Ẓāʾ, or ḏ̣āʾ (ظ), is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being ṯāʾ, ḫāʾ, ḏāl, ḍād, ġayn). In name and shape, it is a variant of ṭāʾ. Its numerical value is 900 (see Abjad numerals).
Ẓāʾ | |
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Arabic | ظ |
Phonemic representation | ðˤ~zˤ, dˤ |
Position in alphabet | 27 |
Numerical value | 900 |
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician |
Ẓāʾ | |
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ظ | |
Usage | |
Writing system | Arabic script |
Type | Abjad |
Language of origin | Arabic language |
Sound values | ðˤ~zˤ, dˤ |
Alphabetical position | 17 |
History | |
Development |
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Other | |
Writing direction | Right-to-left |
This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. |
Ẓāʾ ظَاءْ does not change its shape depending on its position in the word:
Position in word | Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial |
---|---|---|---|---|
Glyph form: (Help) |
ظ | ـظ | ـظـ | ظـ |
InClassical Arabic, it represents a velarized voiced dental fricative [ðˠ], and in Modern Standard Arabic, it can also be a pharyngealized voiced dental [ðˤ] or alveolar [zˤ] fricative.
In most Arabic vernaculars ظ ẓāʾ and ض ḍād merged quite early.[1] The outcome depends on the dialect. In those varieties (such as Egyptian, Levantine and Hejazi), where the dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/ are merged with the dental stops /t/ and /d/, ẓādʾ is pronounced /dˤ/or/zˤ/ depending on the word; e.g. ظِل is pronounced /dˤɪl/ but ظاهِر is pronounced /zˤaːhɪr/, In loanwords from Classical Arabic ẓāʾ is often /zˤ/, e.g. Egyptian ʿaẓīm (< Classical عظيم ʿaḏ̣īm) "great".[1][2][3]
In the varieties (such as Bedouin and Iraqi), where the dental fricatives are preserved, both ḍād and ẓāʾ are pronounced /ðˤ/.[1][2][4][5] However, there are dialects in South Arabia and in Mauritania where both the letters are kept different but not consistently.[1]
A "de-emphaticized" pronunciation of both letters in the form of the plain /z/ entered into other non-Arabic languages such as Persian, Urdu, Turkish.[1] However, there do exist Arabic borrowings into Ibero-Romance languages as well as Hausa and Malay, where ḍād and ẓāʾ are differentiated.[1]
Ẓāʾ is the rarest phoneme of the Arabic language. Out of 2,967 triliteral roots listed by Hans Wehr in his 1952 dictionary, only 42 (1.4%) contain ظ.[6] It is the only Arabic letter not used in any country names in Arabic.
In some reconstructions of Proto-Semitic phonology, there is an emphatic interdental fricative, ṯ̣/ḏ̣ ([θˤ]or[ðˤ]), featuring as the direct ancestor of Arabic ẓādʾ, while it merged with ṣ in most other Semitic languages, although the South Arabian alphabet retained a symbol for ẓ.
Often, words that have ظ ẓāʾ, ص ṣād, and ض ḍād in Arabic have cognates with צ tsadi in Hebrew.
When representing this sound in transliteration of Arabic into Hebrew, it is written as ט׳ tet and a geresh or with a normal ז zayin.
Preview | ظ | |
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Unicode name | ARABIC LETTER ZAD | |
Encodings | decimal | hex |
Unicode | 1592 | U+0638 |
UTF-8 | 216 184 | D8 B8 |
Numeric character reference | ظ |
ظ |