The Hamza and Alif Confusion in Arabic

Although the Arabic alphabet is understood as a consonant alphabet
(only consonants are written, short vowels are not admitted their own
signs and long vowels are only written because they are also
half-consonants), the long [a:] vowel called ´Alif is placed as the
first letter of the alphabet thus denying Hamza, the glottal stop (´ )
a very important consonant, not only this position but also to be part
of the Arabic alphabet at all. This is perhaps due to two reasons.

First, Hamza is graphically small (it has the shape of 3Ain and is near
to it in its sound) and needs a carrier (a chair) at least in the
initial and mid positions to rest on it so that it is not overlooked.
The chairs can be the three long vowels. However, in the final position
it can sometimes appear alone depending upon the vowels that precede
it. Thus Hamza orthography becomes very confusing even to schooled
Arabs.

Second, the glottal stop perhaps because of its little click sound, on
the one hand stops (may be gives time for thinking) but on the other
hand doesn't allow smooth linkage as in some British dialects) seems
not to be accepted as a separate letter in its own right and was given
such a small graphical size (easily ignored)like the short vowels. The
absence of Hamza in the alphabet increases this confusion so that even
educated Arabs cannot clearly distinguish between the two, partly
because Hamza is wedded to ´Alif in the initial position. Since ´Alif
is a vowel it can only occur in the mid or final position. In the
initial position it can only be Hamza's carrier as the only preferred
chair. In teaching the Arabic alphabet it is indeed very daunting to
start with Hamza or ´Alif.

The importance of Hamza is manifested in its occurrence as:
1. Part of the Arabic article 'Al which is much more often used than
in some other languages whether words are defined or not perhaps
because there is no indefinite article in Arabic but made up for by
Nunation.

2. Pronouns: First person singular ´ana, and second person pronouns:
´anti, ´anta, ´antum, ´antunna all start with Hamza.

3. In high frequency words like: ´abb (father), ´umm (mother), `arD
(earth), ´akala (eat), particles like: ´anna, ´inna: which
introduce an object phrase.

4. In making negative questions instead of Hal with negative particles:
lam, laysa and lan. In the question word ´ayna: where

5. In the preposition ´ila: to

6. In conditionals beginning with ´in or ´itha: if

In pronunciation Hamza is ignored when it occurs in a word in the
middle of a sentence as Wasla (as opposed to Hamzat al qaT3) to allow
smooth linkage or assimilated when a word starts with a sun letter.

In Writing is becomes even more complex. When Hamza is added to Hamza
or to ´Alif it is written as Madda, a sign put on ´Alif. Is there a
difference in writing and speaking between:
Hamza + Hamza = Madda and
Hamza + ´Alif = Madda ?

Finally I would like to argue that any syllable starting with a vowel
even in other languages necessitates the insertion of a glottal stop
before it which is not clearly heard and thus no Hamza sign exists in
the English Alphabet.
Regards
Jamshid

.

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