Che or cheem (چ‎) is a letter of the Persian 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, Kashmiri, Azerbaijani, Ottoman Turkish, Malay (Jawi), Java (Pegon), and other Iranian languages. Modern Standard Arabic lacks this letter.

In Arabic

A bilingual road sign at a Turkmen village in Kirkuk Governorate, Iraq. The letter Che is used to represent the sound [t͡ʃ].

In this trilingual road sign in Israel, however, the letter Che is used to represent the sound [g] in Nof HaGalil.

The letter چ‎ 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 Spanish /t͡ʃ/ sound;^[1] this letter derives from šīn (ش‎) with an additional three dots below.)

In Egypt, this letter represents [ʒ], which can be a reduction of /d͡ʒ/, It is called gīm be talat noʾaṭ (جيم بتلات نقط "Gīm with three dots") there. The /ʒ/ pronunciation is also proposed for South Arabian minority languages, like Mehri and Soqotri.

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. It has also been used as /g/ in Lebanon for transliteration such as "چامبيا" (Gambia)^[2]

Character encodings

See also

• ڤ - Ve (Arabic)
• پ - Pe (Persian)
• گ - Gaf (Persian)
• ژ - Že (Arabic)

References