ء — hamza
«hamza» is a consonant of the Urdu script, read as “glottal stop”. A short catch in the throat, the little break inside the English uh-oh. On its own it joins nothing — it floats or rides on a seat letter. For example, in the word “کائنات” — universe. The Urdu alphabet has 38 letters in total. This character does not count as a letter of the alphabet. A small cursive scuff above the line. Not counted among the 38 letters: a mark, not a letter. It appears, for example, in the word “اشیاء کی پیداوار” — output.
In short
| Character | ء |
| Name | hamza |
| Sound | glottal stop |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 6th of 40: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ے and ٹ.
How to type ء
- On a phone: add the Urdu 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
A short catch in the throat, the little break inside the English uh-oh. On its own it joins nothing — it floats or rides on a seat letter
Other written forms
The same character is written differently on a shop sign and in a book. Here are all the forms you may meet.
| Form | Character | Note |
|---|---|---|
| final | ـء | joins only from the right |
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.
- کائناتkainatuniverse
The character in the “ا آ و ی ے — the vowels and length” group
The script is an abjad: short vowels are not written in it at all. کتب is "k-t-b", and it reads kitab — the short i comes from memory. Only the long ones are written, with these signs, plus the seat a word starts on when it opens with any vowel. Vav and ye stay consonants ("v" and "y") whenever a vowel of their own stands next to them. The hamza is a glottal catch, a mark rather than a letter.
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 “کائنات”), 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 — 38 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 Urdu character ء read?
As “glottal stop” — it is a consonant of the Urdu script. A short catch in the throat, the little break inside the English uh-oh. On its own it joins nothing — it floats or rides on a seat letter. For example, in the word “کائنات” — universe.
What is the sign ء called?
Hamza. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Urdu script: it is called “hamza” and reads as “glottal stop”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.