The Arabic Language

7.4 Phonology
Although Arabic grammarians were not concerned with phonetic analysis as 
such, they usually included an elementary description of the speech sounds in 
their treatises. In the introduction to the first Arabic dictionary, al-Ḫalīl’s 
Kitāb 
al-ʿayn
, the consonants are classified according to their place of articulation 
(
maḫraj
). Al-Ḫalīl identifies each group of consonants with a collective term, but 

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The Arabic Language
he does not differentiate between the active and the passive articulator (
Kitāb 
al-ʿayn
, I, ed. al-Maḫzūmī and as-Sāmarrāʾī, Beirut, 1988, p. 58):
ḥalqiyya
‘consonants of the throat’: 
h
, 
ʾ
, 
ḥ
, 
ḫ
, 
ġ
 lahawiyya
‘consonants of the velum’: 
q
, 
k
 šajriyya
‘consonants of the palate’: 
j
, 
š
, 
ḍ
ʾasaliyya
‘consonants of the tongue-tip’: 
ṣ
, 
s
, 
z
niṭʿiyya
‘consonants of the prepalate’: 
ṭ
, 
t
, 
d
liṯawiyya
‘consonants of the gums’: 
ḏ̣
, 
ḏ
, 
ṯ
ḏalaqiyya
‘consonants of the tongue-apex’: 
r
, 
l
, 
n
 šafawiyya
‘consonants of the lips’: 
f
, 
b
, 
m
hawāʾiyya
‘consonants of the air’: 
y
, 
w
, ” (
ʾalif
), 
ʾ
In Sībawayhi’s 
Kitāb
(II, p. 405), a more detailed description of the various places 
of articulation is given, in which Sībawayhi corrects al-Ḫalīl’s classification in 
some points and identifies the active and the passive articulator of each group 
of consonants. In most respects, this classification is remarkably similar to the 
modern classification of the phonemic inventory of Arabic (see above, p. 23).
In some respects, the classification of the consonants by Arabic grammarians 
differs from the modern account. Their main classification of the consonants 
according to manner of articulation was that between 
mahmūsa
‘whispered’ (
h
, 
ḥ
, 
ḫ
, 
k
, 
š
, 
t
, 
ṣ
, 
s
, 
ṯ
, 
f
) and 
majhūra
‘spoken aloud’ (
b
, 
j
, 
d
, 
r
, 
l
, 
m
, 
n
, 
w
, 
y
, 
ḍ
, 
ḏ̣
, 
ṭ
, 
q
, 
ʾ
, ”). 
In describing these two categories, Sībawayhi (
Kitāb
, II, p. 405) says that in the 
majhūra
consonants the pressure is fully applied at the place of articulation and 
the breath is impeded from flowing through till the pressure is completed and 
the sound goes on (
ʾušbiʿa l-iʿtimād fī mawḍiʿihi wa-muniʿa n-nafas ʾan yajriya maʿahu 
ḥattā yanqaḍiya l-iʿtimād ʿalayhi wa-yajriya ṣ-ṣawt
). The 
mahmūsa
consonants are 
described as follows:
the pressure is weakly applied at the place of articulation so that the breath flows 
freely with it (