majhul

plural majhuls · alternative majhūl

1. A class of vowel used in various Arabic script languages, including Persian, Kurdish, and Urdu, among others:
   1. human sciencesA vowel phoneme that does not have a phonemic equivalent in Classical Arabic.

      The majhul sounds o and e are still preserved in the Persian spoken by Afghans and Indians, but they are now unknown in Persia.

      1919, D.C. Phillott, Higher Persian Grammar

      4 more examples

      The New Persian [of Iran], as is well known, has confused in many words the majhūl (' unknown [to the Arabs]' =Persian sounds) vowels ē, ō with the ma'rūf ('known [to the Arabs]'=Arabic sounds) vowels ī, ū. The Judaeo-Persian and the Baluci, like the Indian pronunciation of New Persian, maintain clearly the original distinction between the majhūl and the ma'rūf vowels.

      1902, Indo-Iranian phonology (Indo-Iranian Series), volume 2, United States: The Columbia University Press

      [Kabuli Persian] differs from [Tehrani Persian] in that it has retained the old majhul vowels e and o, which have merged with i and u in [Tehrani Persian]

      1975, MMT Henderson, Diglossia in Kabul Persian Phonology

      Another process that has resulted in [u] in Iranian Persian is the change from the majhul /ō/, which is still preserved in Afghanistan.

      2011 August 17, Corey Miller, edited by Wai Sum LEE, Eric ZEE, Proceedings Of The 17th International Congress Of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS XVII), Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong, →ISBN

      Literary Kurdish in Iraq, Persia, and the Soviet Union written in this script employs a circumflex accent placed above the letters to distinguish non-Persian sounds: with w and y to denote majhul vowels (ō, ē).

      2006 December 15, Prods Oktor Skjærvø, “IRAN vi. IRANIAN LANGUAGES AND SCRIPTS (3) Writing Systems”, in Encyclopædia Iranica, volume XIII, pages 366-370

   2. broadlyhuman sciencesA semivowel, or other vocalic character, with a reading that is phonemically distinct from its normal pronunciation in Classical Arabic.

      If the stem ends in either ی-ma'rūf (i) or ی-majhul (e), the letter ج is inserted, for the sake of euphony, between the stem and the termination: e.g., from پینا to drink, we have پینجیئے, پیجیو, and پیجییگا, from دینا we have دیجیئے, etc.

      1910, R. C. Busher, A Complete Urdu Course Consisting of the Essentials of Grammar, Progressive Exercises, Readinglessons and Vocabularies, Longmans, Green and Co.

      3 more examples

      [...] there are two kinds of Yā in Persian, namely, the Ma'rūf and the Majhūl. The Ma'rūf or known Yā is the Yā which occurs in such words as رقیب, تیر, شیر (milk), دید, پیل etc., while the Majhūl or Unknown Yā occurs in words such as خویش, تیز, شیر (lion), سپید etc.

      1921, “The Unknown Yā in Persian”, in Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, volumes 3-4, pages 86-87

      Mârūf مَعروُف and majhul مَجھوُل, known and un-known. These Arabic terms are applied to the letters و wāo and ی ye. In Arabic the simple vowel sounds of these two letters are ū and ī, the sounds o and e are unknown in that language; so ū and ī are said to be mârūf, but o and e are majhūl. The majhūl sounds are sometimes called Âjamī or Persian.

      1872, John Dowson, A Grammar of the Urdū Or Hindūstānī Language

      Thirdly, to distinguish between the majhūl and ma'rūf sounds of و and ي, the following rule is observed. When و and ي follow a consonant, unmarked by a short vowel or jazm, they are understood to have the majhul sound, or that of ō and ê respectively, as in مور mōr, "an ant," and شیر shêr, "a lion." If, on the other hand, the consonant preceding و have the vowel ـُ, and that preceding ي the vowel ـِ, they have the ma'rūf sound, or that of u in rule and i in machine respectively, as in the words شُود šūd, "gain," and شِیر, shīr, "milk": and if the preceding consonant be marked with jazm, و and ي are consonants.

      1844, Duncan Forbes, A grammar of the Persian language to which is added a selection of easy extracts for reading together with a copious vocabulary, Allen & Madden, page 15

2. broadlyhuman sciencesA conditional allophone of a vowel phoneme that appears in proximity to certain guttural consonants.