Note on Transcription
Readers will find occasional discrepancies in the transcription of Mahri words, especially in the glossary portion of the site. For one, Mahri speakers will occasionally use Arabic and Mahri words interchangeably, especially in the domain of place names. For instance, the port that lies west of al-Ghaydha may be articulated in Arabic as Nishṭūn or in Mahri as Niśṭōn or Niśṭawn. As indicated for the latter, dialectal difference plays a role in different realizations of the same word in the Mahri language. Since there is no dictionary or citation version of the Mahri lexicon that native Mahri speakers might resort to, I have endeavored to represent words as I heard them without altering specific instances in order to achieve conformity with a theoretical or historically accurate form of the word. For instance, the voiced pharyngeal fricative ʿayin is lost or reduced in the Mahri dialects spoken in western al-Mahra. As a result, words that ought to contain an ʿayin may be transcribed with or without one depending on how it was articulated at a specific moment in time. However, in the glossary, the root that such a word is linked to may contain an ʿayin to acknowledge its historical presence. The same holds true for different articulations of the Mahri phonemes /ḥ/ and /h/ and the occlusion of interdental phonemes in western Mahri: individual words are transcribed as they were articulated but the roots listed in the glossary provide the historical reconstruction.
| Modern Standard Arabic | Mahri | ||
| Transliteration | Transliteration | IPA | |
| ʾ | ʾ | ʔ | |
| b | b | b | |
| t | t | t | |
| th | ṯ | θ | |
| j | ǧ | ʤ/g | |
| ḥ | ḥ | ħ | |
| kh | ḫ | χ | |
| d | d | d | |
| dh | ḏ | ð | |
| r | r | r | |
| z | z | z | |
| s | s | s | |
| sh | š | ʃ | |
| -- | ś | ɬ | |
| ṣ | ṣ | s’ | |
| ḍ | ź | ɬ’/ɮ | |
| ṭ | ṭ | t’ | |
| ẓ | ṭ | θ’ | |
| ʿ | ʿ (rare, usually /ø/) | ʕ | |
| gh | ġ | ɣ | |
| f | f | f | |
| q | ḳ | k’ | |
| k | k | k | |
| l | l | l | |
| m | m | m | |
| n | n | n | |
| h | h | h | |
| w | w | w | |
| y | y | y | |
| ā/a | ā/a | ā/á | |
| ī/i | ī/i | ī/í | |
| ū/u | ū/u | ū/ú | |
| -- | ē/e | ē/é/e | |
| -- | ō/o | ō/ó | |
| -- | ɛ̄ | ɛ̄ | |
| -- | ə | ə | |