Imāla

Imāla (also transliterated imālah ; Arabic: إمالة‎‎, literally "slanting") is a vowel shift exhibited in many dialects of Arabic where the open vowel, whether long or short, is raised to [ɛ] or even [e] in certain morphological or phonological contexts. Imāla occurs in modern colloquial as well as classical variants of Arabic, including several qirāʾāt ("styles of recitation") of the Quran. As a very noticeable phenomenon, imāla is often one of the most distinguishing features in the dialects that have it, such as Lebanese Arabic.

Historically, imāla was a feature of the ancient dialects of Najd and Tamim, which had it in both verbs and inflected nouns. There are many cases for which imāla is appropriate; some of the most common are outlined below:

Many qirāʾāt of the Quran implement imāla at least once. Some, like those of Hafs or Qalun, use it only once, but others, like those of Hamzah az-Zaiyyat and Al-Kisa'i, use it regularly. In the latter, imāla affects hundreds of words because of a general rule of a specific qirāʾa or as a specific word prescribed to undergo imāla. Warsh's qirāʾa, from the way of Al-Azraq, implements minor imāla ([ɛ]) regularly but major imāla ([e]) in only one instance.

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