# تاء مربوطة - هاء مربوطة



## Nikola

Moderator's Note: split from this post


Ibn Monjur said:


> إنكَ تعيشُ مرةً واحدةً فقطْ
> 
> وإن العمرَ ةرةٌ
> 
> إنكَ تعيشُ مرةً


Your pointing out the difference betweenه andة is useful for learners, it is also useful to say that many people write هin place ofة and I believe it is not considered a typo.


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## Ibn Monjur

Hello Nikola



Nikola said:


> Your pointing out the difference betweenه andة is useful for learners, it is also useful to say that many people write هin place ofة and I believe it is not considered a typo.


 
I would hope that distinguishing the letters ة and ه will be useful for learners or at least prevent confusion as well as for other individuals.

Let us talk about what constitutes a "typo" or an "error".

As we know, Arabic was written without diacritical markers let alone التشكيل in the "golden ages". However, it was known what sounds were to be produced even though the letters that we write today are different stylistically, to the ones in the past (This was due to the fact that they knew grammar very well). It is important to note that the sounds produced were the same. ie. ة although written in a different manner was still said in the same way. This example also holds for many other letters too.

Please also note that a "typo" is short for "typographical error". ie. the error was previously known by the creator of the text whereas, an "error" in my definition above would be to believe in its correctness before and during the creation of such text while in reality, it is to the contrary.

Thus, the point is, if the ه is defined to be ة in the mind of the creator then it will not constitute a "typo" nor an "error". If however, it is always defined to be ه then it will be an "error". For completeness, if, unknowingly the creator of such text wrote ه while intending ة then this will constitute a "typo".

It all depends on the stylistic system we are following and how you define each symbol. But the convention chosen should be unambiguous. If we were to write all ة as ه then let us ask ourselves, would هذه be هذة originally? Thus, in my opinion, we should retain the ة.



Nikola said:


> it is also useful to say that many people write هin place ofة and I believe it is not considered a typo.


 
I did not understand if your point here was, "due to the fact that many people do this, it is correct" or they are two complete separate sentences as, "many people write ه in place of ة " and "I believe it is not considered a typo". Thus, I have chosen not to comment on this.

Please note that this analysis is according to Classical or Modern Standard Arabic and not any colloquial forms.

Would you put the same case forward for همزة الوصلِ and همزة القطعِ or you would agree to retain the ء?

I would welcome other users for their input on this too as this could prove to be in an interesting discussion.

Apologies for the length of the post!

ابن منظور


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## Mahaodeh

I tend to agree with Ibn Manthour, there is a big difference between haa' and taa' marbouta even if sometimes they are pronounced the same. Same goes to hamzat al wasl and hamzat al qat3; even for Arabic native speakers that are very efficient in fus7a it would cause confusion. As an example: if you write همزه it might be misunderstood as "hamzahu" (his hamz!) or "hamazahu" (he "hamazed" him; as a verb). Personally, I think correct spelling is important.


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## Andrew___

May I ask, could someone please confirm if the points in this this discussion similarly apply to the spelling of the ي as a ى (when the يا forms the last letter of a word)?

And I also must say that as a beginner in this language, I find the spelling of ة as a ه to be extremely confusing. :>


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## Mahaodeh

Yes, I would imagine it does, the yaa' is totally different letter than the alif maqsoura. If we always neglect it, how could we tell the difference between قوى (powers) and قويّ (powerful/strong). Personally, I'd like to see the shadda in printed matter (such as newspapers) as this indicates a letter and it makes a lot of difference. Note the difference between سمع and سمّع!


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## Ibn Monjur

ي and ى are indeed two completely separate letters as mentioned by Mahaodeh.

The ى is called ألف مقصورة (abridged alif) and sounds like the normal alif. However, when a pronoun is attached to a word that ends in the abridged alif, it converts to a normal one.

For example; معنًى will become معناه.

Finally, I would like to comment on the difference between همزة الوصلِ and همزة القطعِ.

It is crucial, to know the difference between these two letters as the pronounciation are different.

Let me illustrate with an example. The correct spelling of (a) son is ابنٌ


هُوَ ابْنِي

هُوَ إِبْنِي

Note that the همزة الوصلِ becomes "silent" in pronouciation.

Hope this helps.

ابن منظور


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## Nikola

Hi everybody,
My first point was/is that it is valuabe that Ibn Manjur pointed out the spelling especialy for learners. I hope that is clear. Second I mentioned that this is commonly found in writing, i.e using what looks like a haa instead of the ta mrabouta. This is not a value judgement on my part but merely the reality. This is found in many publications, such as books, newspapers et cetera.So I think it is useful to know that one may encounter both forms in writing.it is not unlike the diacritics. Again my point is to reflect the reality not whether it is good or bad.


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## Ali.h

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]
Why is it that in some dictionaries some words end with a normal haa' and the same words in other dictionaries end with a round taa'?!

Example:
تسعه

AND

تسعة

Which one is right?!

And my second question would be can/does EVERY normal TERMINAL haa' be read as taa marbuta when read in the middle of a sentence/phrase and where there is no pause of breath?


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## tabyyy

I may be mistaken, but I believe the first one (تسعه) is incorrect. I don't know what تسعه means. I tried looking it up and got nothing, so I'm not even sure it's a word.

The second (تسعة) means '9'. 


Haa' and taa' marbuta are two different letters and are not interchangeable.


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## clevermizo

Ali.h said:


> Why is it that in some dictionaries some words end with a normal haa' and the same words in other dictionaries end with a round taa'?!



I see ــة written as ـــه a lot on the internet, but it's a error. It may also be a typesetting problem.



> And my second question would be can/does EVERY normal TERMINAL haa' be read as taa marbuta when read in the middle of a sentence/phrase and where there is no pause of breath?


No. Only a taa marbuuTa is a taa marbuTa.


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## WadiH

clevermizo said:


> I see ــة written as ـــه a lot on the internet, but it's a error. It may also be a typesetting problem.



In Saudi Arabia this is particularly widespread.  I even see it in government documents sometimes.

It's odd because even illiterate people distinguish instinctively between them in speech, so perhaps it is just laziness.


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## Finland

Hello!



tabyyy said:


> I may be mistaken, but I believe the first one (تسعه) is incorrect. I don't know what تسعه means. I tried looking it up and got nothing, so I'm not even sure it's a word.


 
I know it is not the case here, but theoretically it could be the 3rd person feminine singular present tense of the verb وسع with a singular masculine direct object pronoun attached to it... Meaning "it (fem) accommodates it (masc)".

S


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## tabyyy

^ Thanks! I was wondering if it could possibly be a verb with an attached pronoun.. but my search ended in vain. I'm glad to learn this new info!


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## Masjeen

Ali.h said:


> Example:تسعه AND تسعة
> Which one is right?!
> 
> And my second question would be can/does EVERY normal TERMINAL haa' be read as taa marbuta when read in the middle of a sentence/phrase and where there is no pause of breath?


 
well you have to read it like this
تسعة= tis3ton
تسعة= tis3a

the first is arabic the second is slang But it is in all Arab countries


Wadi Hanifa said:


> It's odd because even illiterate people distinguish instinctively between them in speech, so perhaps it is just laziness.


I think that they need a courses in the arabic language 
They studied the Arabic language for 12 years in schools, but this is not enough..!


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## Muwahid

> In Saudi Arabia this is particularly widespread.  I even see it in  government documents sometimes.


That's so very common though. I had asked native speakers about the taa MarbuTa and they cannot distinguish it between haa and taa marbuTa except when reciting Qu'ran or other classical works. So عائشة becomes عائشه in spelling and pronunciation. Technically it's called _pause form_ not to pronounce it as well as not pronouncing final short vowel markings and case endings which is widespread among colloquial talk, but it's a good way to distinguish when someone is speaking fus7a and another dialect because you can always hear a distinct difference.


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## clevermizo

^Right, but that doesn't change the fact that عائشه is misspelled. Even in colloquial, there's a big difference between ــه and ـــة. Namely, ـــة becomes [-t] in إضافة, when attached to pronouns, etc. and ـــه does not.


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## Serafín33

What mostly amazes me of this mistake is that you do see it a lot in the Internet. Even if in order to type it you would need to press a whole different key in the keyboard!

Another one that is very common is writing/typing ى for ي. And this one's worse, since the first one is always -a in colloquial and the second one is -i. It's like if the laziness in real life handwriting was passed onto the Internet, even if having to press a whole other key!


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## clevermizo

This is not an error. It's the convention in Egypt.


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## Masjeen

Neqitan said:


> What mostly amazes me of this mistake is that you do see it a lot in the Internet.!


 
It is not a mistake..


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## Serafín33

clevermizo said:


> This is not an error. It's the convention in Egypt.


Like in Persian? Eek! Are there any other Arab countries with the same convention?


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## Ghabi

Actually writing ــة as ـــه is also an Egyptian convention.


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## Mahaodeh

Neqitan said:


> Like in Persian? Eek! Are there any other Arab countries with the same convention?


 
Not that I know of.


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## cherine

Ghabi said:


> Actually writing ــة as ـــه is also an Egyptian convention.


No, please! It's just a very common mistake.  Just like the common mistakes in hamzas.


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## Ghabi

^Um, that's the way that words are spelled in my EA dictionary (published in 1895), and that's also the way that my Egyptian teacher writes. If in fact most people do this (_mesh keda barDo?_), then should we consider it a "convention", because what is a "convention" after all, if not something that most people have been doing for a long time, regardless of its _shar3iiya_? (I'm so used to this writing practice that I can't help playing the Devil's Advocate, _le marra wa7da_!)


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## cherine

Ghabi said:


> Um, that's the way that words are spelled in my EA dictionary (published in 1895), and that's also the way that my Egyptian teacher writes. If in fact most people do this (_mesh keda barDo?_), then should we consider it a "convention", because what is a "convention" after all, if not something that most people have been doing for a long time, regardless of its _shar3iiya_?


Ummmm
 طب ممكن نقول إن دا في كتابة العامية المصرية بس، لكن مش في كتابة الفصحى؟ 
I mean that even when Egyptians write fuS7a with this kind of mistakes, it is a mistake. But when they write 3ammeyya, we can't really say it's a mistake, because -as we all know- there are no fixed standards for writing dialects.


> (I'm so used to this writing practice that I can't help playing the Devil's Advocate, _le marra wa7da_!)


mashi, bass el marradi bass.


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## WadiH

Ghabi said:


> Um, that's the way that words are spelled in my EA dictionary (published in 1895), and that's also the way that my Egyptian teacher writes. If in fact most people do this (_mesh keda barDo?_), then should we consider it a "convention", because what is a "convention" after all, if not something that most people have been doing for a long time, regardless of its _shar3iiya_? (I'm so used to this writing practice that I can't help playing the Devil's Advocate, _le marra wa7da_!)



You wouldn't rely on an English dictionary published in 1895 for English spelling conventions would you?

Egyptian books, newspapers, websites, government documents, etc. all use ى for the phoneme ياء and spell مسؤولية as مسئولية.  That is why these are considered Egyptian conventions.  But they do not put ـه in place of ـة or ه in place of ة, which means it is not yet a convention but simply a very common error, as Cherine said.


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## Ghabi

ma3akom 7a22. aakhir marra.


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## Alfaaz

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]
*Background: *based on Urdu: Arabic ـۃ to ـہ or ت: patterns; different meanings?


			
				Alfaaz said:
			
		

> *Background: *Arabic words ending in _taa marbuutah _ـۃ end with either ـہ or ت in Urdu.
> 
> *Questions:* ...
> 
> Do or can two forms exist and carry different meanings?
> Is there a difference in usage/meaning between جمہوریہ and جمہوریت?





			
				eskandar said:
			
		

> ... Two forms with different meanings can and do exist! Your last question is a good example, where in Urdu AFAIK جمہوریہ means 'republic' and جمہوریت means 'democracy'.





			
				HZKhan said:
			
		

> Some more examples of such words in Urdu:
> رسالہ = magazine; رسالت = prophethood
> طریقہ = way; طریقت = the path of tasawwuf
> مراسلہ = letter, message; مراسلت = correspondence


*Question:* Does such a phenomenon ever occur in Arabic (Standard or Dialects)?

(This question arose after reading the discussion in Classical Arabic Pronunciation of tāʼ marbūṭah in pausa.)


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## elroy

There is only one taa marbuuta character in Arabic, so no, this phenomenon does not exist.

In casual writing people often omit the two dots and write it ـه instead of ـة, but this is just a spelling issue and doesn't reflect the existence of two different words or two different meanings.


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## Alfaaz

Thanks! 

So it means that the pronunciation of such words (Example: مراسلة) would always be with an _-ah _(_muraasalah_) and never with an _-at _(_muraasalat_), unless they are being joined to something else?


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## analeeh

I think this is probably a feature inherited from Persian, where the endings ـيات and ـيت (borrowed from Arabic) are used for abstractions, whilst ـيه is not productive and is borrowed from Arabic in specific words. They both come from the same original Arabic root - it seems to me pretty random which taa marbuutas are borrowed as ـه and which as ـت in Persian.

The pronunciation of تاء مبروطة in Arabic depends on how high-register the pronunciation is. According to the prescriptive rules of pronunciation, ـة is always pronounced as -at-, with a following case vowel, except for in pausa (before a pause), where it is pronounced -ah. But it is very common in more casual readings of MSA, following dialects, to pronounce ـة as -a except where it is in construct state, i.e. possessive, where it is pronounced as -at (or even -it or -et, following dialect pronunciations).


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## elroy

Personally, I pronounce it "a" or "e" (depending on the preceding consonant) in Palestinian Arabic if it's not part of a construct state, otherwise "et."

In MSA, I always pronounce it "a" (not "ah") if not part of a construct state and "at" (not "et") if it is.

I think what is of interest to Alfaaz here is that any differences in spelling or pronunciation are not related to differences in meaning, nor do they map onto different lexical items.  In other words, whether we spell it مراسلة or مراسله, and whether we say "muraasala," "muraasalah," "muraasale," "muraasalat," or "muraasalet," it's all one word with the same meaning (or set of meanings, as the case may be). 

There are plenty of previous threads about the pronunciation (and probably the spelling) of the taa marbuuta in Arabic, which you can refer to for details beyond your original query.


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## Alfaaz

analeeh and elroy: Thanks for the comprehensive answers!


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## Golden-Rose

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]
Why do native speakers consistently replace ة with ه when typing ?

I'm starting to get used to it; seeing things like مشغوله and حلوه and سوريه usually goes unnoticed by me, but occasionally I'll come across a word I've never seen before and have no idea whether it's truly a ه or a ة

It's not a typo because many people do it consistently, i.e. they never use the ة


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## Hemza

I also noticed it and at first, I found it to be disturbing when you don't know the word and read it the wrong way because of this  . The opposite also occurs: some write ة where ه should be used, some confuse the ي with the ى.
*Not everyone* do this and not all the time, and I guess that in all languages you find people who write in a way which differs from the conventional one (how many times I came across very odd English spelling).


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## WannaBFluent

They are also some Arabic fonts on computer that write ة with ه + hamza on the top


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## analeeh

This is very common in particular when writing colloquial. I think that as with ى ي a lot of people barely perceive the difference, and at least in casual style when typing people just aren't very concerned about it (nor really notice when people do it).


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## elroy

Golden-Rose said:


> Why do native speakers consistently replace ة with ه when typing ?


Because for native speakers the meaning is clear whether or not you write the two dots, so they take shortcuts.  

By the way, in crossword puzzles ه and ة can legally intersect.  So maybe there's more to it than just language economy...


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