Nasal Assimilation: A Contrastive Analysis of the Rules of Tajweed and the English Language Phonological System

Abstract

Many Tajweed teachers struggle to teach the Tajweed to English speakers due to the learners’ difficulties with Arabic’s phonological system and the shortage of studies related to this area. The current paper aims to investigate the similarities and differences in nasal sounds’ assimilation between the Tajweed rules and the English language and to describe how they can be applied in teaching Tajweed to non-Arabic speakers. The authors applied a descriptive qualitative design. They used note-taking to collect data from records and texts of both languages to analyze the data contrastively. The results revealed striking similarities and significant distinctions between both languages. For the similarities, nasal assimilation is influenced by the proximity of the place of articulation. Besides, in both languages, nasal sounds assimilate partially, completely, or disassimilate based on the phonetic features of the following sound. Regarding the differences, the ghunnah is held for two counts in Tajweed rules, while in English, it is not. Additionally, the ghunnah is emphasized before emphatic sounds in the Tajweed. However, nasal assimilation in English occurs clearly in spontaneous speech. On this basis, this paper assists teachers by using the results to predict learners’ areas of difficulty and ease. Furthermore, it helps learners understand this phenomenon.