Constraints in Phoneme Learning of Hijaiyyah for Ghairu al-Natiq in

Indonesian Context

Irfan, M. Alvin Wahid, Rohmani Nur Indah

Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang, Indonesia

Keywords: Difficulty, Foreigners, Hijaiyyah Phoneme.

Abstract: This article discusses the phonological constraints of hijaiyah phonemes for ghairu al-natiq (non-native

speaker) particularly for Indonesian learner among children, teenagers, and adults. Pronouncing the

phoneme of hijaiyyah letter and latin letters has its own difficulties because some hijaiyyah phonemes does

not exist in the latin letters phoneme and the sound symbol system used is also different. Related to this issue,

this study employs qualitative descriptive by collecting data through interview and observation to the ghairu

al-natiq society. The finding shows that the constraints are context specific. For children, the difficulty occurs

due to inadequate educational facilities in learning hijaiyyah letters; lack of teacher's competence in the way

of mentioning the eloquent hijaiyyah phoneme; limited availability of study time lack of motivation. In adult

learners, the issue is related to the absence of habituation to pronouncing hijaiyyah letters. More specifically

for beginners who want to learn makhoriju al- huruf find a challenge in pronouncing the phoneme and sub-

letters.

1 INTRODUCTION

The pronunciation of the phoneme of hijaiyyah letter

cannot be separated from the problems faced by the

speech community of other language users. For

ghairu al-natiq or non-native speaker pronunciation

of the phoneme of hijaiyyah letters is something

different from the pronunciation of the Latin font

phonemes so that in its application sometimes always

encounter obstacles that have a very significant

impact on the meaning of the language itself.

For Indonesian ghairu al-natiq in the context of

the pronunciation of the phonemes of the hijaiyyah

letters, there are differences and pronunciation

similarities with phonemes in Indonesian. Therefore

to be able to read it well and eloquently requires

precision and tenacity (Huda, 2012:17). Indonesian

alphabet and hijaiyyah have differences in phoneme

pronunciation, so that many children, adolescents and

adults experience difficulties in articulation or

pronunciation of the phoneme of hijaiyyah letters.

Under certain conditions, errors in pronunciation

of the phoneme of the hijaiyyah letter can even cause

changes in the meaning of language that can provide

misunderstanding between one speaker and another

speaker. For that reason, ghairu al-natiq must have

phonological awareness to produce the correct

phoneme articulation of the hijaiyyah letter.

The phoneme learning of hijaiyyah letters in

Indonesia has long been applied but the rules

inhijaiyah letters are not taken seriously, as the

common purpose is only to be able to recite the Quran

well (Aziz, 2002). Indeed, various institutions in the

pesantren, madrasah diniyah, surauand in formal

education institutions have taught the sound of

language called makharijulsurat in tajwid. In

addition, the sound or phoneme of the hijaiyyah letter

is not always properly considered in learning Arabic.

The impact on students who have long studied

Arabic, especially the articulation of the phoneme of

the hijaiyyah letters, is often found to be a mistake

that can the meaning of the words.

The difficulty of the Arabic phoneme articulation

is often confused with mother tongue. In the study of

Indonesian students, the emergence of interference

was found (Thoyib&Hamidah, 2017).Interference as

part of phonological events can occur because of

contact between two languages, namely the

interaction of Arabic and Indonesian. It is an error

caused by the tendency and habit of narrating another

language both from sound, grammar, new

vocabulary, and even from a cultural perspective.

Irfan, ., Wahid, M. and Indah, R.

Constraints in Phoneme Learning of Hijaiyyah for Ghairu al-Natiq in Indonesian Context.

DOI: 10.5220/0009916800810086

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Recent Innovations (ICRI 2018), pages 81-86

ISBN: 978-989-758-458-9

Language interference may also occurwhen

reading the Qur'an. In this case, it may ruin the

meaning contained in the Qur'an and result in

incorrect understanding of the context for speakers

and listeners. Therefore, this study concerns with the

problems of phoneme acquisition of hijaiyyah letters

for speakers of ghairu al-natiq which could be

difficulties and challenges. The aim is to uncover the

description of the difficulty of the phoneme of the

hijaiyyah letter by comparing between their

pronunciation of the hijaiyyah letters and the Latin

phonemes. The ghairu al-natiqobseved covers

children, teenagers and adults.

2 THEORETICAL REVIEW

2.1 Understanding the Phoneme of

Hijaiyyah

Phonemes are units of the smallest functional

language that distinguishes the meaning of words

(Achmad,2012).Phonemes are also more abstract

units (Rusmaji, 1995). If the phoneme is related to the

sound of a letter, the letter is the symbolic system of

phonemes. To find out a sound including part of font

or become part of the phoneme, it is necessary to

from its minimal pairs or similar word having

difference in meaning, for example in Arabic there is

the word "  : shajar sijran: waqalb

wakalab.Latin letters or words composed of hijaiyyah

letters have similarities between one and another but

differ in sound and meaning as characterized by their

phonemes.

Letter is a sign of the alphabet in the kitabah

(written order) which is based on the alphabet

symbolizing the sound of the language while the

hijaiyyah letter is the Arabic letter which consists

of"alif"to"ya"(KBI, 2012) which is a symbol of the

sound of a language. Therefore, between Indonesian

phoneme and Arabic phoneme have very significant

difference. For example in the alphabet or letters ain,

ghoin, cha, kha, qof, tsa, dzal, sho, dho, syin  , 

, , , , , , , contain differences that may result

in difficulties for ghoirual-natiq.

In Indonesian there are phoneme classifications

based on their respective parts which also occurs in

other languages, especially Arabic. The following is

the classification of suprasegmental phonemes of

hijaiyyah letters(Achmad, 2002).

2.1.1 Vocalphonemes

The vowel phoneme is "the sound of language

produced by involving sound without any narrowing

or closure in some articulation places (Verhaar,

2001). Hijaiyyah letter covers three variations of the

vowel symbol namely variation (a) which in rabic is

denoted by (



); variations (i) which are added in

rabic(



); variations (u) which are denoted in rabic

(



). Of the three symbolic shapes above each hasa

partner but is different in terms of pronunciation and

usage, whichdoes not exist in Latin symbol, including

the symbol of sound (a) being the symbol of sound

(a˜) whichinArabic is written ()andread longer

because of the entry of mad thabi’i in the form of alif;

the symbol of sound (i )becomes the symbol of sound

(i˜) which is written in Arabic ()that isread

longeralso because of the entry of mad thabi'i in the

form of a letter huh; and the phoneme (u) becomes the

symbol of sound (u˜) which is written in Arabic

()to be read longer due to mad thabi'i in the form

ofwawsukun.

2.1.2 Diphthong Phonemes

Besides knowing vocal phonemes, Arabic also

recognizes diphthong sounds. It is called diphtong or

double vowel because of the position of the tongue

when producing this sound at the beginning and the

final part is not the same(Chaer, 2007). The

diphthong phoneme in Arabic learning, especially

learning hijaiyyah letters, has only two variations:

variation (ai) or in the Arabic form () as an

example in the words

 and variations (au ) or

in Arabic () for example

the word .Both

diphthong phonemes have their own symbol, both

fatha symbols included with wau or fatha symbols

which are included in the letter ya’ and produce

different diphthong phonemes although both begin

with the fathasymbol.

2.1.3 Consonant Phonemes

Consonant phonemes are sounds produced by

using articulation in one part of the speech

tools(Verhaar, 2001). Arabic has 28 alphabets which

are all consonants. Of all the alphabets which have

different phonetics or letters (  )so that the

phonemes produced by each letter are different and

greatly affect its meaning(Abdrabo,2018).

In addition to phoneme classification, there are

also reasons why a phoneme can change and some of

the factors that influence it,including:

2.1.4 Assimilation and Dissimilation

Assimilation is the event of changing a sound to

another sound as a result of the sound in the

ICRI 2018 - International Conference Recent Innovation

environment so that the sound becomes the same as

the sound that influences it(Achmad, 2012). In

Indonesian, things like this are very often

encountered andeven become a habit when speaking.

For example in the word Sabtu (Saturday), it is

commonly pronouncedsaptu by using phoneme (p)

instead of (b) which is influenced by the next

consonant "t". In Arabic such assimilation is also

found in

which was originally read by phoneme

() that becomes () calledmutajanisain in the

recitation language



2.1.5 Archiphoneme

In the previous discussion it has been explained

that the phoneme function is to distinguish meaning

of the word with its minimal pair. For example in the

words of the abad and abat, the first uses uses

phonemes (d) while the second uses phonemes (t)

(Achmad, 2012).Or in words  and the first word

uses phonemes "" while the second word using

phoneme ().It shows different phonemes, but cannot

distinguish the two meanings, so calledarchiphoneme

2.1.6 Contraction

Contraction is a form of shortening from long

speech to short (Achmad, 2012). In Indonesian, it is

also often found in written form or when speaking.

For example, in Indonesian, which is found in the

phrase tidak, it is said in a word tak, in Arabic it is

revealed that it is initially long into a short utterance

in the sense of beingspecified.

2.1.7 Metathesis

The process of metathesis is changing the

phoneme sequence contained in a word (Achmad,

2012). Changes in the phoneme sequence contained

in it are in the same word form. For example, in words

nabi may formbina and banior in the word found

also in the form  and .All changes in the form of

the word come from one syllable and form various

kinds of words having their own meaning with the

utterance of their own phonemes.

2.2 Speaker of Ghoiru al-Natiq

One of the effects of the development of language

is the term ghairu al-natiqwho often experiences

Arabic phoneme difficulties that are influenced by

lahjah (style of language). As foreigners who learn

Arabic phonemes from various ages and are based on

different goals, there are certainly many unique

experiences when learning the pronunciation of

Arabic phonemes . Learning the phoneme of hijaiyah

letters for Ghairu Al-Natiq must to be able to recite

the phoneme of the hijaiyyah letter fluently that can

provide meaningful understanding when speaking

with others usingArabic.

3 METHOD

In this study a qualitative research design was

applied to describe the difficulty of the hijaiyah

phoneme for ghairual- natiq (foreigners). While this

type of research uses naturalistic methods.

Naturalistic methods are used in natural places, and

researchers do not make treatment, because

researchers in collecting data are emic, that is based

on the views of data sources, not the views of

researchers(Sugiono,2012)

Data collection instruments involve observation

and interviews with ghairunatiqin (foreigners). This

study took some different samples including: the age

of children, adolescents and adults who all have

different backgrounds. In the first group, it

represented the age children, the participants are fifth

grade students of SDN Dadaprejo, Indonesia. Second,

those who represent adolescents are some students of

the University of Muhammadiyah Malang, Indonesia.

Third, the alumni of DarulLughah Islamic boarding

school Wa-AddakwaBangilPasuruan, Indonesia who

are currently studying at the IAIN Jember. This group

are advanced Aranic learners as its member covers

winners of an Arabic debate competition. Bali in 2017

and graduate student of the Department of Islamic

Education Malang State Islamic University.

This study chose participants from different ages

to describe differences in learning hijaiyah

phonemesand to see the sociocultural diversity in

each participant. In addition it involves different

levels of education and environments to find the

influece of sociocultural aspects.

In this study, the analysis is used to process data,

organize and solve it in smaller units, to look for

similar patterns or themes (Raco, 2010). This

technique helps to interpret the data needed to

develop various conclusions in accordance with the

theories that form the basis of this research. The data

collected then goes through a data reduction process

which means summarizing, choosing key things,

focusing on important things, looking for themes and

patterns and removing unnecessary things (Sugiyono,

2016). The results of data interpretation is in the form

of descriptions of difficulties in studying phoneme

hijaiyah are then confirmed by comparison between

the results of the research and information derived

Constraints in Phoneme Learning of Hijaiyyah for Ghairu al-Natiq in Indonesian Context

from the literature or theory (Creswell, 2016). As the

final step is to draw conclusions that focus on the

cause of the problem of difficulty learning the

phoneme hijaiyah and the solutions given.

4 FINDINGS & DISCUSSIONS

In the group of children, based on the results of

interviews and observations found some findings of

pronunciation difficulties. There are several causes of

difficulty in pronouncing the phoneme of hijaiyyah

letters, including: inadequate educational facilities in

learning hijaiyyah letters; lack of teacher's

competence in the way of mentioning the eloquent

hijaiyyah phoneme; limited availability of time to

study the phoneme of the hijaiyyah letter; and lack of

movifation of children in studying the phoneme of the

hijaiyyah letter.

In the group representing teenagers, two

respondents from the interview said "pronouncing the

phoneme of hijaiyyah letters is different from

pronouncing the Latin letters so that to read the

Qur'an we have difficulty pronouncing the letters in

fluent terms and again our culture is different from

the Arabs" according with this exposure, the writer

describes that the difficulty of pronouncing the

phoneme of the hijaiyyah letter is influenced by

several factors, including: the phoneme of the

hijaiyyah letter is different from the Latin font;

cultural differences

of the rab community

&Ghairul- Natiq; lack of attention to the al-letters

. This is in line with the finding on

research on bilingual context where the phonological

awareness on second language is affected by mother

tongue(Lin, et al.2018, Kim., 2009; Luo et al., 2014).

Third, the respondents who represent adult age

obtained information that "Arabic phonemes

(hijaiyah letters) are easier to learn and practice

because all the letters of hijaiyah have nothing in

common with other hijaiyah letters, but the difficulty

is due to the absence of habituation to the

pronunciation of hijaiyyah letters. or accustomed to

but never learned the way in which the phonemes of

Arabic (hijaiyah letters) are eloquent ". In addition,

respondents explained that "Arabic, especially the

pronunciation of the phoneme of the hijaiyyah letter

is something that has its own difficulties, more

specifically for beginners who want to learn

makhoriju al-huruf, it must find a challenge in

pronouncing the phoneme because each letter of the

hijaiyya letters has a phoneme articulation or what is

commonly referred to as sub-letters.

From the observations, the difficulty of

pronouncing hijaiyah by non-soeaker speakers is

dominated by errors in the following consonant

phonemes:/ f /, /  /, / q /, /  /, /  /, /  /, / z /, /  /, / x

/ /  /, /  /, / ð /,/  / , /  /, and / h /

This finding supports the results of research

conducted in the context of learners at a university in

Jakarta(Thoyib et al., 2017). Thus it is very clear that

the phoneme of pronunciation of hijaiyyah letters has

a different level of complexity than other language

phonemes. Even native speakers of Arabic can also

find it difficult to pronounce other languages as

research at a university in Oman. Arabic speakers

who do not understand phonological metacognition

will find it difficult to distinguish phoneme

pronunciation methods that are different from their

mother tongue(Chouchane, 2016). Each phoneme has

its own articulation which certainly presents its own

challenges for beginners who want to learn Arabic

List of the phonemes that become the challenges

for non native speakers (ghairu al natiq) found in this

study is also in line with the finding of classification

of Arabic letters [9] namely

The strongest letters: all its qualities are strong

orhave only one characteristicweak.

Strong letters: their strong qualities are more

thantheir weakqualities.

Medium letters: their strong and weak qualities

areequal.

Weak letters: their weak qualities are more

thantheir strongqualities.

The weakest letters: all of their qualities are

weakor have one strongcharacteristic.

Based on the results of observations and

interviews, it was concluded that the research

participants were very bound to the sociocultural

aspects of themselves. This aspect broadly covers the

habits of culture and language that are inherited

between generations (Ibrahim, 2017: 69). This aspect

can distinguish how further development of each

individual (Rohendi, 2009). In relation to the people

of ghairu al-natiq, sociocultural actually plays an

important role in the development of Arabic,

especially in articulating phonemes in accordance

with the rules of makhorijul al-hurf (place and

manner of articulation). Thus, the sociocultural

conditions that differ between individuals with other

individuals have an influence on the level of fluency

in articulating a phoneme.

ICRI 2018 - International Conference Recent Innovation

In addition, environmental factor is also reported

to have a significant influence which includes all

materials and stimuli inside and outside the

individual, both physiological, psychological, and

socio-cultural. (Dalyono 2007). In research subjects

who develop Arabic in a supportive environment, the

difficulty of articulating phonemes can be overcome

in the process of communication interaction. As for

subjects who do not get enough exposure, they cannot

develop phonological awareness to improve their

phoneme articulation.

In this study the participants were taken from

different educational backgrounds. Education is an

effort or process that is intended to foster the quality

of human resources as a whole so that he can perform

his role in life functionally and optimally (Zulhijrah,

2015). In the world of education, educators have a

very large contribution to the achievement of

educational goals through interaction (Muslimin,

2016). Regardingghairu al-natiqit is obvious that the

educational factor influences different results in the

mastery of phonology hijaiyah. Subjects who get an

understanding of phonemes can eloquently develop

their pronunciation skills themselves.

5 CONCLUSION

Based on the finding, this study found several factors

of difficulty in pronouncing the phoneme of hijaiyah

letters both from the ages of children, adolescents,

and adults. Among them it is reported that the

difficulty is due to the difference between

hijaiyyahand the phoneme of the Latin letter; the

native speaker culture or tsaqofah is different from

the speakers of ghairu al-natiq. There is a difference

oflahjah between native speakers and speakers of

ghairu al-natiq. It is also reported that lack of

educator competency towards understanding and

pronunciation of phonemes of hijaiyyah letters can be

a significant factor. Besides, other factors cover

limited time availability in learning hijaiyyah letter

phonemes in both formal and non-formal

environments and lack of motivation of students in

learning the science of makhoriju al-huruf.Another

important factor is the influence of environmental

conditions where the speaker ghairu al-natiqresides.

Apart from the factors described above, the

phonological awareness of ghairu al-natiqin

articulatinghijaiyah letter is not separated from the

bi'ah or the habit of reciting phonemes of the hijaiyah

letter according to the makhorijual-huruf.

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