Che (Persian letter)

Che, or čīm (چ), is a letter of the Perso-Arabic alphabet, used to represent [t͡ʃ], and which derives from ǧīm (ج) by the addition of two dots. It is found with this value in other Arabic-derived scripts. It is used in Persian, Urdu, Pashto, Kurdish, Azerbaijani, Malay (Jawi), and other Iranian languages.

In Arabic

The initial form of the Persian Che used to represent [ɡ] in an Israeli road sign on the road to Giv'at Shmuel.

It can be used to transcribe [t͡ʃ] of Persian Gulf: Gulf Arabic and Iraqi Arabic, where they have that sound natively. In these countries and the rest of Arabic-speaking geographic regions, the combination of tāʾ-šīn (تش) is more likely used to transliterate the /t͡ʃ/ sound which is often realized as two consonants ([t]+[ʃ]) elsewhere; this letter combination is used for loanwords and foreign names, including those of Spanish origin in Moroccan Arabic.

In the case of Moroccan Arabic, the letter ڜ‬ is used instead to transliterate the /t͡ʃ/ sound aside from چ, this letter derives from šīn (ش) with additional 3 dots below.

In Egypt, this letter represents [ʒ], which can be a reduction of /d͡ʒ/.

In Israel, where official announcements are often trilingual, this letter is used as the letter gīm on roadsigns to represent [ɡ], when transcribing Hebrew or foreign names of places, since Palestinian Arabic does not have a /g/ in its phonemic inventory.

Character encodings

See also

• ڤ - Ve (Arabic)
• پ - Pe (Persian)
• گ - Gāf (Persian)
• ژ - Zhe (Arabic)