|
'alif
Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated 示) is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician , Hebrew , Aramaic , Syriac , Arabic 示 and North Arabian 饜獞. It also appears as South Arabian 饜┍ and Ge'ez . These letters are believed to have derived from an Egyptian hieroglyph depicting an ox's head to describe the initial sound of ''*示alp'', the West Semitic word for ox (compare Biblical Hebrew ''示elef'', "ox"). The Phoenician variant gave rise to the Greek alpha (), being re-interpreted to express not the glottal consonant but the accompanying vowel, and hence the Latin A and Cyrillic 袗. Phonetically, ''aleph'' originally represented the onset of a vowel at the glottis. In Semitic languages, this functions as a prosthetic weak consonant, allowing roots with only two true consonants to be conjugated in the manner of a standard three consonant Semitic root. In most Hebrew dialects as well as Syriac, the ''aleph'' is an absence of a true ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hamza Hamza ( ar, 賴賲夭丞 ') () is a letter in the Arabic alphabet, representing the glottal stop . Hamza is not one of the 28 "full" letters and owes its existence to historical inconsistencies in the standard writing system. It is derived from the Arabic letter '' 士Ayn'' (). In the Phoenician and Aramaic alphabets, from which the Arabic alphabet is descended, the glottal stop was expressed by ''alif'' (), continued by ''Alif'' ( ) in the Arabic alphabet. However, Alif was used to express both a glottal stop and also a long vowel . In order to indicate that a glottal stop is used, and not a mere vowel, it was added to Alif diacritically. In modern orthography, hamza may also appear on the line, under certain circumstances as though it were a full letter, independent of an Alif. Etymology ''Hamza'' is derived from the verb ' () meaning 'to prick, goad, drive' or 'to provide (a letter or word) with hamzah'. Hamzat al-wa峁 ( 俦 ) The lette |
