The Moon Letters and The Sun Letters (al-Huroofu al-Qamariyyah wa al-Huroofu ash-Shamsiyyah)

The Moon Letters and The Sun Letters (al-Huroofu al-Qamariyyah wa al-Huroofu ash-Shamsiyyah)

When the prefix ‘al-’ is attached to a noun that starts with a Moon Letter, the word is pronounced normally. E.g. Al-qamaru will be pronounced normally as al-qamaru.

However, when the prefix ‘al-’ is attached to a noun that starts with a Sun letter, the ‘l’ in ‘al’ is assimilated into the Sun letter.  E.g. Al-shamsu will be pronounced as ash-shamsu (the ‘l’ is assimilated into the ‘sh’).

 

The table below was taken from Duroos al-Lughat al-‘Arabiyyah by Shaykh Dr. V. Abdur-Raheem, and it contains all the Moon Letters and the Sun Letters and their examples in some words. 

  The column on your right contains the Moon Letters (al-Huroofu al-Qamariyyah) while the column on the left contains the Sun Letters (al-Huroofu ash-Shamsiyyah).