the hamzah همزة Sign

[ hamzah written with too thin a marker ] [ hamzah written with a normal-width marker ] The sign in the figure indicates the presence of the consonant sound hamzah همزة . It's just a miniature tailless ªayn عين , and should be half a square high and half a square wide. (The ªayn عين was chosen for this because its pronunciation resembles that of the hamzah همزة... after all, both are pronounced with the Adam's apple, so they resemble each other as much as a P and an F do.)

hamzah همزة Supports

When the hamzah همزة sign is above or below one of the three letters

, that letter serves no purpose at all. It is not pronounced, the hamzah همزة sound is pronounced instead of it.

Yes, you read the above correctly, and yes, it does not make any sense... as far as hyper-pure Arabic is concerned. However, if you take into account that most Arabic dialects don't pronounce the hamzah همزة sound at all, but the , , instead, you'll see that this strange orthography is a compromise solution, intended to keep everybody happy.

Note that whenever the letter is used as a hamzah support, its two dots are dropped. This yaa# ياء less dots plus hamzah is a variant of the yaa# ياء called a yaa# hamzah ياء همزة and must not be confused with the the Broken #alif ألف, which is a variant of the #alif ألف.

the Floating hamzah همزة

When the hamzah sign is not above or below one of the aforementioned three letters, it's said to be "floating". It is pronounced with a hamzah sound all the same. [ xay' = a thing ]

The figure on the right shows a hamzah همزة sign written AFTER a

, in the word SHay# شيء. Here both the yaa# ياء and the hamzah are pronounced. Note that many people write the hamzah above the yaa# ياء in words like this: that's a widespread misspelling, but altogether wrong.

Most floating hamzahs are found at the end of words, after an alif, in which case they must usually be read aa# اء as in #ajwaa# أجواء "environments". A final floating hamzah may also follow any other letter, as in SHay# شيء "thing", spelt SH ش + y ي + floating hamzah.

Floating hamzahs never occur at the beginning of a word, except in certain copies of the qur#aan قرآن which always use floating hamza + alif instead of alif maddah to spell #aa آ (in words like #aaman آمن).

The floating hamzah appears in the middle of a word only in the spellings for -aa#a- اء (which is alif + floating hamzah, as in musaa#alah مساءلة "interrogation") and -aa#aa- ءا (namely alif + floating hamzah + alif, as in yatta_ki_du ?ijraa?aat yattaKHi(dh)u #ijraa#aat يتخذ إجرءات "he takes measures").

When not part of an aa#aa ءا, the syllable #aa آ is written alif maddah, with no hamzah sign.

Be careful: -a#a- ء (as well as final -a# ء) is spelt with a #alif hamzah ألف همزة, and -a#aa- آ with a #alif maddah ألف مدة.

These rules are somewhat complex. An useful check: whenever you find yourself writing two consecutive alifs in the same word, you're doing something wrong. As far as I know, the only exception to this rule is the word sa##aal سأآل "inquisitive", which is indeed spelt with two alifs, namely siyn سين plus #alif hamzah ألف همزة plus #alif ألف plus laam لام, with a shaddah over the #alif hamzah ألف همزة. (Anyway, if you find long hamzah difficult to pronounce, say sa#uwl سؤول instead, spelt siyn سين waaw hamzah واو همزة waaw واو laam لام).

Just like the SHaddah شدة sign, the hamzah همزة sign is transitioning from an "only in the qur#aan قرآن" to a "never omit it" status.

When Should This Sign Be Used

We already said that all hamzah signs which are or might be written must be pronounced. The converse is almost true: all hamzah sounds pronounced must be written (excepting only the hamzatu lwa.Sl همزت لوصل or "joining hamzah همزة", which must always be written as a hamzaless alif).

Of course, this is the teacher's opinion, and applies only to 100% pure Arabic. If you happen to speak one of the many dialects in which no hamzah همزةs are pronounced as such, you might like to think that not writing any hamza is always correct, and that getting 100% pure language is only necessary for religious purposes.

Copyright (c) 2001-2008 Jordi Mas Trullenque.
email: jordimastrullenque at gmail dot com
http://purl.oclc.org/net/arabe/signodehamzah.en.html
Last revised: 2008-03-19