Question

Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah

Jazakum Allah khayran for your valuable help. I would like some more details:
How should we pronounce the combination  (in Arabic) and what does the word mean?
Next, which word or phrase is abbreviated in the letter jiim and what does that word or phrase mean?
Similar questions for the miim .

(I guess the  letters laam-alif indicate the negation, that is, not stop.)

Wassalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah

Answer

Wa alaikum assalaam wa rahmatu-llahi wa barakatuhu. Wa iyyakum.

After consultation with a Qur’anic scholar, we have learned the following:

The combination  is pronounced with a kasrah on the  and fat-h on followed by an alif maqsoora, the same vowels that the combination  has.  The combination  comes from the phrase , or stopping is better.  The  is taken from the first word, and the next two letters, the laam and alif, from the end of the second word.  Taking a combination of words and making one abbreviated word is common in Arabic, just as the phrase  is called the basmalah.  The three letters  comes from the phrase , or continuing is preferred.  The  is taken from the middle of the first word, and the last two letters of the second word are added to it to get the combination: .

 The symbol  is taken from the word  ,or allowed, and the last symbol  comes from the last letter of the word , or compulsory. 

You are correct, the combination  is for negation, meaning do not stop, or in some cases, do not start here.

We ask Allah to reward you for helping all to learn the meaning of these symbols, and teaching us the correct voweling.  We had learned incorrectly and used, in error, a kasrah on the (laam) and a (ya’) on the end of  and  before. 

Wa alaikumu-s-salaam wa rahmatu-llahi wa barakatuhu