Welcome to the MedLibrary.org Wikipedia Supplement on Ḍād -- Please Click to Return to Front Page

Ḍād (ﺽ) is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being ṯāʼ, ḫāʼ, ḏāl, ẓāʼ, ġayn). It represents an emphatic voiced alveolar plosive (IPA: [dˤ]). In name and shape, it is a variant of ṣād. Based on ancient descriptions of this sound, it appears to have represented /ɮˤ/ in Qur'anic Arabic a pharyngealized voiced alveolar lateral fricative (It is said that the Prophet Muhammad pronounced it with both sides of his tongue) [1]. This is an extremely unusual sound, and led the early Arabic grammarians to describe Arabic as the "language of the Ḍād", since the sound was thought to be unique to Arabic. South Semitic, however, also continues the phoneme, as South Arabian ḍ^{dubious – discuss}, and Ge'ez Ṣ́appa ፀ^{dubious – discuss} (also transliterated ḍappa).

Ḍād is written in several ways depending in its position in the word:

In some reconstructions of Proto-Semitic phonology, there is an emphatic voiceless alveolar lateral fricative, ṣ́ (IPA: [ɬˁ]), featuring as the direct ancestor of Arabic Ḍād, while merging with ṣād in most other Semitic languages.

See also

• Ll Welsh voiceless lateral fricative
• Sat
• Śawt
• Ẓāʼ
• Arabic phonology
• Ḍ

Sources

• Lateral Fricatives Worldwide and in Africa

v • d • e Arabic · العربية Overviews Language · Alphabet · History · Transliteration · Numerology · Influence on other languages Alphabet Western numerals · Eastern numerals · Diacritics (Harakat) · Hamza Letters ʼAlif · Bāʼ · Tāʼ · Ṯāʼ · Ǧīm · Ḥāʼ · Ḫāʼ · Dāl · Ḏāl · Rāʼ · Zayn · Sīn · Šīn · Ṣād · Ḍād · Ṭāʼ · Ẓāʼ · ʿAyn · Ġain · Fāʼ · Qāf · Kāf · Lām · Mīm · Nūn · Hāʼ · Wāw · Yāʼ Eras Ancient North Arabian · Classical · Modern Major varieties Maghrebi · Levantine · Iraqi · Arabian · Egyptian · Sudanese · Judeo-Arabic Academic Literature · Names Calligraphy and scripts Naskh · Kufic · Thuluth · Ruq'ah · Diwani · Muhaqqaq · Maghrebi · Hejazi · Mashq Linguistics Phonology · Sun and moon letters · ʼIʻrab (inflection) · IPA · Grammar · Triliteral root · Mater lectionis

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 4 November 2008, at 02:05.

Wikipedia Authorship and Review

Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.

Wikipedia Usage Guidelines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Ḍād".

The URL for this specific entry is:

• http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/Ḍād

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.