Ẓāʾ

Semitic alphabets
Phoenician (c.1050 – 200 BCE)
𐤀   𐤁   𐤂   𐤃   𐤄 𐤅   𐤆   𐤇   𐤈   𐤉 𐤊   𐤋   𐤌   𐤍   𐤎 𐤏   𐤐   𐤑   𐤒   𐤓 𐤔   𐤕 Semitic abjads
Hebrew (400 BCE – present)
א  ב  ג  ד  ה  ו ז  ח  ט  י  כך ל  מם  נן  ס  ע  פף צץ  ק  ר  ש  ת History · Transliteration Niqqud · Dagesh · Gematria Cantillation · Numeration
Syriac (200 BCE – present)
ܐ  ܒ  ܓ  ܕ  ܗ  ܘ ܙ  ܚ  ܛ  ܝ  ܟܟ  ܠ ܡܡ  ܢܢ  ܣ  ܥ  ܦ ܨ  ܩ  ܪ  ܫ  ܬ
Arabic (400 CE – present)
ا   ب   ت   ث   ج   ح خ   د   ذ   ر   ز   س ش   ص   ض   ط   ظ ع   غ   ف   ق   ك ل   م   ن   ه   و   ي History · Transliteration Diacritics · Hamza ء Numerals · Numeration

Ẓāʾ ظ is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being thāʼ, khāʼ, dhāl, ḍād, ġayn). In Arabic it represents a pharyngealized voiced alveolar fricative, voiced dental fricative or velarized voiced dental fricative (zˤ~ðˤ~ðˠ). In name and shape, it is a variant of ṭāʼ. Its numerical value is 900 (see Abjad numerals).

The ẓāʼ sound is an emphatic z or ð, pronounced with the center of the tongue depressed. Regional pronunciations vary; it may sound like an emphatic counterpart of either ز or ذ. In few dialects, such as the Lebanese Arabic, it is indistinguishable from the former in sound.^{citation needed} Because the Persian pronunciation of this letter is influenced by the Levantine dialect, it too, is indistinguishable in sound.^{citation needed}

Ẓāʼ 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.

In some reconstructions of Proto-Semitic phonology, there is an emphatic interdental fricative, ṱ (θˤ or ðˤ), 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.

When representing this sound in transliteration of Arabic into Hebrew, it is written as ט׳.

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form:	ظ‎	ـظ‎	ـظـ‎	ظـ‎

Character encodings

Character	ظ
Unicode name	ARABIC LETTER ZAH
Encodings	decimal	hex
Unicode	1592	U+0638
UTF-8	216 184	D8 B8
Numeric character reference	ظ	ظ

See also

• Arabic phonology
• Ẓ

References

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