Table 1 and Table 2 show the vowel system of MSA indicated by their phonetic symbols, their descriptions as well as examples with their English translation to be followed by Figure 1 and Figure 2, MSA monophthongs and diphthongs charts respectively, which are based on charts taken from Thelwall and Sa’Adeddin (1990: 38). The Arabic vowel system consists of six monophthongs: three long – /aː/, /iː/, /uː/ –, three short – /a/, /i/, and /u/ – pure vowels and two diphthongs – /aj/ and /aw/ – which are a combination of a short vowel with a glide.

 

 

 

 

 

As it can be seen in Table 1, the three long vowels /aː/, /iː/, and /uː/ are the three long vowels in MSA which are represented in full vowel letters as /ʡalif/, /jaːʡ/, and /waːw/ respectively. These vowels are spelled in Arabic as ا, ي, و, e.g. ‘مال’ /maːl/ ‘money’, ‘دين’ /diːn/ ‘religion’, ‘سوق’ /suːq/ ‘market’. On the other hand, the three short vowels (/a/, /u/, and /i/) may be represented in Arabic by diacritical marks, which are written above the letters (in the case of /a/ and /u/) or below the letters (in the case of /i/or /ɪ /). These diacritical marks are called [fatḥa], [damma], [kasra], respectively. These vowels are spelled in Arabic as َ, ُ, ِ, e.g. ‘قَلَم’ /qalam/ ‘pen’, and ‘حلم’ /ḥulm/ ‘dream’, ‘كِتاب’ /kitaːb/ ‘book’.