Skip to content
hamza

File:Hamzah-individua-cropt.svg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

EntityQ252454· pop 38· linked from 316 articles

Also known as ئ, ؤ, أ, إ, ٱ, ء

The hamza ( '') () is an Arabic script character that, in the Arabic alphabet, denotes a glottal stop and, in non-Arabic languages, indicates a diphthong, vowel, or other features, depending on the language. Derived from the letter ʿayn'' (), the hamza is written in initial, medial, and final positions as an unlinked letter or placed above or under a carrier character. Despite its common usage as a letter in Modern Standard Arabic, it is generally not considered to be one of its letters, although some argue that it should be considered so.

Key facts

Grapheme.name
Hamza
Grapheme.letter
ء
Grapheme.image
File:Hamzah-individua-cropt.svg
Grapheme.imageclass
skin-invert-image
Grapheme.imagesize
200
Grapheme.script
Arabic script
Grapheme.type
Abjad
Grapheme.language
Arabic language
Grapheme.unicode
U+0621
Grapheme.direction
Right-to-left

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Show 3 more facts
Commons category
Hamza
IPA transcription
ʔ
Unicode character
ٴ‎
Sources (2)

via Wikidata · CC0

~20 min read

Article

18 sections
Contents
  • Etymology
  • Hamzat al-waṣl ({{lang|ar|ٱ}})
  • Orthography
  • Arabic "seat" rules
  • Summary
  • Detailed description
  • Overview tables
  • Hamza in other Arabic-script alphabets
  • Jawi alphabet
  • Urdu (Shahmukhi) alphabet
  • Uyghur alphabet
  • Kazakh alphabet
  • Persian alphabet
  • Wavy hamza in Kashmiri
  • Latin representations
  • See also
  • References
  • External links

The hamza ( '') () is an Arabic script character that, in the Arabic alphabet, denotes a glottal stop and, in non-Arabic languages, indicates a diphthong, vowel, or other features, depending on the language. Derived from the letter ʿayn'' (), the hamza is written in initial, medial, and final positions as an unlinked letter or placed above or under a carrier character. Despite its common usage as a letter in Modern Standard Arabic, it is generally not considered to be one of its letters, although some argue that it should be considered so.

The hamza is often romanized as a typewriter apostrophe ('), a modifier letter apostrophe (ʼ), a modifier letter right half ring (ʾ), or as the International Phonetic Alphabet symbol . In Arabizi, it is either written as "2" or not written at all.

Connections

Categories