ẓāʼ

Encyclopedia : : : : ẓāʼ

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The Arabic alphabet
History · Transliteration Diacritics · hamza {{ar Numerals · Numeration

Ẓāʼ (ﻅ) is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being ṯāʼ, ḫāʼ, ḏāl, ḍād, ġayn). It represents a pharyngealized voiced dental or alveolar fricative (IPA [ðˁ] or [zˁ]). In name and shape, it is a variant of ṭāʼ.

Ẓāʼ is the rarest phoneme of the Arabic language. Out of 2,967 triliteral roots listed by Wehr (1952), only 42 (1.4%) contain ﻅ.

In some reconstructions of Proto-Semitic phonology, there is an emphatic interdental fricative, ṱ (IPA [θˁ] or [ðˁ]), featuring as the direct ancestor of Arabic Ẓāʼ, while it merged with ṣ in most other Semitic languages, although the South Arabian alphabet retained a symbol for ẓ. See also ḍād.

See also

• Arabic phonology

References

• Hans Wehr, Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart (1952)

 

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