sun letter in Spanish

(linguistics) One of fourteen Arabic letters that cause the "L" of a preceding definite article اَل to be assimilated in pronunciation. The sun letter suppresses the sound of the "L" and then geminates: al + ṣīn = aṣ-ṣīn. The effect of the sun letter is limited to pronunciation and does not affect the spelling, except that a shadda may be written over the sun letter and in the fully vocalised spelling lām lacks any diacritics: الصِّين. The fourteen sun letters are ت, ث, د, ذ, ر, ز, س, ش, ص, ض, ط, ظ, ل, ن. Phonetically, they represent coronal consonants.