Ẓāʾ

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). It is also one of the ten letters the Persian alphabet added from the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being s̱e, xe, ẕâl, zâd, ġayn, pe, che, že and gaf). In name and shape, it is a variant of ṭāʾ. Its numerical value is 900 (see Abjad numerals).

Ẓāʾ ظَاءْ does not change its shape depending on its position in the word:

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.^[1] 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".^[1][2][3]

In the varieties (such as Tunisian 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]

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

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.

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 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.

Examples

• ظ ẓāʾ: the word for "thirst" in Classical Arabic is ظمأ ẓamaʾ and צמא tsama in Hebrew.
• ص ṣād: the word for "Egypt" in Classical Arabic is مصر miṣr and מצרים mitsrayim in Hebrew.
• ض ḍād: the word for "egg" in Classical Arabic is بيضة bayḍah and ביצה betsah 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.

• Arabic phonology
• Ẓ
• Ḍād