ش (shīn) is letter 13 of the 28 in the Arabic alphabet, between س sīn and ص ṣād. Its sound is sh, as in ship. It joins on both sides, so it has four shapes: ش ش ش ش. It is a sun letter, and its abjad value is 300.
Hear its name, شين (shīn):
Shīn in all four positions
Shīn joins to the letter before it and to the letter after it, so its shape depends on where it sits in a word. Alone it is ش. At the start of a word it is ش, in the middle ش, and at the end ش.
| Position | Shape | Code point | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | ش | U+FEB5 | written alone, or after a letter that does not join forward |
| Initial | ش | U+FEB7 | at the start of a word or a piece of a word |
| Medial | ش | U+FEB8 | between two letters that join it |
| Final | ش | U+FEB6 | at the end of a word, joined from the letter before |
Typed text stores all four shapes as one character, U+0634 (ARABIC LETTER SHEEN); the codes in the table, U+FEB5 to U+FEB8, are presentation forms that the Unicode Arabic FAQ does not recommend for regular text.
Shīn is number 20 of the 28 letters by frequency, 0.9% of all letters, in the 50,000 most common word forms of Arabic film and TV subtitles (hermitdave/FrequencyWords, OpenSubtitles 2018), each form counted as often as it occurs; it is initial in 54%, medial in 41%, final in 4% and alone in 1% of its occurrences.
How to pronounce shīn
The sound of shīn is sh, as in ship, written sh in the transliteration of our Arabic alphabet chart.
Arabic words with shīn
These 5 everyday words show shīn in real writing: it is initial in شمس, شاي, شعر and شارع; medial in مشمش; final in مشمش. The first three are the practice words printed on its worksheet; the others come from other letters' worksheets, and more words by topic are in our Arabic vocabulary lists.
| Word | Transliteration | Meaning | Shīn here | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| شمس | shams | sun | initial | |
| مشمش | mishmish | apricots | medial, final | |
| شاي | shāy | tea | initial | |
| شعر | shaʿr | hair | initial | |
| شارع | shāriʿ | street | initial |
Shīn with al-, and its number
Shīn is a sun letter, so the l of al- (the) goes silent before it: الشمس is said ash-shams, the sun (test any word in our sun and moon letters checker).
Its abjad value is 300 in the common Mashriqi order but 1,000 in the Maghribi order once used in North Africa and al-Andalus; our abjad calculator adds up whole words in both.
Letters that look like shīn
Shīn and س sīn share the same three teeth, and only the dots tell them apart:
- ش shīn: three dots above
- س sīn: no dot
Shīn gives the sun letters their name. شمس (shams) means sun, and with the article it is pronounced ash-shams: the l of al- disappears into the shīn.
Practise writing shīn
Trace it on the free shīn tracing worksheet (PDF, one page, 64 KB), which prints its four shapes beside شمس (shams), مشمش (mishmish) and شاي (shāy); the other 27 are on our Arabic writing worksheets page.
Words and names that start with shīn: Charlotte in Arabic.
Frequently asked questions
How do you pronounce the Arabic letter shīn?
The sound of shīn (ش) is sh, as in ship, written sh in transliteration.
Does shīn join to the next letter?
Yes. Shīn joins on both sides, so it has four forms: ش alone, ش at the start of a word, ش in the middle and ش at the end.
Is shīn a sun letter or a moon letter?
A sun letter. Before shīn the l of al- goes silent and the letter doubles, so الشمس is said ash-shams (the sun).
Which Arabic letters look like shīn?
ش shīn has three dots above and س sīn has no dot. They share one shape and differ only in their dots.