' (, also be transcribed as ') 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 a ...

(the others being , , , , ). In

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

it represents . In name and shape, it is a variant of (). Its numerical value is 700 (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 ...

). The Arabic letter is named '. It is written in several ways depending in its position in the word: 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 Sou ...

retained a symbol for , . When representing this sound in transliteration of Arabic into Hebrew, it is written as . This sound is found in English, as in the words "those" or "then". In English the sound is normally rendered " dh" when transliterated from foreign languages, but when it occurs in English words it is one of the pronunciations occurring for the letters " th".

Pronunciations

Between and within contemporary

varieties of Arabic The varieties (or dialects or vernacular languages) of Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family originating in the Arabian Peninsula, are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. There are considerable variati ...

, pronunciation of the letter ' differs: * The

Gulf A gulf is a large inlet from the ocean into the landmass, typically with a narrower opening than a bay, but that is not observable in all geographic areas so named. The term gulf was traditionally used for large highly-indented navigable bodies ...

, Iraqi, Tunisian dialects use the Classical and Modern Standard sound of . * In

Maghrebi Arabic Maghrebi Arabic (, Western Arabic; as opposed to Eastern or Mashriqi Arabic) is a vernacular Arabic dialect continuum spoken in the Maghreb region, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Western Sahara, and Mauritania. It includes Moroccan, Al ...

, it is consistently pronounced as the

voiced dental plosive The voiced alveolar, dental and postalveolar plosives (or stops) are types of consonantal sounds used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosiv ...

. * In Hejazi Arabic, it merges with or depending on the word. Furthermore it keeps its classical value in some Classical Arabic words. * In the

Mashriq The Mashriq ( ar, ٱلْمَشْرِق), sometimes spelled Mashreq or Mashrek, is a term used by Arabs to refer to the eastern part of the Arab world, located in Western Asia and eastern North Africa. Poetically the "Place of Sunrise", th ...

(in the broad sense, including

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 ...

, Sudanese and Levantine dialects), it becomes a sibilant

voiced alveolar fricative The voiced alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being described. * The symbol for the alveolar sibilant ...

. Furthermore, in words fully assimilated into a Mashriq dialect, the sound has merged with (). Regardless of these regional differences, the pattern of the speaker's variety of Arabic frequently intrudes into otherwise Modern Standard speech; this is widely accepted, and is the norm when speaking the

mesolect A post-creole continuum (or simply creole continuum) is a dialect continuum of varieties of a creole language between those most and least similar to the superstrate language (that is, a closely related language whose speakers assert or asserted d ...

known alternately as ''lugha wusṭā'' ("middling/compromise language") or ''ʿAmmiyyat/Dārijat al-Muṯaqqafīn'' ("Educated/Cultured Colloquial") used in the informal speech of educated Arabs of different countries. (cf. Arabic dialect#Formal vs. vernacular speech)

Pronunciations

See also