Ẓāʾ

Ẓāʾ ظاء
Ẓāʾ ظاء
ظ
Usage
Writing system	Arabic script
Type	Abjad
Language of origin	Arabic language
Sound values	ðˤ (standard); zˤ, dˤ (dialectal);
Alphabetical position	17
History
Development	𐤈 𐡈‎ 𐢋‎ ط; ; ; ;
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.

← *Ḍād*
*Ẓāʾ*
*Ghayn* →
← Ḍād Ẓāʾ Ghayn →
Arabic	ظ‎
Phonemic representation	ðˤ, (zˤ, dˤ)
Position in alphabet	27
Numerical value	900
Alphabetic derivatives of the Phoenician

Ẓāʾ, or ḏ̣āʾ (ظ), is the seventeenth letter of the Arabic alphabet, one of the six letters not in the twenty-two akin to 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). It is related to the Ancient North Arabian 𐪜‎‎, and South Arabian 𐩼.

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

Frequency

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.^[1] Ẓāʾ is the least mentioned letter in the Quran (not including the eight special letters in Arabic), and is only mentioned 853 times in the Quran.

In relation to other Semitic languages

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.

Pronunciation

In Classical Arabic, it represents a velarized voiced dental fricative [ðˠ], and in Modern Standard Arabic, it represents an pharyngealized voiced dental [ðˤ] but can also be a alveolar [zˤ] fricative for a number of speakers.

In most Arabic vernaculars ظ ẓāʾ and ض ḍād merged quite early.^[2] The outcome depends on the dialect. In those varieties (such as Egyptian and Levantine), 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".^[2]^[3]^[4]

In the varieties (such as Bedouin, Tunisian, and Iraqi), where the dental fricatives are preserved, both ḍād and ẓāʾ are pronounced /ðˤ/.^[2]^[3]^[5]^[6] However, there are dialects in South Arabia and in Mauritania 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 into Ibero-Romance languages as well as Hausa and Malay, where ḍād and ẓāʾ are differentiated.^[2]

In English, the sound is sometimes represented by the digraph zh.

Languages / Countries	Pronunciation of the letters
Languages / Countries	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:

In Mauritania (Hassaniya Arabic), ض is mostly pronounced /ðˤ/ as in /ðˤħak/ ('to laugh'), from */dˤaħika/ ضحك, but /dˤ/ generally appears in the lexemes borrowed from Standard Arabic as in /dˤʕiːf/ ('weak'), from */dˤaʕiːf/ ضعيف.^[7]
In Egypt, Lebanon, etc, ظ is mostly pronounced /dˤ/ in inherited words as in /dˤalma/ ('darkness'), from */ðˤulma/ ظلمة; /ʕadˤm/ ('bone'), from عظم /ʕaðˤm/, but pronounced /zˤ/ in borrowings from Literary Arabic as in /zˤulm/ ('injustice'); from */ðˤulm/ ظلم.
In some accents in Egypt, the emphatic /dˤ/ is pronounced as a plain /d/.

Semitic emphatic sibilant consonants^[8]
Proto-Semitic		Old South Arabian	Old North Arabian	Modern South Arabian ¹	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, later ט‎	*ṱ, ṣ, later ṭ			ጸ	ṣ
ṣ́	[ɬʼ] / [tɬʼ]	𐩳	𐪓	/ɬʼ/	ض‎	/dˤ/	ק‎, later ע‎	*ṣ́, q/ḳ, later ʿ			ፀ	ṣ́
Notes ṯ [θ], ḏ [ð] and ṯ̣ [θʼ] merge with [t], [d], and [tʼ] in Soqotri

Character encodings

Character information
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

References

^ Wehr, Hans (1952). Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart. ^{[page needed]}
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Versteegh, Kees (1999). "Loanwords from Arabic and the merger of ḍ/ḏ̣". In Arazi, Albert; Sadan, Joseph; Wasserstein, David J. (eds.). Compilation and Creation in Adab and Luġa: Studies in Memory of Naphtali Kinberg (1948–1997). pp. 273–286. ISBN 9781575060453.
^ ^a ^b Versteegh, Kees (2000). "Treatise on the pronunciation of the ḍād". In Kinberg, Leah; Versteegh, Kees (eds.). Studies in the Linguistic Structure of Classical Arabic. Brill. pp. 197–199. ISBN 9004117652.
^ Retsö, Jan (2012). "Classical Arabic". In Weninger, Stefan (ed.). The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 785–786. ISBN 978-3-11-025158-6.
^ Ferguson, Charles (1959). "The Arabic koine". Language. 35 (4): 630. doi:10.2307/410601. JSTOR 410601.
^ Ferguson, Charles Albert (1997) [1959]. "The Arabic koine". In Belnap, R. Kirk; Haeri, Niloofar (eds.). Structuralist studies in Arabic linguistics: Charles A. Ferguson's papers, 1954–1994. Brill. pp. 67–68. ISBN 9004105115.
^ Catherine Taine-Cheikh. 2020. Ḥassāniyya Arabic. In Christopher Lucas & Stefano Manfredi (eds.), Arabic and contact-induced change, 245–263. Berlin: Language Sci- ence Press.
^ Schneider, Roey (2024). "The Semitic Sibilants". The Semitic Sibilants: 31, 33, 36.

[Wehr-1] Wehr, Hans (1952). Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart. ^{[page needed]}

[Versteegh1999-2] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Versteegh, Kees (1999). "Loanwords from Arabic and the merger of ḍ/ḏ̣". In Arazi, Albert; Sadan, Joseph; Wasserstein, David J. (eds.). Compilation and Creation in Adab and Luġa: Studies in Memory of Naphtali Kinberg (1948–1997). pp. 273–286. ISBN 9781575060453.

[Versteegh2000-3] Versteegh, Kees (2000). "Treatise on the pronunciation of the ḍād". In Kinberg, Leah; Versteegh, Kees (eds.). Studies in the Linguistic Structure of Classical Arabic. Brill. pp. 197–199. ISBN 9004117652.

[Retsö2012-4] Retsö, Jan (2012). "Classical Arabic". In Weninger, Stefan (ed.). The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 785–786. ISBN 978-3-11-025158-6.

[Ferguson1959-5] Ferguson, Charles (1959). "The Arabic koine". Language. 35 (4): 630. doi:10.2307/410601. JSTOR 410601.

[Ferguson1997-6] Ferguson, Charles Albert (1997) [1959]. "The Arabic koine". In Belnap, R. Kirk; Haeri, Niloofar (eds.). Structuralist studies in Arabic linguistics: Charles A. Ferguson's papers, 1954–1994. Brill. pp. 67–68. ISBN 9004105115.

[7] Catherine Taine-Cheikh. 2020. Ḥassāniyya Arabic. In Christopher Lucas & Stefano Manfredi (eds.), Arabic and contact-induced change, 245–263. Berlin: Language Sci- ence Press.

[8] Schneider, Roey (2024). "The Semitic Sibilants". The Semitic Sibilants: 31, 33, 36.

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[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

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Frequency

Pronunciation

Character encodings

See also

References