Shaddah

Shaddah(Arabic:شَدّةshaddah[ˈʃæd.dæ],"[sign of] emphasis", also called by the verbal noun from the same root,tashdidتشديدtashdīd"emphasis" ) is one of thediacriticsused with theArabic Alpha bet,indicating ageminatedconsonant. It is functionally equivalent to writing a consonant twice in the orthographies of languages likeLatin,Italian,Swedish,andAncient Greek,and is thus rendered in Latin script in most schemes ofArabic transliteration,e.g.رُمّان=rummān'pomegranates'.

Form

In shape, it is a small letterسs(h)in,standing forshaddah.It was devised for poetry byal-Khalil ibn Ahmadin the eighth century, replacing an earlier dot.

General Unicode	Name	Transliteration
0651 ّّ	shaddah	(consonant doubled)

Combination with other diacritics

When ashaddahis used on a consonant which also takes afatḥah/a/,thefatḥahis written above theshaddah.If the consonant takes akasrah/i/,it is written between the consonant and theshaddahinstead of its usual place below the consonant, however this last case is an exclusively Arabic language practice, not in other languages that use theArabic script.

For example, see the location of the diacritics on the letterـهـhin the following words:

Arabic	Transliteration	Meaning	Diacritic	Location of the diacritic
يَفْهَمُ	yafhamu	[he] understands	fatḥah	Above the letter
فَهَّمَ	fahhama	[he] explained	fatḥah	Above theshaddah
فَهِمَ	fahima	[he] understood	kasrah	Below the letter
فَهِّمْ	fahhim	explain!	kasrah	Between theshaddahand the letter

When writing Arabic by hand, it is customary first to write theshaddahand then thevowel diacritic.

In Unicode representation, theshaddahcan appear either before or after the vowel diacritic, and most modern fonts can handle both options. However, in thecanonical Unicode orderingtheshaddahappears following the vowel diacritic, even though phonetically it should follow directly the consonantal letter.

Significance of marking consonant length

10th-century Qu'ran with theshaddatin gold

Consonant length in Arabic is contrastive:دَرَسَdarasameans "he studied", whileدَرَّسَdarrasameans "he taught";بَكى صَبيbakā ṣabiyymeans "a youth cried" whileبَكّى الصَّبيbakkā ṣ-ṣabiyymeans "the youth was made to cry".

A consonant may be long because of the form of the noun or verb; e.g., the causative form of the verb requires the second consonant of the root to be long, as indarrasaabove, or by assimilation of consonants, for example thel-of theArabic definite articleal-assimilates to all dental consonants, e.g. (الصّبي)(a)ṣ-ṣabiyyinstead of(a)l-ṣabiyy,or throughmetathesis,the switching of sounds, for exampleأَقَلّaqall'less, fewer' (instead of *أَقْلَلaqlal), as compared toأَكْبَرakbar'greater'.

A syllable closed by a long consonant is made a long syllable. This affects both stress and prosody. Stress falls on the first long syllable from the end of the word, henceأَقَلّaqáll(or, withiʻrāb,aqállu) as opposed toأَكْبَرákbar,مَحَبّةmaḥábbah"love,agape"as opposed toمَعْرِفةmaʻrifah'(experiential) knowledge'. In Arabicverse,when scanning the meter, a syllable closed by a long consonant is counted as long, just like any other syllable closed by a consonant or a syllable ending in a long vowel:أَلا تَمْدَحَنَّa-lā tamdaḥanna'Will you not indeed praise...?' is scanned asa-lā tam-da-ḥan-na:short, long, long, short, long, short.

See also

• Arabic diacritics
• Arabic Alpha bet
• Dagesh ḥazak,a functionally similar diacritic used to indicate gemination inBiblical Hebrew