Sun Letters

With sun letters, the l of the definite article is not pronounced. Instead, the first consonant of the word is doubled with a shedda.

The sun-letter group includes: n, l, ṭ, ḍ, ṣ, š, s, z, r, j, t. They are called sun letters because the word for sun (šms) begins with one of these letters.

Examples

Indefinite	Definite
ḍar — a house	ḍ-ḍar — the house
znqa — a street	z-znqa — the street
rajl — a man	r-rajl — the man
šms — a sun	š-šms — the sun