What are the pharyngeals ħ and ʕ?

ح is the voiceless pharyngeal fricative /ħ/ and ع is the voiced pharyngeal fricative /ʕ/. Both are produced by constricting the pharynx and have no English equivalent, which is why explicit IPA symbols matter.

How does shadda work?

Shadda (ّ) marks gemination — a doubled consonant. The tool repeats the IPA of the consonant it sits on, so رَبّ transcribes with /bb/. A harakat on a shadda'd letter still applies after the geminate.

Are emphatic consonants shown?

Yes. ص ط ض ظ are the emphatic (pharyngealized) counterparts of س ت د/ذ and surface as /sˤ tˤ dˤ ðˤ/ with the superscript ˤ diacritic in IPA.

Does it transcribe long vowels?

Long vowels appear when ا و ي act as matres lectionis after the matching short vowel, giving /aː uː iː/. Unvowelled text cannot disambiguate these, so add harakat for accurate vowel length.

Arabic IPA Transcription Tool

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Arabic IPA transcription maps Modern Standard Arabic orthography to International Phonetic Alphabet symbols. Arabic’s consonant inventory includes sounds rare in European languages — pharyngeals, emphatics, and uvulars — so explicit IPA values are essential for accurate phonemic notation.

How it works

The transcriber walks the text letter by letter. Each Arabic consonant maps to a fixed MSA IPA value; harakat (vowel diacritics) attach to the preceding consonant, and shadda triggers gemination:

ح → /ħ/   ع → /ʕ/     (pharyngeals)
ص → /sˤ/  ط → /tˤ/  ض → /dˤ/  ظ → /ðˤ/   (emphatics)
ق → /q/   خ → /χ/   غ → /ʁ/    (uvulars)
َ ِ ُ → a i u    ا و ي as matres → aː uː iː   (long vowels)
ّ (shadda) → double the consonant it sits on   (gemination)
ْ (sukūn) → no vowel

Hamza ء and the various seats (أ إ ؤ ئ) all map to the glottal stop /ʔ/. The definite article assimilation (sun letters) is not applied — this is a broad letter-by-letter phonemic transcription.

Example and notes

رَبّ (lord) transcribes as /rabb/: the fatḥa gives /a/ and the shadda geminates the /b/. صَحْراء (desert) gives /sˤaħraːʔ/, showing the emphatic /sˤ/, the pharyngeal /ħ/, the long /aː/, and the final glottal stop. For correct vowel length and gemination, supply fully vowelled text; bare consonantal script leaves vowels ambiguous.