Fourth Letter Of The Arabic Alphabet With Examples

The Arabic alphabet is an important aspect of the Arabic language, with each letter having its own unique sound and shape. In this post, we will explore the fourth letter of the Arabic alphabet with some examples using the letter.

What Is The Fourth Letter Of The Arabic Alphabet?

The fourth letter of the Arabic alphabet is letter tha and written as ث. The Arabic fourth letter tha is pronounced th as in the English word ‘thin‘ and ‘think‘.

In the phonetic alphabet, the pronunciation of tha is written [θ]. The letter tha has four shapes: isolated, initial, medial and final.

The shapes of letter tha depends on the letter’s position in the word and surrounding letters.

Fourth letter in Arabic is dual joining. That means that it connect to both right and left. If there is a letter before, that also is dual joining, then letter tha will connect with it. If there is a letter after, then it will connect with it.

Read Arabic Letters That Don’t Connect With Examples

How To Write The 4th Letter Of Arabic Alphabet

The 4th letter has four forms:

• The isolated form ﺙ is used when the letter stands by itself and in the end of words (after a right joining letter).
• The initial form ﺛـ is used in the beginning of words and in the middle of words (if the letter before is right joining).
• The medial form ـﺜـ is used in the middle of words (if the letter before is not right joining).
• The final form ـﺚ is used in the end of words (if the letter before is not right joining).

This rules can be applied to all Arabic dual joining letters, which is most of them.

The fourth letter is a sun letter. You get the definite form of a word by putting the definite article al in front of it.

The second, third and fourth letters have exactly the same shape but they differ in the number and position of dots. 

As you can see, the second letter, ب (ba) has a dot under, the third letter, ت (ta) has two dots above and the fourth letter, ث (tha) has three dots above.

To write this letter correctly, you place the pen on the starting position, make a curve similar to that of an egg-shape, twist inwards towards the end, and end it with a three centred dots on top.

See the following illustration of the fourth letter, Tha:

Arabic Words With ث, The Fourth Letter Of Arabic Alphabet, Tha 

Below are some examples Arabic words with letter ث at the intial, middle and end.

Word exemplifications using Arabic letter Tha with diacritics.

Tha with a fatha has a soft sound, like tha as in

• Thanks
• Methanol

Sounds like Tha with a Kasra sound like thi as in

• Think 
• Theif
• Nothing

Tha with a damma sounds like

• Thought
• Method

Tha with sokoon sounds like

• Athelete
• Math