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Ta' marbuta

The tā’ marbūṭa (Arabic: تاء مربوطة‎‎, bound ta) is a variant of the letter ta used at the end of words to denote that the word is grammatically feminine. It denotes the sound /h/, and when in construct state, /t/. The regular letter ta, to distinguish it from ta marbuta, is referred to as ta maftuha, meaning "open ta" (Arabic: تاء مفتوحة‎‎‎)

The word "risala#" (Arabic: رسالة‎, "letter, message"; ta marbuta is denoted here as #), when pronounced in isolation, ends in a soft /h/ sound - which is why the ta marbuta (in this position) looks like a ha (ه). When the word is suffixed with a personal pronoun "-kum" (meaning "yours"), it changes to "risalat*kum" (Arabic: رسالتكم‎; the asterisk is used here to mean any short vowel). The pronunciation is /t/, just like the regular, or open ta (ت). But the identity of the "character" has not changed; it is still ta marbuta. Note that the isolated and final forms of this letter combine the shape of the ha and the two dots of the ta.

Ta marbuta is not traditionally considered a first-class letter in the Arabic alphabet; instead it is a clever solution to the problem that a single character (in the deep orthography, if that's the right term) takes two completely different pronunciations depending on context.

When words containing the symbol are borrowed into other languages written in the Arabic alphabet (such as Persian), ta marbuta usually becomes a regular ه. Such words are subject to the normal rules of the grammar of the particular language into which they have been borrowed; thus, in Persian the ta marbuta becomes a ى when the ezāfe—the ending indicating possession—is added.