Optionally in Iraqi and in Gulf Arabic, it is sometimes pronounced as a voiced postalveolar affricate , even in loanwords from Modern Standard Arabic or when speaking Modern Standard Arabic. ~ : in Sudanese and some Yemeni dialects (Yafi'i), and sometimes in Gulf Arabic by Persian influence, even in loanwords from Modern Standard Arabic or when speaking Modern Standard Arabic. Velar Gāf It is not well known when the pronunciation of Qāf as a velar occurred or the probability of it being connected to the pronunciation of Jīm as an affricate , but the Arabian peninsula which is the homeland of the Arabic language, there are two sets of pronunciations, either the represents a and represents a which is the main pronunciation in most of the peninsula except for western and southern Yemen and parts of Oman where represents a and represents a . The Standard Arabic (MSA) combination of as a and as a does not occur in any natural modern dialect in the Arabian peninsula, which shows a strong correlation between the palatalization of to and the pronunciation of the as a as shown in the table below: Maghrebi variant The Maghrebi style of writing is different: having only a single point (dot) above; when the letter is isolated or word-final, it may sometimes become unpointed. The earliest Arabic manuscripts show in several variants: pointed (above or below) or unpointed. Then the prevalent convention was having a point above for and a point below for ; this practice is now only preserved in manuscripts from the Maghribi, with the exception of Libya and Algeria, where the Mashriqi form (two dots above: ) prevails. Within Maghribi texts, there is no possibility of confusing it with the letter , as it is instead written with a dot underneath () in the Maghribi script. Unicode References External links Arabic letters Hebrew letters Phoenician alphabet