Sun and Moon Letters and Hamzat al-Waṣl in Arabic
Where Arabic words run together: the joining alif (hamzat al-waṣl), sun and moon letters, and ة that becomes ت. Real sentences, sounds and one trap.
· Written by Amaan
What are sun and moon letters, and what is a joining alif?
A joining alif (hamzat al-waṣl) has no hamza, and you say it only when you start speaking. After another word it is silent. Before a sun letter, the ل of ال is not pronounced and the letter is said double: الشَّمْس, “ash-shams”. Before a moon letter, the ل is said: القَمَر, “al-qamar”.
A joining alif has no hamza, and you say it only when you start speaking. اِسْمِي, “my name”, at the start of a sentence is “ismī”. In هٰذَا ابْنِي, “This is my son”, the alif of ابْنِي is silent: “hādha-bnī”.
Before a sun letter, the ل of ال is not pronounced and the letter is said double, written with a shadda: الشَّمْس, “ash-shams”. Before a moon letter it is said: القَمَر, “al-qamar”.
Before an added ending, ة becomes ت: غُرْفَةٌ, “a room”, but غُرْفَتِي, “my room”.
Never write a hamza on a joining alif. اسْم, “name”, and ابْن, “son”, are written with a plain alif, never as إِسْم or إِبْن.
Written one way, said another
Arabic is written word by word, but in speech each word joins straight on to the next. In three places that changes what you say, and those three places are what this lesson teaches.
The first is the joining alif, which you say only when you start speaking. The second is the ل of ال, which is not pronounced before some letters. The third is ة, which becomes ت before an added ending. Grammar calls this joining الوَصْل, al-waṣl: how words run together in speech.
This is stop 1.2 of Fasaha’s Naḥw course. It follows stop 1.1, which teaches the three kinds of word.
The joining alif (hamzat al-waṣl)
Some Arabic words start with an alif that has no hamza. This is a joining alif, which grammar books call hamzat al-waṣl. You say it only when you start speaking with that word. When another word comes before it, the alif is silent and the two words run together.
At the start of a sentence you say the alif, as “i-”. In اِسْمِي أَحْمَدُ, “My name is Ahmad”, the first word is said “ismī”. In the middle of a sentence the alif is not said. In هٰذَا ابْنِي, “This is my son”, the last vowel of هٰذَا joins straight on to the “b” of ابْنِي: “hādha-bnī”.
One sentence shows both. In اِسْمُ ابْنِي أَحْمَدُ, “My son’s name is Ahmad”, all three words start with an alif. اِسْمُ starts the sentence, so its alif is said: “ismu”. ابْنِي has a word before it, so its alif is silent: “ismu-bnī”. أَحْمَدُ starts with an alif that has a hamza, so it is always pronounced, wherever the name comes in a sentence.
The alif of ال is a joining alif too. In أَيْنَ المَطْبَخ؟, “Where is the kitchen?”, you hear “ayna l-maṭbakh”. The alif is silent after أَيْنَ, and the ل is said.
The phrase بِسْمِ اللّٰهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ, “In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful”, goes one step further. بِسْمِ is بِ, “in”, joined to اسْم, “name”, and in this phrase the joining alif of اسْم is not even written. The name of God, اللّٰهِ, also starts with a joining alif, so after another word you hear “bismi-llāh”.
The trap: never write a hamza on a joining alif
Do not write a hamza on a joining alif. اسْم, “name”, and ابْن, “son”, are written with a plain alif, never as إِسْم or إِبْن.
The exercises test this directly. To build “My name is Amina”, you choose between the tiles اِسْمِي and إِسْمِي. Only the plain alif is right: اِسْمِي أَمِينَةُ. To build “What is your name?”, the answer is مَا اسْمُكَ؟, again with a plain alif.
Sun letters and moon letters
The second place is the ل of ال, the word for “the”. Before some letters, called sun letters, the ل is not pronounced and the letter after it is said double. Before the other letters, called moon letters, the ل is pronounced.
The two groups are named after two words. In الشَّمْس, “the sun”, the ل is not pronounced: you say “ash-shams”. In القَمَر, “the moon”, it is pronounced, “al-qamar”, as it is before every moon letter.
The reason is how the letters are made. Sun letters are made with the front of the tongue, like ل itself, so the ل is not said and the letter is doubled instead.
English does something similar with its own word for “the”. It changes its sound before a vowel: “thuh book”, but “thee apple”. In Arabic, ال changes before a sun letter.
Hearing the difference in a sentence
The lesson’s sentence الشَّمْسُ وَالقَمَرُ فِي السَّمَاءِ, “The sun and the moon are in the sky”, has both kinds. In الشَّمْسُ, ش is a sun letter, so you say “ash-shams”. In وَالقَمَرُ, ق is a moon letter, so the ل is pronounced: “wal-qamar”, “and the moon”. Only the alif is silent, because وَ, “and”, comes before it. In السَّمَاءِ, س is a sun letter, so you say “as-samāʾ”, “the sky”.
فِي, “in”, shows one more join. Before ال, its long “ī” is said short, so فِي السَّمَاءِ sounds like “fis-samāʾ”. In الطَّعَامُ فِي المَطْبَخِ, “The food is in the kitchen”, فِي المَطْبَخِ sounds like “fil-maṭbakh”. There the ل is said, because م is a moon letter, while الطَّعَامُ has the sun letter ط: “aṭ-ṭaʿām”, “the food”.
In vowelled text you can see which kind you have. A sun letter after ال carries a shadda, because it is said double, and a moon letter has none.
The build exercise asks for “tea and coffee”: الشَّايُ وَالقَهْوَةُ. The wrong tiles show the rule. الْشَايُ would be said “al-shāy”, but ش is a sun letter, so the right word has a shadda: “ash-shāy”. وَالقَّهْوَةُ puts a shadda on ق, but ق is a moon letter and is not doubled: “wal-qahwah”.
ة becomes ت before an ending
The third place is ة, the letter at the end of many nouns. It is a “t” that is silent when you stop, and said before an added ending. When you stop on سَيَّارَةٌ, “a car”, it ends in “-ah”.
When an ending is added, ة is written ت. غُرْفَةٌ is “a room”, and غُرْفَتِي is “my room”. سَيَّارَةٌ is “a car”, and سَيَّارَتِي is “my car”. The ending ي, “my”, comes after the ت.
If حَقِيبَة is “a bag”, then “my bag” is حَقِيبَتِي. ة is only ever the last letter of a word, so حَقِيبَةِي is wrong. It does not disappear before an ending, so حَقِيبِي is wrong. And it looks like ه, but its sound is “t”, so حَقِيبَهِي is wrong too.
The last exercise puts it in a sentence: مَدِينَتِي عَمَّانُ, “My city is Amman.” In مَدِينَتِي, “my city”, ة has become ت.
How this lesson works in Fasaha
Fasaha’s Grammar section is in Explore, on iOS and Android, and it opens with Naḥw: 58 short lessons called stops, across four levels from A1 to B2. “Where words run together” is stop 1.2, in A1, “Read the skeleton”, and it is free, like stop 1.1.
Each stop works in three steps. See it shows the rule in real sentences: a joining alif at the start, a joining alif in the middle, and a sun letter beside a moon letter. The shaded letters are the places where the words join.
Try it gives warm-ups and proofs. You tap the word whose alif is not pronounced, or the one where you can hear the ل of ال. You listen to a word and choose what it means, and you build short sentences from word tiles. Keep it is for your own words, saved to Your book, with Review.
Where the words join, word by word
Words from the lesson, with how each one sounds and what to listen for.
- Sun letter: الشَّمْسُ — the sun
- Moon letter: القَمَرُ — the moon
- Sun letter: السَّلَامُ — peace
- Moon letter: البَابُ — the door
- Joining alif, said: اِسْمِي — my name
- Joining alif, silent: هٰذَا ابْنِي — this is my son
- ة at the end: غُرْفَةٌ — a room
- ة becomes ت: غُرْفَتِي — my room
- ة at the end: سَيَّارَةٌ — a car
- ة becomes ت: سَيَّارَتِي — my car
What is hamzat al-waṣl?
It is a joining alif: an alif with no hamza at the start of a word, such as the first letter of اسْم, “name”. You say it only when you start speaking with that word. When another word comes before it, it is silent, as in اِسْمُ ابْنِي, “ismu-bnī”, “my son’s name”.
What are the sun and moon letters?
They are two groups of Arabic letters, named after الشَّمْس, “the sun”, and القَمَر, “the moon”. Before a sun letter, the ل of ال is not pronounced and the letter is said double. Before a moon letter, the ل is pronounced.
Why does ة become ت?
ة is a “t” that is silent when you stop and said before an added ending. It is only ever the last letter of a word, so when an ending such as ي, “my”, is added, it is written ت: سَيَّارَةٌ, “a car”, becomes سَيَّارَتِي, “my car”.
Is it wrong to write إِسْم with a hamza?
Yes. اسْم, “name”, starts with a joining alif, and a joining alif is never written with a hamza. The same goes for ابْن, “son”, never إِبْن.
What is Fasaha’s Grammar section, and is this lesson free?
Grammar is a section in Explore in the Fasaha app, on iOS and Android. It opens with Naḥw: 58 short lessons, called stops, from A1 to B2, each written in your app language. This lesson is stop 1.2. Stops 1.1 and 1.2 are free; the rest are Premium.
Sources
About Fasaha
Fasaha is a reading-first Arabic app. Every word in a story, a podcast, a video or an article opens into its meaning, root, pattern and family, and can be saved for spaced review.
- Available on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android.
- Interface languages: English, Arabic, Turkish, Russian, Uzbek, Spanish, French, German, Indonesian, Malay, Urdu, Italian, Portuguese, Bengali, Kazakh, Simplified Chinese and Azerbaijani.
- Free to start; Premium opens the complete library and the stores handle billing.
- Grammar in Explore: Naḥw, 58 short lessons from A1 to B2, each written in your app language. Stops 1.1 and 1.2 are free.
Keep reading
- The Arabic alphabet: 28 letters, four shapes each, and your first words: A table of all 28 letters in their four positions, the dot families that make them easier than they look, and nine first words in the order Fasaha’s Reading Key teaches them.
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