Hamza
Hamza 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 ʿAyn. 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. In Unicode it is at the code point U+0621 and named.
Etymology
Hamza is derived from the verb hamaza meaning ‘to prick, goad, drive’ or ‘to provide with hamzah’.Hamzat al-waṣl
The letter hamza on its own always represents hamzat al-qaṭ‘, that is, a phonemic glottal stop unlike the ', a non-phonemic glottal stop produced automatically only if at the beginning of an utterance, otherwise assimilated. Although it can be written as an alif carrying a ' sign , it is normally indicated by a plain alif without a hamza.It occurs in:
- the definite article al-
- some short words with two of their three-consonant roots apparent: ism اسْم, ibn ابْن, imru' امْرُؤ, ithnāni اثْنَانِ
- the imperative verbs of forms I and VII to X
- the perfective aspect of verb forms VII to X and their verbal nouns
- some borrowed words that start with consonant clusters such as istūdiyū
Orthography
The Hamza can be written either alone, as if it were a letter, or with a carrier, when it becomes a diacritic:- Alone: :
- By itself, as a high Hamza, after any Arabic letter :
- Combined with a letter:
- Above or below an Alif:
- Above a Wāw:
- Above a dotless Yāʾ, also called
- Above Hāʾ. In the Persian alphabet, not used in Arabic:
- Above Ḥāʾ. In the Pashto alphabet, not used in Arabic:
- Above Rāʾ. In the Khowar alphabet, not used in Arabic:
Arabic "seat" rules
The rules for writing hamza differ somewhat between languages even if the writing is based on the Arabic abjad. The following addresses Arabic specifically.Summary
- Initial hamza is always placed over or under an alif.
- Medial hamza will have a seat or be written alone:
- * Surrounding vowels determine the seat of the hamza with preceding long vowels and diphthongs being ignored.
- * i- over u- over a- if there are two conflicting vowels that count; on the line if there are none.
- * As a special case, āʾa, ūʾa and awʾa require hamza on the line, instead of over an alif as one would expect.
- Final hamza will have a seat or be written alone:
- * Alone on the line when preceded by a long vowel or final consonant.
- * Has a seat matching the final short vowel for words ending in a short vowel.
- Two adjacent alifs are never allowed. If the rules call for this, replace the combination by a single.
Detailed description
- Logically, hamza is just like any other letter, but it may be written in different ways. It has no effect on the way other letters are written. In particular, surrounding long vowels are written just as they always are, regardless of the "seat" of the hamza—even if this results in the appearance of two consecutive wāws or yāʾs.
- Hamza can be written in five ways: on its own, under an alif, or over an alif, wāw, or yāʾ, called the "seat" of the hamza. When written over yāʾ, the dots that would normally be written underneath are omitted.
- When according to the rules below, a hamza with an alif seat would occur before an alif which represents the vowel ā, a single alif is instead written with the maddah symbol over it.
- The rules for hamza depend on whether it occurs as the initial, middle, or final letter in a word.
- If the following letter is a short vowel, or ḍammah , the hamza is written over a place-holding alif; kasrah the hamza is written under a place-holding alif and is called "hamza on a wall."
- If the letter following the hamza is an alif itself: alif maddah will occur.
- If a short vowel precedes, the hamza is written over the letter corresponding to the short vowel.
- Otherwise, the hamza is written on the line.
- If a long vowel or diphthong precedes, the seat of the hamza is determined mostly by what follows:
- Otherwise, both preceding and following vowels have an effect on the hamza.
- Barron’s 201 Arabic Verbs follows the rules exactly.
- John Mace’s Teach Yourself Arabic Verbs and Essential Grammar presents alternative forms in almost all cases when hamza is followed by a long ū. The motivation appears to be to avoid two wāws in a row. Generally, the choice is between the form following the rules here or an alternative form using hamza over yāʾ in all cases. Example forms are masʾūl, yajīʾūna, yashāʾūna. Exceptions:
- Haywood and Nahmad’s A new Arabic Grammar of the Written Language does not write the paradigms out in full, but in general agrees with John Mace’s book, including the alternative forms and sometimes lists a third alternative with the entire sequence ʾū written as a single hamza over wāw instead of as two letters.
- Al-Kitāb fī Taʿallum... presents paradigms with hamza written the same way throughout, regardless of the rules above. Thus yabdaʾūna with hamza only over alif, yajīʾūna with hamza only over yāʾ, yaqraʾīna with hamza only over alif, but that is not allowed in any of the previous three books.
Overview tables
Colours:
;Notes:
Arabic writing has tried to avoid two consecutive wāws, however, in Modern Arabic this rule is less applicable, thus modern رُؤُوس ruʾūs "heads" corresponds to رُءُوس in the Quran.
Hamza in other Arabic-based scripts
Urdu/Shahmukhi script
In Urdu script, hamza does not occur at the initial position over alif since alif is not used as a glottal stop in Urdu. In the middle position, if hamza is surrounded by vowels, it indicates a diphthong between the two vowels. In the middle position, if hamza is surrounded by only one vowel, it takes the sound of that vowel. In the final position hamza is silent or produces a glottal sound, as in Arabic.In Urdu, hamza usually represents a diphthong between two vowels. It rarely acts like the Arabic hamza except in a few loanwords from Arabic.
Hamza is also added at the last letter of the first word of ezāfe compound to represent -e- if the first word ends with yeh or with he or over bari yeh if it is added at the end of the first word of the ezāfe compound.
Hamza is always written on the line in the middle position unless in waw if that letter is preceded by a non-joiner letter; then, it is seated above waw. Hamza is also seated when written above bari yeh. In the final form, Hamza is written in its full form. In ezāfe, hamza is seated above he, yeh or bari yeh of the first word to represent the -e- of ezāfe compound.
Uyghur script
In the Uyghur Arabic alphabet the hamza is not a distinct letter and is not generally used to denote the glottal stop, but rather to indicate vowels. The hamza is only depicted with vowels in their initial or isolated forms, and only then when the vowel starts a word. It is also occasionally used when a word has two vowels in a row.Latin representations
There are different ways to represent hamza in Latin transliteration:- In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the sound of the glottal stop is represented by the letter ʔ, resembling a dotless question mark.
- There is a tradition of using ', the simple apostrophe; and a grave accent ‹`› represents `ayn.
- Some standard transliterations, such as DIN 31635, transliterate it with a modifier letter right half ring ʾ and others such as ALA-LC with the modifier letter apostrophe ʼ and sometimes substituted with the Right Single Quotation Mark ’.
- Different unstandardized symbols exist such as 2 in Arabic chat alphabet.