Arabic Letter Sad with Two Dots Below

In Avar, ڝ represents the /ts/ sound. It corresponds to Cyrillic Ц in that writing tradition. The lower dots distinguish it visually from ص, but they are not separate marks to add when entering the character.

Its history belongs to Arabic-script adaptation. Early attempts to adapt Arabic writing for Dagestani languages are reported in the 15th–16th centuries. The adapted Avar system is placed in the second half of the 17th century, and Dibir-kadi refined it by the late 18th century.

Why was ڝ used?

It helped write sounds that the standard Arabic letters did not cover. Ajam writers adapted familiar Arabic letter shapes by adding dots or strokes for local consonants. Avar Arabic-script writing served religious texts, correspondence, chronicles, and poetry.

Avar writing shifted to Latin in 1928 and Cyrillic in 1938. Historical Lak orthography also records ڝ for /ts/ and pairs it with Cyrillic ц. Unicode’s annotation “Turkic” is a broad usage label, not a universal pronunciation; the surrounding language and spelling tradition matter.