Imāla

Imāla (also transliterated imālah ; Arabic: إمالة‎, literally "slanting") is a vowel shift exhibited in many dialects of Arabic, where the open vowel, be it 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 dialects in which it occurs, such as Lebanese Arabic.

Classical Arabic

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

Morphological reasons

Example: الأعلى ([ælʔæʕleː], "the highest")

Phonological reasons