Learn Arabic › A2 › ذال
ذال
dhāl, the name of the Arabic letter ذ /ˈðaːl/
nounA2#1142 most common
Also: the Arabic letter ذ, the ninth letter of the Arabic alphabet
Example sentences
هٰذا حَرْفُ الذَّال.
This is the letter dhāl.
الذَّالُ حَرْفٌ مِنَ الحُروفِ العَرَبِيَّة.
Dhāl is one of the Arabic letters.
نَكتُبُ الذَّالَ بِنُقْطَةٍ فَوْقَ الدَّال.
We write dhāl with a dot above dāl.
يَنْطِقُ كَثيرٌ مِنَ الطُّلّابِ الذَّالَ مِثْلَ الزَّاي.
Many students pronounce dhāl like zāy.
تَأْتي الذَّالُ في أوَّلِ كَلِمةِ ذَهَب، وتُمَثِّلُ صَوْتاً احْتِكاكِيّاً مَجْهوراً.
Dhāl comes at the start of the word dhahab (gold), and it represents a voiced fricative sound.
في بَعْضِ اللَّهَجاتِ العامِّيَّةِ تَتَحَوَّلُ الذَّالُ إلى دالٍ، فَيُقالُ دَهَب بَدَلَ ذَهَب.
In some colloquial dialects dhāl turns into dāl, so people say dahab instead of dhahab.
Declension
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | ذالٌ | ذالاتٌ |
| Genitive | ذالٍ | ذالاتٍ |
| Accusative | ذالاً | ذالاتٍ |
| Vocative | يا ذالُ | يا ذالاتُ |
Word family
دالname of the letter د
حَرفletter
أبجَديّةalphabet
نُقطةdot, the mark that separates ذ from د
ذthe letter itself
Etymology
ذال is the Arabic name of the letter ذ. It is formed by analogy with دال (dāl), the name of the letter د, because ذ is simply د with a single dot added above it. The base letter دال descends from the Phoenician letter dalet, meaning door. The /ð/ sound that ذ marks had no separate sign in the parent alphabet, so Arabic created the new letter and its matching name.
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