Ḏāl
Ḏāl (ذ, also be transcribed as dhāl) is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet
Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet
Phoenician alphabet (the others being ṯāʾ, ḫāʾ, ḍād, ẓāʾ, ġayn). In Modern Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic it represents /ð/. In name and shape, it is a variant of dāl (د). Its numerical value is 700 (see abjad numerals). The Arabic
Arabic letter ذ is named ذال ḏāl. It is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

Position in word: Isolated Final Medial Initial

Glyph form: ذ‬ ـذ‬ ـذ‬ ذ‬

The South Arabian alphabet
South Arabian alphabet retained a symbol for ḏ, . When representing this sound in transliteration of Arabic
Arabic into Hebrew, it is written as ד׳‬. 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[edit] Between and within contemporary varieties of Arabic, pronunciation of the letter ḏāl differs:

The Gulf, Iraqi, Tunisian dialects use the Classical and Modern Standard sound of [ð]. In Maghrebi Arabic, it is consistently pronounced as the voiced dental plosive [d̪]. In Hejazi Arabic, it merges with /d/ or /z/ depending on the word. Furthermore it keeps its classical value /ð/ in some Classical Arabic words. In the Mashriq
Mashriq (in the broad sense, including Egyptian, Sudanese and Levantine dialects), it becomes a sibilant voiced alveolar fricative [z]. Furthermore, in words fully assimilated into a Mashriq
Mashriq dialect, the sound has merged with /d/ (د).

Regardless of these regional differences, the pattern of the speaker's variety of Arabic
Arabic frequently intrudes into otherwise Modern Standard speech; this is widely accepted, and is the norm when speaking the mesolect 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
Arabic dialect#Formal vs. vernacular speech) See also[edit]

Arabic
Arabic phonology

v t e

Arabic
Arabic language

Overviews

Language Alphabet History Romanization Numerology Influence on other languages

Alphabet

Nabataean alphabet Perso- Arabic
Arabic alphabet Ancient North Arabian Ancient South Arabian script

Zabūr script

Arabic
Arabic numerals Eastern numerals Arabic
Arabic Braille

Algerian

Diacritics

i‘jām Tashkil Harakat Tanwin Shaddah

Hamza Tāʾ marbūṭah

Letters

ʾAlif Bāʾ Tāʾ

Tāʾ marbūṭah

Ṯāʾ Ǧīm Ḥāʾ Ḫāʾ Dāl Ḏāl Rāʾ Zāy Sīn Šīn Ṣād Ḍād Ṭāʾ Ẓāʾ ʿAyn Ġayn Fāʾ Qāf Kāf Lām Mīm Nūn Hāʾ

Tāʾ marbūṭah

Wāw Yāʾ Hamza

Notable varieties

Ancient

Proto-Arabic Old Arabic Ancient North Arabian Old South Arabian

Standardized

Classical Modern Standard Maltese[a]

Regional

Nilo-Egyptian Levantine Maghrebi

Pre-Hilalian dialects Hilalian dialects Moroccan Darija Tunisian Arabic Sa'idi Arabic

Mesopotamian Peninsular

Yemeni Arabic Tihamiyya Arabic

Sudanese Chadian Modern South Arabian

Ethnic / religious

Judeo-Arabic

Pidgins/Creoles

Juba Arabic Nubi language Babalia Creole Arabic Maridi Arabic Maltese

Academic

Literature Names

Linguistics

Phonology Sun and moon letters ʾIʿrāb (inflection) Grammar Triliteral root Mater lectionis IPA Quranic Arabic
Arabic Corpus

Calligraphy Script

Diwani Jawi script Kufic Rasm Mashq Hijazi script Muhaqqaq Thuluth Naskh (script) Ruqʿah script Taʿlīq script Nastaʿlīq script Shahmukhī script Sini (script)

Technical

Arabic
Arabic keyboard Arabic script
Arabic script in Unicode ISO/IEC 8859-6 Windows-1256 MS-DOS codepages

708 709 710 711 720 864

Mac Arabic
Arabic encoding

aSociolinguistically not Arabic

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The Northwest Semitic abjad

ʾ

b

g

d

h

w

z

ḥ

ṭ

y

k

l

m

n

s

ʿ

p

ṣ

q

r

š

t

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 200 300 400

History Phoenician

Paleo-Hebrew

Heb