Functions of the Letter Nun (ن) in Arabic Grammar

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]The letter noon, according to Arabic grammar, has two types. Ismiya, meaning nominal, and harfiya, meaning particle.

[00:00:07]When it is ismiya, it only appears as nunu niswa, meaning noon of women.

[00:00:13]And when it's harfiya, it could be one of these three.

[00:00:17]Nunu jameel inath, noon of feminine plural.

[00:00:21]Nunu wiqaya, noon of protection.

[00:00:24]And nunu tawkeed, noon of emphasis.

[00:00:28]As for nunu niswa, it is an attached pronoun. Its function is to feminize the verb. It functions as a doer, that is fa'il.

[00:00:37]It is built on the fatha. That is, it has fatha on it all the time. And the verb it is attached to refers to plural feminine. As in the examples, katabna, meaning they women wrote. Yaktubna, meaning they women write. And taktubna, meaning you women write. In all of these, the letter noon functions as doer of action, which is plural feminine.

[00:01:02]Now coming to its harfiya forms. First, nunu jameel inath.

[00:01:08]It is a particle. It is built on the fatha with a shadda on it. It is attached pronouns, ha, ta, kaf, to feminize them.

[00:01:19]When it is attached to nouns, as kitabuhunna and kitabukunna, it'll be attached either to ha or kaf.

[00:01:28]And with verbs, as darabtunna, it is attached to ta. And with prepositions, as bihinna and bikunna, it is attached to ha and kaf.

[00:01:42]As for nunu wiqaya, it protects the verb from kasra when ya of first person, that is yaul mutakallim, is attached to it.

[00:01:50]If we have a verb, daraba, and we attach ya to it, this ya demands kasra from the ending letter of the word it is attached to. So to protect this verb from breaking, the letter noon comes between them to absorb the kasra. So this becomes darabani, meaning he hit me.

[00:02:09]This noon can also be used with inna wa akhawatuha, as inni, can also be said as innani.

[00:02:17]Now the another form is nunu tawkeed, which is attached to fi'l mudari' or fi'l amr, and its function is to solidify the certainty of an action.

[00:02:28]This has two types. Noon, which has shadda and fatha on it, and this one is considered heavy. And the other one is noon with the skoon, and it is considered light. Both of these are put together in a verse from sura Yusuf.

[00:02:44]Wala illam yaf'al ma amuruhu layusjananna walayakunanna minas saghireen. In layusjananna, the noon mushadda is nunu tawkeed in heavy form.

[00:02:57]And in layakunanna, which has tanween script, but it is actually layakunanna, because verbs don't take tanween. This nunu tawkeed is the light one. The translation goes as follows.

[00:03:10]And if he'll not do what I order him, he'll surely be imprisoned and will be of those debased.

[00:03:18]So nunu niswa is a noun that functions as a doer in verbs. Nunu jameel inath feminizes the pronouns, ha, ta, kaf.

[00:03:27]Nunu wiqaya absorbs the kasra demanded by yaul mutakallim. And nunu tawkeed makes an action certain. There's another noon which is neither a noun nor a particle. It is alama, that is a sign.

[00:03:42]Which in grammar be like thubutun noon, that is presence of noon. Or hadhfun noon, that is omission of noon. In the verb yadhribuna, the noon present at the end indicates the indicative mood. And in the absence of this noon, the verb becomes yadhribu. And this absence of noon could indicate subjunctive or jussive mood, which I have explained in detail, and the link is in the description. Wassalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.