, or (), is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the

Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization. The Phoenician alpha ...

(the others being , , , , ). In name and shape, it is a variant of . Its numerical value is 900 (see

Abjad numerals The Abjad numerals, also called Hisab al-Jummal ( ar, حِسَاب ٱلْجُمَّل, ), are a decimal alphabetic numeral system/alphanumeric code, in which the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet are assigned numerical values. They have been us ...

). ' does not change its shape depending on its position in the word:

Pronunciation

Classical Arabic Classical Arabic ( ar, links=no, ٱلْعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ, al-ʿarabīyah al-fuṣḥā) or Quranic Arabic is the standardized literary form of Arabic used from the 7th century and throughout the Middle Ages, most notab ...

, it represents a

velarized Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four diac ...

voiced dental fricative , and in

Modern Standard Arabic Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th ...

, it can also be a

pharyngealized Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound. IPA symbols In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicated ...

voiced dental or alveolar fricative. In most Arabic vernaculars ''ẓāʾ'' and ''

ḍād (), is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being , , , , ). In name and shape, it is a variant of . Its numerical value is 800 (see Abjad numerals). In Modern Stand ...

'' have been merged quite early. The outcome depends on the dialect. In those varieties (such as

Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

Levantine Levantine may refer to: * Anything pertaining to the Levant, the region centered around modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, including any person from the Levant ** Syria (region), corresponding to the modern countries of the Lev ...

and Hejazi), where the

dental fricative The dental fricative or interdental fricative is a fricative consonant pronounced with the tip of the tongue against the teeth. There are several types (those used in English being written as ''th''): *Voiced dental fricative - as in the English ...

s , are merged with the

dental stop In phonetics and phonology, a dental stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the tongue in contact with the upper teeth (hence dental), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence a stop consonant). Dental and alveolar stops are ...

s , , ''ẓāʾ'' is pronounced or depending on the word; e.g. is pronounced but is pronounced , In loanwords from Classical Arabic ''ẓāʾ'' is often , e.g. Egyptian ''ʿaẓīm'' (< Classical ''ʿaḏ̣īm'') "great". In the varieties (such as

Bedouin The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and A ...

and Iraqi), where the dental fricatives are preserved, both ''ḍād'' and ''ẓāʾ'' are pronounced . However, there are dialects in South Arabia and in

Mauritania Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامية ...

where both the letters are kept different but not consistently. A "de-emphaticized" pronunciation of both letters in the form of the plain entered into other non-Arabic languages such as Persian, Urdu, Turkish. However, there do exist Arabic borrowings into

Ibero-Romance languages The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languagesIberian languages is also used as a more inclusive term for all languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, which in antiquity included the non-Indo-European Iberian language. are a ...

as well as

Hausa Hausa may refer to: * Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa * Hausa language, spoken in West Africa * Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states * Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse See also * ...

and

Malay Malay may refer to: Languages * Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore ** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century ** Indonesi ...

, where ''ḍād'' and ''ẓāʾ'' are differentiated.

Statistics

is the rarest phoneme of the Arabic language. Out of 2,967 triliteral roots listed by

Hans Wehr Hans Bodo Gerhardt Wehr (; 5 July 1909, Leipzig24 May 1981, Münster) was a German Arabist. A professor at the University of Münster from 1957–1974, he published the ''Arabisches Wörterbuch'' (1952), which was later published in an Engl ...

in his 1952 dictionary, only 42 (1.4%) contain .

In other Semitic languages

In some reconstructions of

Proto-Semitic Proto-Semitic is the hypothetical reconstructed proto-language ancestral to the Semitic languages. There is no consensus regarding the location of the Proto-Semitic ''Urheimat''; scholars hypothesize that it may have originated in the Levant (m ...

phonology, there is an emphatic interdental fricative, ( or ), featuring as the direct ancestor of Arabic , while it merged with in most other

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...

, although the

South Arabian alphabet The Ancient South Arabian script (Old South Arabian 𐩣𐩯𐩬𐩵 ''ms3nd''; modern ar, الْمُسْنَد ''musnad'') branched from the Proto-Sinaitic script in about the late 2nd millennium BCE. It was used for writing the Old South ...

retained a symbol for .

Writing in the Hebrew alphabet

When representing this sound in transliteration of Arabic into Hebrew, it is written as .

Character encodings

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Za Arabic letters