| Ẓāʾ | |
|---|---|
| Arabic | ظ |
| Phonemic representation | ðˤ,(zˤ,dˤ) |
| Position in alphabet | 27 |
| Numerical value | 900 |
| Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician | |
| Ẓāʾ ظاء | |
|---|---|
| ظ | |
| Usage | |
| Writing system | Arabic script |
| Type | Abjad |
| Language of origin | Arabic language |
| Sound values | |
| Alphabetical position | 17 |
| History | |
| Development |
|
| Other | |
| Writing direction | Right-to-left |
| This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. | |
Ẓāʾ, orḏ̣āʾ (ظ), is the seventeenth letter of theArabic alphabet, one of the six letters not in the twenty-two akin to thePhoenician alphabet (the others beingṯāʾ,ḫāʾ,ḏāl,ḍād,ġayn). In name and shape, it is a variant ofṭāʾ. Its numerical value is 900 (seeAbjad numerals). It is related to theAncient North Arabian 𐪜, andSouth Arabian𐩼.
Ẓāʾظَاءْ 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 |
Ẓāʾ is the rarest phoneme of the Arabic language. Out of 2,967 triliteral roots listed byHans Wehr in his1952 dictionary, only 42 (1.4%) containظ.[1]Ẓāʾ is the least mentioned letter in theQuran, only being mentioned 853 times in the Quran.
In relation to other Semitic languages
In some reconstructions ofProto-Semitic phonology, there is anemphatic interdental fricative,ṯ̣/ḏ̣ ([θˤ] or[ðˤ]), featuring as the direct ancestor of Arabicẓādʾ, while it merged withṣ in most otherSemitic languages, although theSouth Arabian alphabet retained a symbol forẓ.
InClassical Arabic, it represents avelarized voiced dental fricative[ðˠ], and inModern Standard Arabic, it represents anpharyngealized voiced dental[ðˤ] but can also be a alveolar[zˤ] fricative for a number of speakers.
In most Arabic vernacularsظẓāʾ andضḍād merged quite early.[2] The outcome depends on the dialect. In those varieties (such asEgyptian andLevantine), where thedental fricatives/θ/ and/ð/ are merged with thedental stops/t/ and/d/,ẓādʾ is pronounced/dˤ/ or/zˤ/ depending on the word; e.g.ظِل is pronounced/dˤɪl/ butظاهِر is pronounced/zˤaːhɪr/, In loanwords from Classical Arabicẓāʾ is often/zˤ/, e.g. Egyptianʿaẓīm (< Classicalعظيمʿaḏ̣īm) "great".[2][3][4]
In the varieties (such asBedouin,Tunisian, andIraqi), where the dental fricatives are preserved, bothḍād andẓāʾ are pronounced/ðˤ/.[2][3][5][6] However, there are dialects in South Arabia and inMauritania where both the letters are kept different but not consistently.[2]
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.[2] However, there do exist Arabic borrowings intoIbero-Romance languages as well asHausa andMalay, whereḍād andẓāʾ are differentiated.[2]
In English, the sound is sometimes represented by the digraphzh.
| Languages / Countries | Pronunciation of the letters | |
|---|---|---|
| ض | ظ | |
| Modern South Arabian languages (Mehri, Shehri, Harsusi) | /ɬʼ/ | /θʼ~ðʼ/ |
| Standard Arabic (full distinction) | /dˤ/ | /ðˤ/ |
| Most of the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, and Tunisia. Partial in: Libya, Jordan, Syria, and Palestine | /ðˤ/ | |
| Most of Algeria, and Morocco. Partial in: Libya, Tunisia and Yemen | /dˤ/ | |
| Most of Egypt, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. Partial in: Jordan, and Saudi Arabia | /dˤ/ | /dˤ/,/zˤ/* |
| Mauritania, Partial in: Morocco | /ðˤ/,/dˤ/* | /ðˤ/ |
Notes:
| Semitic emphatic sibilant consonants[8] | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proto-Semitic | Old South Arabian | Old North Arabian | Modern South Arabian1 | Standard Arabic | Aramaic | Modern Hebrew | Ge'ez | Phoenician | Akkadian | ||||||
| ṣ | [sʼ]/[tsʼ] | 𐩮 | 𐪎 | /sʼ/,rarely/ʃʼ/ | ص | /sˤ/ | צ | ṣ | צ | /t͡s/ | ጸ | ṣ | 𐤑 | ṣ | ṣ |
| ṯ̣ | [θʼ] | 𐩼 | 𐪜 | /θʼ~ðˤ/ | ظ | /ðˤ/ | צ,laterט | *ṱ, ṣ, later ṭ | |||||||
| ṣ́ | [ɬʼ]/[tɬʼ] | 𐩳 | 𐪓 | /ɬʼ/ | ض | /dˤ/ | ק,laterע | *ṣ́, q/ḳ, later ʿ | ፀ | ṣ́ | |||||
Notes
| |||||||||||||||
| Preview | ظ | |
|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | ARABIC LETTER ZAD | |
| Encodings | decimal | hex |
| Unicode | 1592 | U+0638 |
| UTF-8 | 216 184 | D8 B8 |
| Numeric character reference | ظ | ظ |
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