This Web Page is Characterization of Language Structure

Languages of Yemen

language map.

Yemeni Language

*Information was taken directly from the Ethnologue report on Yemen 2003.

Arabic is the official language of Yemen. English is also spoken in urban areas. 

Types of Arabic Language Spoken in Yemen

MSA: Modern Standard Arabic: MSA is the common language of the press, radio and educated discourse. It is generally understood, if not well spoken.

Regional dialects: The spoken dialects are neither all that far removed from one another, nor are they too distant for Modern Standard Arabic

MSA Modern Standard Arabic

Morphology link

Morphology

The morphological system of the Arabic verbs is very particular. Some verbs, “healthy” verbs,

are manipulated roots and schemes, but there are many irregular verbs in the case of the “weak” verbs

and the “incomplete” verbs

(a family of verbs that can be distinguished by their particular syntax and by the

impossibility to take some conjugate forms. For this reason, they are called incomplete verbs.

Verbs can also be separated into two parts (in the conjugated form):

- The radical: It is a part of the verb that depends just on tense and the infinitive form of the

scheme.

- Conjugation affixes: Is a part of the verb that depends on person, number, gender and

tense (it is independent on the infinitive form of the scheme). It is always represented by a

prefix in the cases of the past ("ealmADI") and the imperative ("ealeamr") and by the pair

(suffix-prefix) in the case of the present ("ealmuDAric")

Morphology of Arabic nouns

In Arabic language, there are two categories of nouns :

- The derivative nouns category : Is the set of all derivative nouns that are completely

characterized by there morphological representation (root, scheme).

- The particular nouns category : Is the set of all nouns that doesn't respect any derivation

rule, the survey of this last category requires a lexicon that contains all particular nouns.

Morphology of Arabic particles

The morphological system of Arabic particle is similar to the particular nouns one. It

requires also a lexicon of all known particles.

Morphology of prefixes and suffixes

In Arabic language, words composed by one consonant cannot be written separately;

they must be attached to the word that follows, so a lexicon that contains all words of this type as well as all known

prefixes and suffixes of Arabic language is needed for translation.

The pure pronunciations coming from these vowels are short, sometimes hardly pronounced at all. Technically, there are three long and three short vowels in Standard Arabic. Local dialects and varying consonant combinations affect regional pronunciation. Throughout the Arabic Speaking areas of the world many can be simplified to five short and five long vowels they are:

a as the ‘a’ in had

e as the ‘e’ in bet

i as the ‘i’ in hit

o as the ‘o’ in hot

u as the ‘oo’ in book

A macron over a vowel indicates that the vowel has a long sound:

a as the ‘a’ in faster

i as the ‘e’ in ear only softer

u as the ‘oo’ in food

Combinations of Vowels

Certain combinations of vowels with other vowels or with consonants form new sounds:

aw as the ‘ow’ in how

ay as the ‘i’ in high

Consonants

Most of the consonants used in this section are the same as in English. In Arabic, double consonants are both pronounced.

the sounds represented by the letters, b, d, f,g, h, j, k, l, m,n,s, t, v, w, y, z.

‘sh’ represents the sound you find in ‘shoot’ in English

‘r’ is rolled slightly, as in French

‘q’ is like a K but from further back in the throat

‘h’ is heavily aspirated. Try breathing the letter out very hard from the back of the throat

‘gh’ the letter ’rayn’ is a hard one for westerners. The sound is produced like a gargle from deep in the throat and rolled so it sounds a bit like the ’r’ in Paris.

Vowels

There are 3 vowels to Arabic. These are not written as letters, but are indicated above or under the letter preceding it.

Arabic Vowels