Hamza  Hamza (, "") () is a letter in the Arabic alphabet, representing the glottal stop . Hamza is not one of the 28 "full" letters and owes its existence to historical inconsistencies in the standard writing system. It is derived from the Arabic letter "ʿAyn" (). In the Phoenician and Aramaic alphabets, from which the Arabic alphabet is descended, the glottal stop was expressed by "alif" (), continued by "Alif" (  ) in the Arabic alphabet. However, Alif was used to express both a glottal stop and also a long vowel . In order to indicate that a glottal stop is used, and not a mere vowel, it was added to Alif diacritically. In modern orthography, hamza may also appear on the line, under certain circumstances as though it were a full letter, independent of an Alif. In Unicode it is at the code point U+0621 and named . "Hamza" is derived from the verb "" () meaning ‘to prick, goad, drive’ or ‘to provide (a letter or word) with hamzah’. The letter hamza (ء) on its own always represents ' (, "the "hamzah" which breaks, ceases or halts", i.e. the broken, cessation, halting"), that is, a phonemic glottal stop unlike the ' (, "the "hamzah" which attaches, connects or joins", i.e. the attachment, connection, joining"), a non-phonemic glottal stop produced automatically only if at the beginning of an utterance, otherwise assimilated. Although it can be written as an alif carrying a " sign (only in the Quran), it is normally indicated by a plain alif without a hamza. It occurs in:   It is not pronounced following a vowel (, "). This event occurs in the definite article or at the beginning of a noun following a preposition or a verb following a relative pronoun. If the definite article "al-" is followed by a sun letter, -"l-" also gives way for the next letter for "lām" is assimilated. The Hamza can be written either alone, as if it were a letter, or with a carrier, when it becomes a diacritic:            ". Joined medially and finally in Arabic, other languages written in Arabic-based script may have it initially as well (or it may take its isolated or initial shape, even in Arabic, after a non-joining letter in the same word):           The rules for writing hamza differ somewhat between languages even if the writing is based on the Arabic abjad.