Question
Assalaamu 'alaykum,
I have a few questions about the position of the jaw and the relationship
between consonants and vowels in tajweed.
My
question is about the letters waaw and yaa'. Are the long vowel versions of
these letters actually the same sound as the consonant version the only
difference being that they are held out longer than they would be in the
case of a shaddah? In other words would the "ee" sound in tajweed be the
same as the "iyy" sound in nabiyy disregarding the accent (nabr). If this is
the case then the voweled yaa' that serves as a consonant would have the
same lowering motion of the jaw as its long vowel and short vowel
counterpart, right? Also how is the waaw or yaa' distinguished from its
vowel when the vowel is its lengthened counterpart, for instance Dawood and
any time the combination wu or yi occurs.
Thank you very much.
Assalaamu Alaykum
Answer
Wa
alaikum assalaam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
The
long vowel versions (meaning medd letters) of the letters
and
have the same
sound as the dhammah and kasrah respectively, but are longer than the single
count vowels. The
or
that are not
lengthened and have an accompanying vowel have the jaw movement of the
vowel, not of the letter. For example, the
in
will have an
accompanying dhammah, and the
in the same
word will have an accompanying lower of the jaw. The letter
itself in this
case is produced by separation between the middle of the tongue and the roof
of the mouth accompanied by a dhammah of the two lips. The first of the two
letter in
this word is produced by a circling of the two lips with an accompanying
opening of the mouth. In other words, the lips start off in a circle and
then separate as the mouth opens. The second
in the word
is again
produced by a circling of the two lips with an accompanying lowering of the
jaw. The lips start out in a circle and separate as the jaw lowers. We do
not like to compare to English, since the sounds are never quite the same,
but in this case to assist you we will do so; the sound of the first
is similar
(not identical) to the letters “wo” of the English word “wow”, and the sound
of the second is
similar to the English word “we.”. The
is similar
(again, not identical) to the word “you”, but the dhammah is more pronounced
in Arabic and especially in recitation of the Qur’an.
In
the word 
there is
a lowering of the jaw because of the kasrah preceding the
and the emphasis
on the .
When the
has a kasrah or
the a
dhammah, it is distinguished from the lengthened form of these letters (medd
letters) only in the timing of the vowel or medd. In the case of
, there is a
saakinah
(notice it is small) after the
with the
dhammah, so there would be a two count lengthening of the sound when not
stopping on the word. On the other hand, in the word
the
has a
dhammah but not lengthened. The only difference in the sound between the
two words is the lengthened
sound in
.
Please note, we have
divided your questions and will answer them separately, insha’ Allah.
You are
most welcome. Wa assalaam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
