
import /mp/
movement /vm/

16. Consonant clusters 3. Two consonants at the end of the word:
/pƟ/ = depth, /pt/ = wept, /nt/= point, want.
/ts/ = cats, /gz/ = dogs,
4. Three consonants at the end of the word:
Fields, risks, facts, depths, adopts, lapsed, acts, next
5. Four consonants at the end of the word:
Texts, prompts, twelfths,

17. Arabic does not allow initial consonants clusters.
Consonant clusters
Arabic does not allow initial consonants clusters.
It allows word final as in قلْب, نهْر, بنْت
Medial could be something like استبيان