Phonemic representation dˤ (ðˤ) Numerical value 800 | Position in alphabet 26 | |
Ḍād, or ṣ́ād (ض), is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being ṯāʾ, ḫāʾ, ḏāl, ẓāʾ, ġayn). In name and shape, it is a variant of ṣād.
Contents
The Arabic letter ض is named ضاد ḍād. It is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:
Pronunciation
The standard pronunciation of this letter in modern Standard Arabic and when reciting the Quran is the "emphatic" /d/: pharyngealized voiced alveolar stop [dˤ] , pharyngealized voiced dental stop [d̪ˤ] or velarized voiced dental stop [d̪ˠ].
However, based on ancient descriptions of this sound, it is clear that in Qur'anic Arabic ḍ was some sort of unusual lateral sound. Sibawayh, author of the first book on Arabic grammar, explained the letter as being articulated from "between the first part of the side of the tongue and the adjoining molars". It is reconstructed by modern linguists as having been either a pharyngealized voiced alveolar lateral fricative [ɮˤ] or a similar affricated sound [d͡ɮˤ] or [dˡˤ]. The affricated form is suggested by loans of ḍ into Akkadian as ld or lṭ and into Malaysian as dl. However, not all linguists agree on this; the French orientalist André Roman supposes that the letter was actually a voiced emphatic alveolo-palatal sibilant /ʑˤ/, similar to the Polish ź.
In most Bedouin influenced Arabic vernaculars ض ḍād and ظ ẓāʾ have been merged quite early. like in the varieties (such as Bedouin and Iraqi), where the dental fricatives are preserved, both the letters are pronounced /ðˤ/. However, there are dialects in South Arabia and in Mauritania where both the letters are kept different but not in all contexts. In other vernaculars such as Egyptian the distinction between ض ḍād and ظ ẓāʾ is most of the time made; but Classical Arabic ẓāʾ often becomes /zˤ/, e.g. ʿaẓīm (< Classical عظيم ʿaḏ̣īm) "great".
"De-emphaticized" pronunciation of the both letters in the form of the plain /z/ entered into other non-Arabic languages such as Persian, Urdu, Turkish. However, there do exist Arabic borrowings into Ibero-Romance languages as well as Hausa and Malay, where ḍād and ẓāʾ are differentiated.
Writing in the Hebrew alphabet
When representing this sound in transliteration of Arabic into Hebrew, it is either written with ד (the letter for /d/) or צ׳ (tsadi with geresh).
In other Semitic languages
This is an extremely unusual sound, and led the early Arabic grammarians to describe Arabic as the لغة الضاد lughat aḍ-ḍād "the language of ḍād", since the sound was thought to be unique to Arabic. The emphatic lateral nature of this sound is in fact inherited from Proto-Semitic, and related sounds still occur in some South Semitic languages such as Mehri (where it is usually an ejective lateral fricative). A grapheme for this sound also exists in the South Arabian alphabet ( ṣ́) and the Ge'ez alphabet (Ṣ́appa ፀ), although in Ge'ez it merged early on with ṣ. Its numerical value is 800 (see Abjad numerals).
The reconstruction of Proto-Semitic phonology includes an emphatic voiceless alveolar lateral fricative or affricate for ṣ́. This sound is considered to be the direct ancestor of Arabic ḍād, while merging with ṣād in most other Semitic languages.