result, which are broken up by epenthetic short vowels, automatically inserted by phonological rules. In these respects (as in many others), Moroccan Arabic has the most extreme changes, with all three short vowels , , collapsing to a schwa , which is then deleted in nearly all contexts. This variety, in fact, has essentially lost the quantitative distinction between short and long vowels in favor of a new qualitative distinction between unstable "reduced" vowels (especially ) and stable, half-long "full" vowels , , (the reflexes of original long vowels). Classical Arabic words borrowed into Moroccan Arabic are pronounced entirely with "full" vowels regardless of the length of the original vowel. Phonologies of different Arabic dialects The main dialectal variations in Arabic consonants revolve around the six consonants; , , , , and : Grayed ones are also standard pronunciations. Cairene The Arabic of Cairo (often called "Egyptian Arabic" or more correctly "Cairene Arabic") is a typical sedentary variety and a de facto standard variety among certain segments of the Arabic-speaking population, due to the dominance of Egyptian media. Watson adds emphatic labials and and emphatic to Cairene Arabic with marginal phonemic status. Cairene has also merged the interdental consonants with the dental plosives (e.g. ثلاثة → , 'three') except in loanwords from Classical Arabic where they are nativized as sibilant fricatives (e.g. ثانوية → , 'secondary school'). Cairene speakers pronounce as and debuccalized to (again, loanwords from Classical Arabic have reintroduced the earlier sound or approximated to with the front vowel around it changed to the back vowel ). Classical Arabic diphthongs and became realized as and respectively. Still, Egyptian Arabic sometimes has minimal pairs like شايلة ('carrying' f.s.) vs شيلة ('burden'). جيب 'pocket' + نا 'our' → collapsing with which means (جبنة 'cheese' or جيبنا 'our pocket'), because Cairene phonology cannot have long vowels before two consonants. Cairene also has as a marginal phoneme from loanwords from languages other than Classical Arabic. Sanaa Varieties such as that of Sanaa, Yemen, are more conservative and retain most phonemic contrasts of Classical Arabic. Sanaani possesses as a reflex of Classical (which still functions as an emphatic consonant). In unstressed syllables, Sanaani short vowels may be reduced to . is voiced to in initial and intervocalic positions. Distribution The most frequent consonant phoneme is , the rarest is . The frequency distribution of the 28 consonant phonemes, based on the 2,967 triliteral