A detailed description of the Arabic Phonetic System is given. The syllabic behaviour of the Arabic language is highlighted. Basic statistical properties Of the Arabic language (phoneme and syllabic frequency of repetition) are included. A thorough review of the speech processing techniques, used in speech analysis, synthesis and recognition applications are presented. The development of a PC-based speech processing system is described. The system has proven to be a useful tool in Arabic speech analysis and recognition applications. A sample speotrographic study of two pairs of Arabic similar sounds was performed. it is shown that no clear acoustical property exist in distinguishing between the phonemes /O/ and /f/ except the gradual rise of F1 during formant movements (transitions). The development of an automatic Arabic syllabic segmentation algorithm is described. The performance of the algorithm is tested with monosyllabic and multisyllabic words. An overall accuracy of 92% was achieved. The main parameters affecting the accuracy of the segmentation algorithm are discussed. The syllabic units generated from applying the Arabic syllabic segmentation algorithm are utilized in the implementation of three major speech applications, namely, automatic Arabic vowel recognition system, isolated word recognition system and an acoustic-phonetic model for Arabic. Each application is fully described and its performance results are indicated.