ʾIʿrab

I‘rāb (إﻋﺮﺍﺏ IPA: [ʔiʕraːb]) is an Arabic term for the system of nominal, adjectival, or verbal suffixes of Classical Arabic. These suffixes are written in fully vocalized Arabic texts, notably the Qur’ān or texts written for children or Arabic learners, and they are articulated when a text is formally read aloud, but they do not survive in any spoken dialect of Arabic. Even in Literary Arabic, these suffixes are often not pronounced in pausa (الوقف al-waqf); i.e. when the word occurs at the end of the sentence, in accordance with certain rules of Arabic pronunciation. (That is, the nunation suffix -n is always dropped at the end of a sentence or line of poetry; the vowel suffix may or may not be, depending on the requirements of metre.) Depending on the knowledge of i‘rāb, some Arabic speakers may omit case endings when reading out in Modern Standard Arabic, thus making it similar to spoken dialects. Many Arabic textbooks for foreigners teach Arabic without a heavy focus on i‘rāb, either omitting the endings altogether or only giving a small introduction. Arabic without case endings may require a different and strict word order, similar to spoken Arabic dialects.