majhul

Noun

majhul (plural majhuls)

1. A vowel phoneme that does not have a phonemic equivalent in Classical Arabic.
   • The New Persian [of Iran], as is well known, has confused in many words the majhūl (' unknown [to the Arabs]' =Persian sounds) vowels ē, ō with the ma'rūf ('known [to the Arabs]'=Arabic sounds) vowels ī, ū.
     The Judaeo-Persian and the Baluci, like the Indian pronunciation of New Persian, maintain...1902, Indo-Iranian phonology (Indo-Iranian Series), volume 2, United States: The Columbia University Press
   • The majhul sounds o and e are still preserved in the Persian spoken by Afghans and Indians, but they are now unknown in Persia.1919, D.C. Phillott, Higher Persian Grammar
2. (broadly) A semivowel, or other vocalic character, with a reading that is phonemically distinct from its normal pronunciation in Classical Arabic.
   • [...] there are two kinds of Yā in Persian, namely, the Ma'rūf and the Majhūl. The Ma'rūf or known Yā is the Yā which occurs in such words as رقیب, تیر, شیر (milk), دید, پیل etc., while the Majhūl or Unknown Yā occurs in words such as خویش, تیز, شیر (lion), سپید etc.1921, “The Unknown Yā in Persian”, in Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Poona, volumes 3-4, pages 86-87
   • If the stem ends in either ی-ma'rūf (i) or ی-majhul (e), the letter ج is inserted, for the sake of euphony, between the stem and the termination: e.g., from پینا to drink, we have پینجیئے, پیجیو, and پیجییگا, from دینا we have دیجیئے, etc.1910, R. C. Busher, A Complete Urdu Course Consisting of the Essentials of Grammar, Progressive Exercises, Readinglessons and Vocabularies, Longmans, Green and Co.
3. (broadly) A conditional allophone of a vowel phoneme that appears in proximity to certain guttural consonants.