imala
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English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Arabic إمالة (ʔimāla, literally “inclination”). The earliest form of the process, described by the Arab grammarians, was conditioned on the existence of an /i/ before or after the /a/ (somewhat similarly to Germanic umlaut). Hence the /a/ was said to “incline” towards the /i/. In most modern dialects, however, imala is a default development, only hindered by certain adjacent consonants (especially emphatics).
Pronunciation
Noun
imala (usually uncountable, plural imalas)
- (phonetics) a sound change in Arabic by which the vowels /a/, /aː/ are fronted in certain phonetic environments (possibly creating new phonemes, notably in Maltese and to a lesser degree in some dialects)
Serbo-Croatian
Participle
imala (Cyrillic spelling имала)