Tāʾ marbūṭa

The tāʾ marbūṭah (Arabic: تاء مربوطة‎, meaning "bound tāʾ") is a variant of the letter tāʾ (ت) used at the end of words. It mostly exists in grammatically feminine words. In Modern Standard Arabic, it denotes the final sound /-a/ and, when in construct state, /-at/. The regular letter ta, to distinguish it from tāʾ marbūṭa, is referred to as tāʾ maftūḥah (Arabic: تاء مفتوحة‎, meaning "open tāʾ").

In the word risālah (Arabic: رسالة‎, "letter, message") tāʾ marbūṭah is denoted as h, and pronounced as /-a/. Historically it was pronounced as the soft /h/ sound—which is why the tāʾ marbūṭah (in this position) looks like a hāʾ (ه). When the word is suffixed with a personal pronoun -kum (meaning "yours"), it changes to risālat*kum (Arabic: رسالتكم‎; the asterisk indicates the short vowel signifying the case ending of the noun). The pronunciation is /t/, just like the regular, or open tāʾ (ت). But the identity of the "character" has not changed; it is still tāʾ marbūṭah. Note that the isolated and final forms of this letter combine the shape of the ha and the two dots of the tāʾ.

Tāʾ marbūṭah (ة) is a variant of the letter tāʾ (ت) that actually takes two completely different pronunciations depending on pausa. It has a different scripting form than the original letter to distinguish the different behavior.

When words containing the symbol are borrowed into other languages written in the Arabic alphabet (such as Persian), ta marbuta usually becomes either a regular (ه) or a regular (ت). Such words are subject to the normal rules of the grammar of the particular language into which they have been borrowed; thus, in Persian the ه from ta marbuta becomes a ى when the ʾIḍāfah—the ending indicating possession—is added.