The Arabic /dʕ/ Revisited: A Critical Review

The aims of this article are to revisit the controversy surrounding the Arabicemphatic consonant daad (/dˤ/) and to examine which Arabic speakers are more likelyto pronounce /dˤ/ correctly when reading from a Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) text.These objectives are fulfilled by: (1) examining /dˤ/ from a historical perspective byaddressing ideas which previous scholars such as Sībawayhi and Ibn Ya’ish proposed, aswell as examining various suggestions put forward by modern linguists and (2) analysingrecordings of news bulletins delivered in MSA by newsreaders who are native speakers ofdifferent Arabic dialects. The article concludes that to make broad generalisations relatingto /dˤ/ and apply them to all Arabic speaking communities is a far-fetched attempt to say theleast, if not strongly based on solid empirical evidence. Further, the fact that even numerousnative Arabic speaking adult professionals make errors when reading daad from a formaltext heightens the controversy. It also has pedagogical implications for the way childrenand adults are taught MSA across the Arab world. The story goes beyond pedagogy to include the persistent fossilisation of the vernacular pronunciations of daad.