Ḫāʾ

ArabDIN|Ḫāʾ ( _ar. ﺥ, transliterated as either ArabDIN|ḫ (DIN-31635) or unicode|ẖ (ISO 233)) is one of the six letters the Arabic alphabet added to the twenty-two inherited from the Phoenician alphabet (the others being ArabDIN|ṯāʼ, ArabDIN|ḏāl, ArabDIN|ḍād, ArabDIN|ẓāʼ, ArabDIN|ġayn). It represents the voiceless velar fricative (IPA2|x). The pronunciation of _ar. ﺥ is very similar to German, Scottish and Polish unpalatalised "ch", Russian "х" (Cyrillic) and Spanish "j". In name and shape, it is a variant of ArabDIN|ḥāʼ (see also there). South Semitic also kept the phoneme separate, and it appears as South Arabian transl|sem|Ḫarm Unicode|ኀ.

"Ḫāʼ" is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

ee also

*Arabic phonology
*Х, х - Kha (Cyrillic)