Že or Zhe (ژ), used to represent the phoneme /ʒ/ⓘ, is a letter in the Persian alphabet, based on zayn (ز) with two additional diacritic dots. It is one of the five letters that the Persian alphabet adds to the original Arabic script, others being چ ,پ and گ, in addition the obsolete ڤ.[1] In name and shape, it is a variant of ze. Its numerical value is 4000 (see Abjad numerals).
In Kashmiri, this letter is called "tse" and represents the phoneme [t͡s].
In most of the Levant and Northwestern Africa, the letter جǧīm is used for /ʒ/. In Moroccan Arabic, the letter ژ is sometimes used to represent emphatic Z, such as in the word بژ meaning "children", as opposed to the normal ز, in order to differentiate between words that would look similar (for example بز meaning "forcing, to force").[2]
In Devanagari the letters झ़ and श़ (with a nuqta) are used to represent the sound of /ʒ/, e.g. टेलीविझ़न / टेलीविश़नṭēlivižan 'television'. The letter corresponds to the Urdu Perso-Arabic ژ.
Bengali
In Bengali the sound of /ʒ/ may be represented as জ়়, i.e. the letter Ja with two dots.
^Orsatti, Paola (2019). "Persian Language in Arabic Script: The Formation of the Orthographic Standard and the Different Graphic Traditions of Iran in the First Centuries of the Islamic Era". Creating Standards (Book).
^المدلاوي المنبهي, محمد (2019). العربية الدارجة (in Moroccan Arabic). Center for Development of Darija, Zagoura مركز تنمية الدارجة زاڭورة. p. 63. ISBN9789920381970.
