| Arabic alphabet | |
| Type: | Abjad |
| Languages: | Arabic |
| Time: | 3rd century CE – present[1] |
| Fam1: | Egyptian hieroglyphics |
| Fam2: | Proto-Sinaitic |
| Fam3: | Phoenician |
| Fam4: | Aramaic |
| Fam5: | Nabataean |
| Fam6: | Arabic script |
| Iso15924: | Arab |
| Sample: | Arabic Language.svg |
The Arabic alphabet (Arabic: الْأَبْجَدِيَّة الْعَرَبِيَّة, pronounced as /ar/ or Arabic: الْحُرُوف الْعَرَبِيَّة,), or Arabic abjad, is the Arabic script as specifically codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right-to-left in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters, of which most have contextual letterforms. The Arabic alphabet is considered an abjad, with only consonants required to be written; due to its optional use of diacritics to notate vowels, it is considered an impure abjad.[2]
The basic Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters. Forms using the Arabic script to write other languages added and removed letters: for example ⟨ژ⟩ is often used to represent pronounced as //ʒ// in adaptations of the Arabic script. Unlike Greek-derived alphabets, Arabic has no distinct upper and lower case letterforms.
Many letters look similar but are distinguished from one another by dots above or below their central part . These dots are an integral part of a letter, since they distinguish between letters that represent different sounds. For example, the Arabic letters Arabic: ب|, Arabic: ت, and Arabic: ث have the same basic shape, but with one dot added below, two dots added above, and three dots added above respectively. The letter Arabic: ن also has the same form in initial and medial forms, with one dot added above, though it is somewhat different in its isolated and final forms. Historically, they were often omitted, in a writing style called rasm.
Both printed and written Arabic are cursive, with most letters within a word directly joined to adjacent letters.
There are two main collating sequences ('alphabetical orderings') for the Arabic alphabet:, and .
The original order derives from that used by the Phoenician alphabet, and is therefore reminiscent of the orderings of other alphabets, such as those in Hebrew and Greek. With this ordering, letters are also used as numbers known as abjad numerals, possessing the same numerological codes as in Hebrew gematria and Greek isopsephy.
The or order is used when sorting lists of words and names, such as in phonebooks, classroom lists, and dictionaries. The ordering groups letters by the graphical similarity of the glyphs' shapes.
The order is not a simple correspondence with the earlier north Semitic alphabetic order, as it has a position corresponding to the Aramaic letter samek Hebrew: ס, which has no cognate letter in the Arabic alphabet historically.
The loss of was compensated for by:
The six other letters that do not correspond to any north Semitic letter are placed at the end.
| Arabic: ا | Arabic: ب | Arabic: ج | Arabic: د | Arabic: ه | Arabic: و | Arabic: ز | Arabic: ح | Arabic: ط | Arabic: ي | Arabic: ك | Arabic: ل | Arabic: م | Arabic: ن | Arabic: س | Arabic: ع | Arabic: ف | Arabic: ص | Arabic: ق | Arabic: ر | Arabic: ش | Arabic: ت | Arabic: ث | Arabic: خ | Arabic: ذ | Arabic: ض | Arabic: ظ | Arabic: غ | |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 | 100 | 200 | 300 | 400 | 500 | 600 | 700 | 800 | 900 | 1000 | |
This is commonly vocalized as follows:
.Another vocalization is:
| Arabic: ا | Arabic: ب | Arabic: ج | Arabic: د | Arabic: ه | Arabic: و | Arabic: ز | Arabic: ح | Arabic: ط | Arabic: ي | Arabic: ك | Arabic: ل | Arabic: م | Arabic: ن | Arabic: ص | Arabic: ع | Arabic: ف | Arabic: ض | Arabic: ق | Arabic: ر | Arabic: س | Arabic: ت | Arabic: ث | Arabic: خ | Arabic: ذ | Arabic: ظ | Arabic: غ | Arabic: ش | |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 | 100 | 200 | 300 | 400 | 500 | 600 | 700 | 800 | 900 | 1000 | |
| The colors indicate which letters have different positions from the previous table | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This can be vocalized as:
Modern dictionaries and other reference books do not use the order to sort alphabetically; instead, the newer order is used wherein letters are partially grouped together by similarity of shape. The order is never used as numerals.
| Arabic: ا | Arabic: ب | Arabic: ت | Arabic: ث | Arabic: ج | Arabic: ح | Arabic: خ | Arabic: د | Arabic: ذ | Arabic: ر | Arabic: ز | Arabic: س | Arabic: ش | Arabic: ص | Arabic: ض | Arabic: ط | Arabic: ظ | Arabic: ع | Arabic: غ | Arabic: ف | Arabic: ق | Arabic: ك | Arabic: ل | Arabic: م | Arabic: ن | Arabic: ه | Arabic: و | Arabic: ي |
In the order replaced recently by the Mashriqi order,[3] though still used in many Quranic schools in Algeria, the sequence is:
| Arabic: ا | Arabic: ب | Arabic: ت | Arabic: ث | Arabic: ج | Arabic: ح | Arabic: خ | Arabic: د | Arabic: ذ | Arabic: ر | Arabic: ز | Arabic: ط | Arabic: ظ | Arabic: ك | Arabic: ل | Arabic: م | Arabic: ن | Arabic: ص | Arabic: ض | Arabic: ع | Arabic: غ | Arabic: ف | Arabic: ق | Arabic: س | Arabic: ش | Arabic: ه | Arabic: و | Arabic: ي | |
| The colors indicate which letters have different positions from the previous table | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani's encyclopedia Arabic: الإكليل من أخبار اليمن وأنساب حمير, the letter sequence is:
| Arabic: ا | Arabic: ب | Arabic: ت | Arabic: ث | Arabic: ج | Arabic: ح | Arabic: خ | Arabic: د | Arabic: ذ | Arabic: ك | Arabic: ل | Arabic: م | Arabic: و | Arabic: ن | Arabic: ص | Arabic: ض | Arabic: ع | Arabic: غ | Arabic: ط | Arabic: ظ | Arabic: ف | Arabic: ق | Arabic: ر | Arabic: ز | Arabic: ه | Arabic: س | Arabic: ش | Arabic: ي |
The Arabic alphabet is always cursive and letters vary in shape depending on their position within a word. Letters can exhibit up to four distinct forms corresponding to an initial, medial (middle), final, or isolated position (IMFI). While some letters show considerable variations, others remain almost identical across all four positions. Generally, letters in the same word are linked together on both sides by short horizontal lines, but six letters (Arabic: و,ز,ر,ذ,د,ا) can only be linked to their preceding letter. In addition, some letter combinations are written as ligatures (special shapes), notably Arabic: لا,[4] which is the only mandatory ligature (the unligated combination Arabic: ل‍‍ا is considered difficult to read).
| Maghrebian | Common | Closest English equivalent in pronunciation | Letter name(Classical pronunciation; IPA) | Letter name in Arabic script | Value in Literary Arabic (IPA) | Contextual forms | Isolated form | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ʾAbjadī | Hijāʾī | ʾAbjadī | Hijāʾī | Final | Medial | Initial | |||||||||
| data-sort-value="01." | 1. | data-sort-value="01." | 1. | data-sort-value="01." | 1. | data-sort-value="01." | 1. | uh–oh / car, cat | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: أَلِف | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| data-sort-value="02." | 2. | data-sort-value="02." | 2. | data-sort-value="02." | 2. | data-sort-value="02." | 2. | barn | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: بَاء | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| 22. | data-sort-value="03." | 3. | 22. | data-sort-value="03." | 3. | tick | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: تَاء | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| 23. | data-sort-value="04." | 4. | 23. | data-sort-value="04." | 4. | think | (pronounced as /ar/) / | Arabic: ثَاء | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| data-sort-value="03." | 3. | data-sort-value="05." | 5. | data-sort-value="03." | 3. | data-sort-value="05." | 5. | gem | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: جِيم | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| data-sort-value="08." | 8. | data-sort-value="06." | 6. | data-sort-value="08." | 8. | data-sort-value="06." | 6. | no equivalent (pharyngeal h) | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: حَاء | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| 24. | data-sort-value="07." | 7. | 24. | data-sort-value="07." | 7. | Scottish loch | (pronounced as /ar/) / | Arabic: خَاء | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| data-sort-value="04." | 4. | data-sort-value="08." | 8. | data-sort-value="04." | 4. | data-sort-value="08." | 8. | dear | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: دَال | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| 25. | data-sort-value="09." | 9. | 25. | data-sort-value="09." | 9. | that | (pronounced as /ar/) / ḏāl | Arabic: ذَال | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| 20. | 10. | 20. | 10. | Scottish right | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: رَاء | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| data-sort-value="07." | 7. | 11. | data-sort-value="07." | 7. | 11. | zebra | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: زَاي | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| 21. | 24. | 15. | 12. | sin | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: سِين | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| 28. | 25. | 21. | 13. | shin | (pronounced as /ar/) / šīn | Arabic: شِين | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| 15. | 18. | 18. | 14. | no equivalent (emphatic s) | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: صَاد | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| 18. | 19. | 26. | 15. | no equivalent (emphatic d) | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: ضَاد | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| data-sort-value="09." | 9. | 12. | data-sort-value="09." | 9. | 16. | no equivalent (emphatic t) | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: طَاء | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| 26. | 13. | 27. | 17. | no equivalent (emphatic the) | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: ظَاء | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| 16. | 20. | 16. | 18. | no equivalent (similar to Arabic: ح ḥāʾ but voiced) | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: عَيْن | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| 27. | 21. | 28. | 19. | no equivalent (Spanish abogado or French rouge) | (pronounced as /ar/) / | Arabic: غَيْن | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| 17. | 22. | 17. | 20. | far | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: فَاء | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| 19. | 23. | 19. | 21. | no equivalent (MLE cut) | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: قَاف | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| 11. | 14. | 11. | 22. | cap | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: كَاف | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| 12. | 15. | 12. | 23. | lamp | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: لاَم | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| 13. | 16. | 13. | 24. | me | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: مِيم | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| 14. | 17. | 14. | 25. | nun | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: نُون | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| data-sort-value="05." | 5. | 26. | data-sort-value="05." | 5. | 26. | hat | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: هَاء | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| data-sort-value="06." | 6. | 27. | data-sort-value="06." | 6. | 27. | wow, pool | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: وَاو | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| 10. | 28. | 10. | 28. | yes, meet | (pronounced as /ar/) | Arabic: يَاء | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| 29. | 29. | 29. | 29. | uh–oh | Arabic: هَمْزة | pronounced as /link/ | (used in medial and final positions as an unlinked letter) | ||||||||
Notes
In academic work, the hamzah is transliterated with the modifier letter right half ring (ʾ), while the modifier letter left half ring (ʿ) transliterates the letter (Arabic: ع), which represents a different sound, not found in English.
The hamzah has a single form, since it is never linked to a preceding or following letter. However, it is sometimes combined with a,, or, and in that case the carrier behaves like an ordinary,, or, check the table below:
| Name | Contextual forms | Isolated | Position occurrence | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Final | Medial | Initial | ||||
| (Arabic: <big>هَمْزَة عَلَى الأَلِفْ</big>) | Arabic: أ | Initial / Medial / Final positions | ||||
| (Arabic: <big>هَمْزَة تَحْت الأَلِفْ</big>) | - | Arabic: إ | Initial position only | |||
| (Arabic: <big>هَمْزَة عَلَى السَّطْر</big>) | - | Arabic: ء | Medial / Final only | |||
| (Arabic: <big>هَمْزَة عَلَى الوَاو</big>) | - | Arabic: ؤ | Medial / Final only | |||
| (Arabic: <big>هَمْزَة عَلَى نَبْرَة</big>) (medial) (Arabic: <big>هَمْزَة عَلَى اليَاء</big>) (final) | - | Medial / Final only | ||||
| (Arabic: <big>هَمْزَةْ المد</big>) | - | Arabic: آ | Initial / Medial only | |||
The following are not individual letters, but rather different contextual variants of some of the Arabic letters.
| Name | Contextual forms | Isolated | Translit. | Phonemic Value (IPA) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Final | Medial | Initial | |||||
| (Arabic: <big>تَاءْ مَرْبُوطَة</big>) | Arabic: ـة | (only final) | Arabic: ة | or | (aka "correlated tā")used in final position only and for denoting the feminine noun/word or to make the noun/word feminine; however, in rare irregular noun/word cases, it appears to denote the "masculine";singular nouns: pronounced as //a//, plural nouns: (a preceding letter followed by a + =) | ||
| (Arabic: <big>أَلِفْ مَقْصُورَة</big>) | Arabic: ـى | (only final) | Arabic: ى | or | Two uses: 1. The letter called Arabic: أَلِفْ مَقْصُورَة or Arabic: ْأَلِف لَيِّنَة (as opposed to Arabic: أَلِف مَمْدُودَة Arabic: ا), pronounced pronounced as //aː// in Modern Standard Arabic. It is used only at the end of words in some special cases to denote the neuter/non-feminine aspect of the word (mainly verbs), where cannot be used. 2. A way of writing the letter Arabic: ي without its dots at the end of words, either traditionally or in contemporary use in Egypt and Sudan. | ||
| ʾalif al-waṣl(Arabic: <big>أَلِفُ ٱلْوَصْلِ</big>) | (only initial) | Arabic: ٱ or Arabic: ا | silent(check Wasla) |
| |||
Gemination is the doubling of a consonant. Instead of writing the letter twice, Arabic places a W-shaped sign called, above it. Note that if a vowel occurs between the two consonants the letter will simply be written twice. The diacritic only appears where the consonant at the end of one syllable is identical to the initial consonant of the following syllable. (The generic term for such diacritical signs is), e. g., Arabic: درس (with full diacritics: Arabic: دَرَسَ) is a Form I verb meaning to study, whereas Arabic: درّس (with full diacritics: Arabic: دَرَّسَ) is the corresponding Form II verb, with the middle consonant doubled, meaning to teach.
See main article: Nunation.
Nunation (Arabic: تنوين) is the addition of a final to a noun or adjective. The vowel before it indicates grammatical case. In written Arabic nunation is indicated by doubling the vowel diacritic at the end of the word.
The use of ligature in Arabic is common. There is one compulsory ligature, that for ل + ا, which exists in two forms. All other ligatures, of which there are many,[5] are optional.
| Contextual forms | Name | Trans. | Value | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Final | Medial | Initial | Isolated | ||||
| lām + alif | laa | /laː/ | |||||
| [6] | yāʾ + mīm | īm | /iːm/ | ||||
| lam + mīm | lm | /lm/ | |||||
A more complex ligature that combines as many as seven distinct components is commonly used to represent the word .
The only ligature within the primary range of Arabic script in Unicode (U+06xx) is + . This is the only one compulsory for fonts and word-processing. Other ranges are for compatibility to older standards and contain other ligatures, which are optional.
U+FEFB ARABIC LIGATURE LAM WITH ALEF ISOLATED FORM:U+0640 ARABIC TATWEEL + +U+FEFC ARABIC LIGATURE LAM WITH ALEF FINAL FORMAnother ligature in the Unicode Presentation Form A range U+FB50 to U+FDxx is the special code for glyph for the ligature ("God"), U+FDF2 ARABIC LIGATURE ALLAH ISOLATED FORM:
This is a work-around for the shortcomings of most text processors, which are incapable of displaying the correct vowel marks for the word in the Quran. Because Arabic script is used to write other texts rather than Quran only, rendering + + as the previous ligature is considered faulty.
If one of a number of the fonts (Noto Naskh Arabic, mry_KacstQurn, KacstOne, Nadeem, DejaVu Sans, Harmattan, Scheherazade, Lateef, Iranian Sans, Baghdad, DecoType Naskh) is installed on a computer (Iranian Sans is supported by Wikimedia web-fonts), the word will appear without diacritics.
U+0651 ARABIC SHADDA + U+0670 ARABIC LETTER SUPERSCRIPT ALEF +An attempt to show them on the faulty fonts without automatically adding the gemination mark and the superscript alif, although may not display as desired on all browsers, is by adding the U+200d (Zero width joiner) after the first or second
U+200d ZERO WIDTH JOINER +Users of Arabic usually write long vowels but omit short ones, so readers must utilize their knowledge of the language in order to supply the missing vowels. However, in the education system and particularly in classes on Arabic grammar these vowels are used since they are crucial to the grammar. An Arabic sentence can have a completely different meaning by a subtle change of the vowels. This is why in an important text such as the the three basic vowel signs are mandated, like the Arabic diacritics and other types of marks, like the cantillation signs.
In the Arabic handwriting of everyday use, in general publications, and on street signs, short vowels are typically not written. On the other hand, copies of the cannot be endorsed by the religious institutes that review them unless the diacritics are included. Children's books, elementary school texts, and Arabic-language grammars in general will include diacritics to some degree. These are known as "vocalized" texts.
Short vowels may be written with diacritics placed above or below the consonant that precedes them in the syllable, called . All Arabic vowels, long and short, follow a consonant; in Arabic, words like "Ali" or "alif", for example, start with a consonant:, .
| Short vowels (fully vocalized text) | Code | Name | Name in Arabic script | Trans. | Phonemic Value | Remarks | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 064E | fat·ḥah | pronounced as //a// | Ranges from pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, to pronounced as /link/, depending on the native dialect, position, and stress. | ||||
| 064F | pronounced as //u// | Ranges from pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, to pronounced as /link/, depending on the native dialect, position, and stress. Approximated to English "OO" (as "boot" but shorter) | |||||
| 0650 | pronounced as //i// | Ranges from pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, to pronounced as /link/, depending on the native dialect, position, and stress. Approximated to English "I" (as in "pick") |
In the fully vocalized Arabic text found in texts such as the Quran, a long following a consonant other than a is written with a short sign on the consonant plus an after it; long is written as a sign for short plus a ; and long as a sign for short plus a . Briefly, = ; = ; and = . Long following a may be represented by an or by a free followed by an (two consecutive s are never allowed in Arabic).
The table below shows vowels placed above or below a dotted circle replacing a primary consonant letter or a sign. For clarity in the table, the primary letters on the left used to mark these long vowels are shown only in their isolated form. Most consonants do connect to the left with, and written then with their medial or final form. Additionally, the letter in the last row may connect to the letter on its left, and then will use a medial or initial form. Use the table of primary letters to look at their actual glyph and joining types.
| Unicode | Letter with diacritic | Name | Trans. | Variants | Value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 064E 0627 | aa | pronounced as //aː// | ||||
| 064E 0649 | fatḥah ʾalif maqṣūrah | aa | ||||
| 064F 0648 | uw/ ou | pronounced as //uː// | ||||
| 0650 064A | iy | pronounced as //iː// | ||||
| 0650 0649 | kasrah yāʾ | ī | iy | pronounced as //iː// | ||
In unvocalized text (one in which the short vowels are not marked), the long vowels are represented by the vowel in question:,, or . Long vowels written in the middle of a word of unvocalized text are treated like consonants with a (see below) in a text that has full diacritics. Here also, the table shows long vowel letters only in isolated form for clarity.
Combinations Arabic: وا and Arabic: يا are always pronounced and respectively. The exception is the suffix Arabic: ـوا۟ in verb endings where is silent, resulting in or .
| Long vowels (unvocalized text) | Name | Trans. | Value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0627 | (implied) | pronounced as //aː// | ||
| 0649 | (implied) | / | ||
| 0648 | (implied) | pronounced as //uː// | ||
| 064A | (implied) | pronounced as //iː// |
In addition, when transliterating names and loanwords, Arabic language speakers write out most or all the vowels as long (with Arabic: [[ا]], and with Arabic: [[ي]], and and with Arabic: [[و]]), meaning it approaches a true alphabet.
The diphthongs pronounced as //aj// and pronounced as //aw// are represented in vocalized text as follows:
| Diphthongs (fully vocalized text) | Name | Trans. | Value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 064A 064E | pronounced as //aj// | |||
| 0648 064E | pronounced as //aw// |
An Arabic syllable can be open (ending with a vowel) or closed (ending with a consonant):
A normal text is composed only of a series of consonants plus vowel-lengthening letters; thus, the word qalb, "heart", is written qlb, and the word qalaba "he turned around", is also written qlb.
To write qalaba without this ambiguity, we could indicate that the l is followed by a short a by writing a fatḥah above it.
To write qalb, we would instead indicate that the l is followed by no vowel by marking it with a diacritic called sukūn, like this: Arabic: قلْب.
This is one step down from full vocalization, where the vowel after the q would also be indicated by a fatḥah: Arabic: قَلْب.
The Qurʾān is traditionally written in full vocalization.
The long i sound in some editions of the Qur’ān is written with a kasrah followed by a diacritic-less y, and long u by a ḍammah followed by a bare w. In others, these y and w carry a sukūn. Outside of the Qur’ān, the latter convention is extremely rare, to the point that y with sukūn will be unambiguously read as the diphthong pronounced as //aj//, and w with sukūn will be read pronounced as //aw//.
For example, the letters can be read like English meel or mail, or (theoretically) also like mayyal or mayil. But if a sukūn is added on the y then the m cannot have a sukūn (because two letters in a row cannot be sukūnated), cannot have a ḍammah (because there is never an uy sound in Arabic unless there is another vowel after the y), and cannot have a kasrah (because kasrah before sukūnated y is never found outside the Qur’ān), so it must have a fatḥah and the only possible pronunciation is pronounced as //majl// (meaning mile, or even e-mail). By the same token, m-y-t with a sukūn over the y can be mayt but not mayyit or meet, and m-w-t with a sukūn on the w can only be mawt, not moot (iw is impossible when the w closes the syllable).
Vowel marks are always written as if the i‘rāb vowels were in fact pronounced, even when they must be skipped in actual pronunciation. So, when writing the name Aḥmad, it is optional to place a sukūn on the ḥ, but a sukūn is forbidden on the d, because it would carry a ḍammah if any other word followed, as in Aḥmadu zawjī "Ahmad is my husband".
Another example: the sentence that in correct literary Arabic must be pronounced Aḥmadu zawjun shirrīr "Ahmad is a wicked husband", is usually pronounced (due to influence from vernacular Arabic varieties) as Aḥmad zawj shirrīr. Yet, for the purposes of Arabic grammar and orthography, is treated as if it were not mispronounced and as if yet another word followed it, i.e., if adding any vowel marks, they must be added as if the pronunciation were Aḥmadu zawjun sharrīrun with a tanwīn 'un' at the end. So, it is correct to add an un tanwīn sign on the final r, but actually pronouncing it would be a hypercorrection. Also, it is never correct to write a sukūn on that r, even though in actual pronunciation it is (and in correct Arabic MUST be) sukūned.
Of course, if the correct i‘rāb is a sukūn, it may be optionally written.
| General Unicode | Name | Name in Arabic script | Translit. | Phonemic Value (IPA) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0652 | sukūn | Arabic: سُكُون | (no vowel with this consonant letter or diphthong with this long vowel letter) | ∅ | ||
| 0670 | alif khanjariyyah [dagger ’alif – smaller ’alif written above consonant] | Arabic: أَلِف خَنْجَرِيَّة | ā | pronounced as //aː// | ||
Some letters take a traditionally different form in specific regions:
| Letter | Explanation | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial | ||
| A traditional form to denotate the Arabic: [[س]] letter, used in areas influenced by Persian script and former Ottoman script, although rarely. Also used in older Pashto script.[7] | |||||
| A traditional Maghrebi variant of Arabic: ف. | |||||
| A traditional Maghrebi variant of Arabic: ق. Generally dotless in isolated and final positions and dotted in the initial and medial forms. | |||||
| An alternative version of Arabic: [[ك]] used especially in Maghrebi under the influence of the Ottoman script or in Gulf script under the influence of the Persian script. | |||||
| The traditional style to write or print the letter, and remains so in the Nile Valley region (Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan... etc.) and sometimes Maghreb; Arabic: [[ي]] is dotless in the isolated and final position. Visually identical to Arabic: [[ى]]; resembling the Perso-Arabic letter Persian: یـ ـیـ ـی [[ی]] which was also used in Ottoman Turkish. | |||||
Some modified letters are used to represent non-native sounds of Modern Standard Arabic. These letters are used in transliterated names, loanwords and dialectal words.
| Letter | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| pronounced as /link/ | Sometimes used when transliterating foreign names and loanwords instead of | |
| pronounced as /link/ | Sometimes used when transliterating foreign names and loanwords instead of .[8] Not to be confused with . | |
| Used in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. | ||
| pronounced as /link/1 | Used in Gulf and Iraqi Arabic dialects. The sequence is usually preferred in most of the Arab world (e.g. for "Chad"). | |
| pronounced as /link/2 | Used in Egypt for pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /link/ where is pronounced pronounced as /link/. | |
| pronounced as /link/3 | Used in Israel, for example on road signs. | |
| Used in Gulf and Iraqi Arabic dialects | ||
| Used in Tunisia and in Algeria for loanwords and for the dialectal pronunciation of in some words. Not to be confused with . | ||
| Used in Morocco. |
See main article: Western Arabic numerals and Eastern Arabic numerals.
| Western (Maghreb, Europe) | Central (Mideast) | Eastern | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Persian | Urdu | |||
| 0 | Arabic: ٠ | Persian: ۰ | Urdu: ۰ | |
| 1 | Arabic: ١ | Persian: ۱ | Urdu: ۱ | |
| 2 | Arabic: ٢ | Persian: ۲ | Urdu: ۲ | |
| 3 | Arabic: ٣ | Persian: ۳ | Urdu: ۳ | |
| 4 | Arabic: ٤ | Persian: ۴ | Urdu: ۴ | |
| 5 | Arabic: ٥ | Persian: ۵ | Urdu: ۵ | |
| 6 | Arabic: ٦ | Persian: ۶ | Urdu: ۶ | |
| 7 | Arabic: ٧ | Persian: ۷ | Urdu: ۷ | |
| 8 | Arabic: ٨ | Persian: ۸ | Urdu: ۸ | |
| 9 | Arabic: ٩ | Persian: ۹ | Urdu: ۹ | |
| 10 | Arabic: ١٠ | Persian: ۱۰ | Urdu: ۱۰ | |
There are two main kinds of numerals used along with Arabic text; Western Arabic numerals and Eastern Arabic numerals. In most of present-day North Africa, the usual Western Arabic numerals are used. Like Western Arabic numerals, in Eastern Arabic numerals, the units are always right-most, and the highest value left-most. Eastern Arabic numbers are written from left to right.
See main article: Abjad numerals.
In addition, the Arabic alphabet can be used to represent numbers (Abjad numerals). This usage is based on the order of the alphabet. Arabic: أ is 1, Arabic: ب is 2, Arabic: ج is 3, and so on until Arabic: ي = 10, Arabic: ك = 20, Arabic: ل = 30, ..., Arabic: ر = 200, ..., Arabic: غ = 1000. This is sometimes used to produce chronograms.
See main article: History of the Arabic alphabet. The Arabic alphabet can be traced back to the Nabataean script used to write Nabataean Aramaic. The first known text in the Arabic alphabet is a late fourth-century inscription from 50 km east of in Jordan, but the first dated one is a trilingual inscription at Zebed in Syria from 512. However, the epigraphic record is extremely sparse, with only five certainly pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions surviving, though some others may be pre-Islamic. Later, dots were added above and below the letters to differentiate them. (The Aramaic language had fewer phonemes than the Arabic, and some originally distinct Aramaic letters had become indistinguishable in shape, so that in the early writings 14 distinct letter-shapes had to do duty for 28 sounds; cf. the similarly ambiguous Book Pahlavi.)
The first surviving document that definitely uses these dots is also the first surviving Arabic papyrus (PERF 558), dated April 643, although they did not become obligatory until much later. Important texts were and still are frequently memorized, especially in Qurʾan memorization.
Later still, vowel marks and the hamzah were introduced, beginning some time in the latter half of the 7th century, preceding the first invention of Syriac and Tiberian vocalizations. Initially, this was done by a system of red dots, said to have been commissioned in the Umayyad era by Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali, a dot above =, a dot below =, a dot on the line =, and doubled dots indicated nunation. However, this was cumbersome and easily confusable with the letter-distinguishing dots, so about 100 years later, the modern system was adopted. The system was finalized around 786 by al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi.
Arabic dialects were written in different alphabets before the spread of the Arabic alphabet currently in use. The most important of these alphabets and inscriptions are the Safaitic inscriptions, amounting to 30,000 inscriptions discovered in the Levant desert.[10]
There are about 3,700 inscriptions in Hismaic in central Jordan and northwest of the Arabian Peninsula, and Nabataean inscriptions, the most important of which are the Umm al-Jimal I inscription and the Numara inscription.[11]
Medieval Arabic blockprinting flourished from the 10th century until the 14th. It was devoted only to very small texts, usually for use in amulets.
In 1514, following Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in 1450, Gregorio de Gregorii, a Venetian, published an entire prayer-book in Arabic script; it was entitled Kitab Salat al-Sawa'i and was intended for eastern Christian communities.[12] Between 1580 and 1586, type designer Robert Granjon designed Arabic typefaces for Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, and the Medici Oriental Press published many Christian prayer and scholarly Arabic texts in the late 16th century.[13] Maronite monks at Maar Quzhay Monastery on Mount Lebanon published the first Arabic books to use movable type in the Middle East. The monks transliterated the Arabic language using Syriac script.
Although Napoleon generally receives credit for introducing the printing press to Egypt during his invasion of the country in 1798, and though he did indeed bring printing presses and Arabic presses to print the French occupation's official newspaper Al-Tanbiyyah "The Courier", printing in the Arabic language had started several centuries earlier. A goldsmith (like Gutenberg) designed and implemented an Arabic-script movable-type printing-press in the Middle East. The Lebanese Melkite monk Abdallah Zakher set up an Arabic printing press using movable type at the monastery of Saint John at the town of Dhour El Shuwayr in Mount Lebanon, the first homemade press in Lebanon using Arabic script. He personally cut the type molds and did the founding of the typeface. The first book came off his press in 1734; this press continued in use until 1899.[14]
The Arabic alphabet can be encoded using several character sets, including ISO-8859-6, Windows-1256 and Unicode, the latter of which contains the "Arabic segment", entries U+0600 to U+06FF. However, none of the sets indicates the form that each character should take in context. It is left to the rendering engine to select the proper glyph to display for each character.
Each letter has a position-independent encoding in Unicode, and the rendering software can infer the correct glyph form (initial, medial, final or isolated) from its joining context. That is the current recommendation. However, for compatibility with previous standards, the initial, medial, final and isolated forms can also be encoded separately.
See main article: Arabic script in Unicode. As of Unicode version=15.1, the Arabic script is contained in the following blocks:[15]
The basic Arabic range encodes the standard letters and diacritics but does not encode contextual forms (U+0621-U+0652 being directly based on ISO 8859-6). It also includes the most common diacritics and Arabic-Indic digits. U+06D6 to U+06ED encode Qur'anic annotation signs such as "end of ayah" ۖ and "start of rub el hizb" ۞. The Arabic supplement range encodes letter variants mostly used for writing African (non-Arabic) languages. The Arabic Extended-A range encodes additional Qur'anic annotations and letter variants used for various non-Arabic languages.
The Arabic Presentation Forms-A range encodes contextual forms and ligatures of letter variants needed for Persian, Urdu, Sindhi and Central Asian languages. The Arabic Presentation Forms-B range encodes spacing forms of Arabic diacritics, and more contextual letter forms. The Arabic Mathematical Alphabetical Symbols block encodes characters used in Arabic mathematical expressions.
See also the notes of the section on modified letters.
See also: Keyboard layout and Arabic keyboard.
Keyboards designed for different nations have different layouts, so proficiency in one style of keyboard, such as Iraq's, does not transfer to proficiency in another, such as Saudi Arabia's. Differences can include the location of non-alphabetic characters.
All Arabic keyboards allow typing Roman characters, e.g., for the URL in a web browser. Thus, each Arabic keyboard has both Arabic and Roman characters marked on the keys. Usually, the Roman characters of an Arabic keyboard conform to the QWERTY layout, but in North Africa, where French is the most common language typed using the Roman characters, the Arabic keyboards are AZERTY.
To encode a particular written form of a character, there are extra code points provided in Unicode which can be used to express the exact written form desired. The range Arabic presentation forms A (U+FB50 to U+FDFF) contain ligatures while the range Arabic presentation forms B (U+FE70 to U+FEFF) contains the positional variants. These effects are better achieved in Unicode by using the zero-width joiner and zero-width non-joiner, as these presentation forms are deprecated in Unicode and should generally only be used within the internals of text-rendering software; when using Unicode as an intermediate form for conversion between character encodings; or for backwards compatibility with implementations that rely on the hard-coding of glyph forms.
Finally, the Unicode encoding of Arabic is in logical order, that is, the characters are entered, and stored in computer memory, in the order that they are written and pronounced without worrying about the direction in which they will be displayed on paper or on the screen. Again, it is left to the rendering engine to present the characters in the correct direction, using Unicode's bi-directional text features. In this regard, if the Arabic words on this page are written left to right, it is an indication that the Unicode rendering engine used to display them is out of date.[16] [17]
There are competing online tools, e.g. Yamli editor, which allow entry of Arabic letters without having Arabic support installed on a PC, and without knowledge of the layout of the Arabic keyboard.[18]
The first software program of its kind in the world that identifies Arabic handwriting in real time was developed by researchers at Ben-Gurion University (BGU).
The prototype enables the user to write Arabic words by hand on an electronic screen, which then analyzes the text and translates it into printed Arabic letters in a thousandth of a second. The error rate is less than three percent, according to Dr. Jihad El-Sana, from BGU's department of computer sciences, who developed the system along with master's degree student Fadi Biadsy.[19]
| Arabic: [[ي]]Arabic: Arabic: [[و]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ه]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ن]]Arabic: Arabic: [[م]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ل]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ك]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ق]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ف]]Arabic: Arabic: [[غ]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ع]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ظ]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ط]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ض]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ص]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ش]]Arabic: Arabic: [[س]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ز]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ر]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ذ]]Arabic: Arabic: [[د]]Arabic: Arabic: [[خ]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ح]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ج]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ث]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ت]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ب]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ا]] | hijā’ī sequence | |
| • | ||
| • | Scheherazade New | |
| • | Lateef | |
| • | Noto Naskh Arabic | |
| • | Markazi Text | |
| • | Noto Sans Arabic | |
| • | El Messiri | |
| • | Lemonada | |
| • | Changa | |
| • | Mada | |
| • | Noto Kufi Arabic | |
| • | Reem Kufi | |
| • | Lalezar | |
| • | Jomhuria | |
| • | Rakkas | |
| Arabic: [[غ]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ظ]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ض]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ذ]]Arabic: Arabic: [[خ]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ث]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ت]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ش]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ر]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ق]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ص]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ف]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ع]]Arabic: Arabic: [[س]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ن]]Arabic: Arabic: [[م]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ل]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ك]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ي]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ط]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ح]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ز]]Arabic: Arabic: [[و]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ه]]Arabic: Arabic: [[د]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ج]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ب]]Arabic: Arabic: [[ا]] | abjadī sequence | |
| • | Noto Nastaliq Urdu | |
| • | Scheherazade New | |
| • | Lateef | |
| • | Noto Naskh Arabic | |
| • | Markazi Text | |
| • | Noto Sans Arabic | |
| • | El Messiri | |
| • | Lemonada | |
| • | Changa | |
| • | Mada | |
| • | Noto Kufi Arabic | |
| • | Reem Kufi | |
| • | Lalezar | |
| • | Jomhuria | |
| • | Rakkas | |