ء — hamza
«hamza» is a sign of the Arabic script. The little catch in the throat before a vowel — the break you hear in "uh-oh". For example, in the word “سأل” — he asked. The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters in total. This character does not count as a letter of the alphabet. It never stands alone: it sits on alif (أ، إ), on waw (ؤ) or on yaa (ئ). It has no joining forms. It appears, for example, in the word “إلى اللقاء” — see you.
In short
| Character | ء |
| Name | hamza |
| Sound | glottal stop |
| What it is | a sign |
In our course the character comes 29th of 31: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ه and ة, appears in 113 words of this site.
How to type ء
- On a phone: add the Arabic keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+0621 and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 0621.
- Unicode code point: U+0621. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
The little catch in the throat before a vowel — the break you hear in "uh-oh"
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- سألса'аляhe asked
The character in the “ء ة ى — the three special signs” group
Three signs that the table of 28 letters does not include. Hamza is not a letter but a vowel break, and it sits on other letters (أ، ؤ، ئ). Ta marbuta is the "tied t", the marker of feminine words; at the end it reads "a". Alif maqsura is written like a dotless ي and read as a long "aa" — hundreds of words end on it.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «hamza» it is “glottal stop”, as in the word “سأل”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 28 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Arabic character ء read?
Glottal stop. It is a sign of the Arabic script. The little catch in the throat before a vowel — the break you hear in "uh-oh". For example, in the word “سأل” — he asked.
What is the sign ء called?
Hamza is what this character is called when the alphabet is recited aloud.