languages. As in Hebrew, the letter originally stood for two sounds, and . When pointing was developed, the sound was distinguished with a dot on top (), to give the letter ghayn. In Maltese, which is written with the Latin alphabet, the digraph għ, called ʿajn, is used to write what was originally the same sound. Because the sound is difficult for most non-Arabs to pronounce, it is often used as a shibboleth by Arabic speakers; other sounds, such as and are also used. It is typically represented with a 3 in the Arabic chat alphabet. Character encodings See also Transliteration of Ancient Egyptian Notes References External links Phoenician alphabet Arabic letters Hebrew letters