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Arabic alphabet
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WordNet:
Arabic alphabet
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The noun has one meaning:
Meaning #1:
the alphabet of 28 characters derived from Aramaic and used for writing Arabic languages
Wikipedia:
Arabic alphabet
| Arabic abjad | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | Abjad | |
| Languages | Arabic, Persian, Baloch, Urdu, Kurdish, Pashto, Sindhi, Malay and others. | |
| Time period | 400 CE to the present | |
| Parent systems | Proto-Canaanite → Phoenician → Aramaic → Nabataean or Syriac → Arabic abjad |
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| Unicode range | U+0600 to U+06FF |
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| ISO 15924 | Arab (#160) | |
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| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
| Arabic alphabet | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ﺍ ﺏ ﺕ ﺙ ﺝ ﺡ | |||||
| ﺥ ﺩ ﺫ ﺭ ﺯ س | |||||
| ﺵ ﺹ ﺽ ﻁ ﻅ ﻉ | |||||
| ﻍ ﻑ ﻕ ﻙ ﻝ | |||||
| ﻡ ﻥ ه ﻭ ﻱ | |||||
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History · Transliteration Diacritics · Hamza ء Numerals · Numeration |
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| History of the alphabet |
|---|
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Middle Bronze Age 18–15th c. BC
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| Meroitic 3rd c. BC |
| Hangul 1443 |
| Zhuyin 1913 |
| complete genealogy |
The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing languages such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and others.
The alphabet was first used to write texts in Arabic -- most importantly, the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam. With the spread of Islam, it came to be used to write many other languages, even outside of the Semitic family to which Arabic belongs. Examples of non-Semitic languages written with the Arabic alphabet include Persian, Urdu, Malay, Azerbaijani (in Iran) and Kurdish in Iraq and Iran. In order to accommodate the needs of these other languages, new letters and other symbols were added to the original alphabet. (See Arabic alphabets of other languages below.)
Just as different handwriting styles and typefaces exist in the Roman alphabet, the Arabic alphabet exists in different styles such as Nasta'līq, Thuluth, Kufic and others (see Arabic calligraphy). These styles can vary widely.
Structure of the Arabic alphabet
Arabic is written from right to left; its alphabet is composed of 28 basic letters. Adaptations of the script for other languages than Arabic have additional letters (for example, see Malay-Arabic script). There are not distinct upper and lower case letter forms. Both printed and written Arabic are cursive; i.e., most of the letters connect directly to the letter which immediately follows. Some letters are non-connecting; they do not connect to the following letter, even in the middle of a word. Each individual letter can have up to four distinct forms, based upon where the letter appears in a word or group of letters. These forms are initial, medial, final, and isolated:
- Initial: beginning of a word; or in the middle of a word, following a non-connecting letter
- Medial: between two connecting letters (non-connecting letters lack a medial form)
- Final: at the end of a word following a connecting letter
- Isolated: at the end of a word following a non-connecting letter; or used independently
Some letters appear almost the same in all four forms; others display more variety. In addition, some combinations of two or three letters can take special shapes (ligatures) in handwriting, and often in printed Arabic as well.
In many cases, letters are distinguished from other letters with similar shapes by dots placed above or below the central part of the letter. These are not like accent marks--rather, the dots distinguish completely different letters (and sounds). For example, the Arabic letters "b" and "t" have the same basic shape, but "b" has one dot below, and "t" has two dots above.
The Arabic alphabet is an "impure" abjad—short vowels are not written, though long ones are—so the reader must know the language in order to restore the vowels. However, in editions of the Qur'an or in didactic works vocalization marks are used – including a sign for vowel omission (sukūn) and one for gemination/doubling/lengthening of consonants (šadda).
The names of Arabic letters can be thought of as abstractions of an older version where the names of the letters signified meaningful words in the Proto-Semitic language.
There are two orders for the Arabic alphabet. The original Abjadī أبجدي order derives from the order of Phoenician alphabet, and is therefore similar to the order of other Phoenician-derived alphabets, such as the Latin alphabet. The standard order used today, and shown in the table, is the Hejā'ī هجائي order, where similarly-shaped letters are grouped together.
Abjadī order
- See also: Abjad numerals
The special Abjadī order (or two slightly variant orders) was devised by matching an Arabic letter of the fully consonant-dotted 28-letter Arabic alphabet to each of the 22 letters of the Aramaic alphabet (in their old Phoenician alphabetic order, also used by the Hebrew alphabet) — leaving six remaining Arabic letters at the end.
The most common Abjad sequence is (from left to right):
-
أ ب ج د ﻫ و ز ح ط ي ك ل م ن س ع ف ص ق ر ش ت ث خ ذ ض ظ غ ʼ b ǧ d h w z ḥ ṭ y k l m n s ʻ f ṣ q r š t ṯ ḫ ḏ ḍ ẓ ġ
This is commonly vocalized as follows:
- ʼabǧad hawwaz ḥuṭṭī kalaman saʻfaṣ qarašat ṯaḫaḏ ḍaẓaġ
Another vocalization is:
- ʼabuǧadin hawazin ḥuṭiya kalman saʻfaṣ qurišat ṯaḫuḏ ḍaẓuġ
Another Abjad sequence, mainly confined to the Maghreb, is:
-
ﺃ ﺏ ﺝ ﺩ ﻫ ﻭ ﺯ ﺡ ﻁ ﻱ ﻙ ﻝ ﻡ ﻥ ﺹ ﻉ ﻑ ﺽ ﻕ ﺭ ﺱ ﺕ ﺙ ﺥ ﺫ ﻅ ﻍ ﺵ ʼ b ǧ d h w z ḥ ṭ y k l m n ṣ ʻ f ḍ q r s t ṯ ḫ ḏ ẓ ġ š
which can be vocalized as:
- ʼabuǧadin hawazin ḥuṭiya kalman ṣaʻfaḍ qurisat ṯaḫuḏ ẓaġuš
Despite no longer being used as the standard order of the alphabet, the Abjadi order is still used in things such as lists and outlines where a ordinal system of designating points of information or questions other than numbers is required. In other words, whereas a list in English might call its first point "A" its next point "B", its next point "C", then "D", then "E" and so on down to "Z", even today a list in Arabic would typically call its first point "أ", then "ب", then "ج", "د", "ﻫ" and so on down to "ﻍ", rather than "أ", "ب", "ت", "ث", "ج", and so on down to "ي", as the modern order might suggest. The order is, also, still used in Modern Arabic mathematical notation when allocating variable names. For example when a the letters أ (alif) ب (ba') have been already used for variable names, conventionally, the next letter to be used would be ج (ġim)
Presentation of the alphabet
The following table provides all of the Unicode characters for Arabic, and none of the supplementary letters used for other languages. The transliteration given is the widespread DIN 31635 standard, with some common alternatives. See the article Romanization of Arabic for details and various other transliteration schemes.
Regarding pronunciation, the phonetic values given are those of the "standard" pronunciation of the fusha language as taught in universities. Actual pronunciation between the varieties of Arabic may vary widely. For more details concerning the pronunciation of Arabic, consult the article Arabic phonology.
Primary letters
The Arabic script is cursive, and all primary letters have conditional forms for their glyphs, depending on whether they are at the beginning, middle or end of a word, so they may exhibit four distinct forms (initial, medial, final or isolated). However, six letters have only isolated or final form, and so force the following letter (if any) to take an initial or isolated form, as if there were a word break.
For compatibility with previous standards, Unicode can encode all these forms separately; however, these forms can be inferred from their joining context, using the same encoding. The table below shows this common encoding, in addition to the compatibility encodings for their normally contextual forms (Arabic texts should be encoded today using only the common encoding, but the rendering must then infer the joining types to determine the correct glyph forms, with or without ligation). There are 29 primary letters.
| General Unicode |
Contextual forms | Name | Translit. | Phonemic Value (IPA) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial | ||||
| 0627 ا |
FE8D ﺍ |
FE8E ﺎ |
— | ʼalif | ʾ / ā | various, including /aː/ | |
| 0628 ب |
FE8F ﺏ |
FE90 ﺐ |
FE92 ﺒ |
FE91 ﺑ |
bāʼ | b | /b/ |
| 062A ت |
FE95 ﺕ |
FE96 ﺖ |
FE98 ﺘ |
FE97 ﺗ |
tāʼ | t | /t/ |
| 062B ث |
FE99 ﺙ |
FE9A ﺚ |
FE9C ﺜ |
FE9B ﺛ |
ṯāʼ | ṯ | /θ/ |
| 062C ج |
FE9D ﺝ |
FE9E ﺞ |
FEA0 ﺠ |
FE9F ﺟ |
ǧīm | ǧ (also j, g) | [ʤ] / [ʒ] / [ɡ] |
| 062D ح |
FEA1 ﺡ |
FEA2 ﺢ |
FEA4 ﺤ |
FEA3 ﺣ |
ḥāʼ | ḥ | /ħ/ |
| 062E خ |
FEA5 ﺥ |
FEA6 ﺦ |
FEA8 ﺨ |
FEA7 ﺧ |
ḫāʼ | ḫ (also kh, x) | /x/ |
| 062F د |
FEA9 ﺩ |
FEAA ﺪ |
— | dāl | d | /d/ | |
| 0630 ذ |
FEAB ﺫ |
FEAC ﺬ |
— | ḏāl | ḏ (also dh, ð) | /ð/ | |
| 0631 ر |
FEAD ﺭ |
FEAE ﺮ |
— | rāʼ | r | /r/ | |
| 0632 ز |
FEAF ﺯ |
FEB0 ﺰ |
— | zāī | z | /z/ | |
| 0633 س |
FEB1 ﺱ |
FEB2 ﺲ |
FEB4 ﺴ |
FEB3 ﺳ |
sīn | s | /s/ |
| 0634 ش |
FEB5 ﺵ |
FEB6 ﺶ |
FEB8 ﺸ |
FEB7 ﺷ |
šīn | š (also sh) | /ʃ/ |
| 0635 ص |
FEB9 ﺹ |
FEBA ﺺ |
FEBC ﺼ |
FEBB ﺻ |
ṣād | ṣ | /sˁ/ |
| 0636 ض |
FEBD ﺽ |
FEBE ﺾ |
FEC0 ﻀ |
FEBF ﺿ |
ḍād | ḍ | /dˁ/ |
| 0637 ط |
FEC1 ﻁ |
FEC2 ﻂ |
FEC4 ﻄ |
FEC3 ﻃ |
ṭāʼ | ṭ | /tˁ/ |
| 0638 ظ |
FEC5 ﻅ |
FEC6 ﻆ |
FEC8 ﻈ |
FEC7 ﻇ |
ẓāʼ | ẓ | /ðˁ/ / /zˁ/ |
| 0639 ع |
FEC9 ﻉ |
FECA ﻊ |
FECC ﻌ |
FECB ﻋ |
ʿayn | ʿ | /ʕ/ |
| 063A غ |
FECD ﻍ |
FECE ﻎ |
FED0 ﻐ |
FECF ﻏ |
ġayn | ġ (also gh) | /ɣ/ |
| 0641 ف |
FED1 ﻑ |
FED2 ﻒ |
FED4 ﻔ |
FED3 ﻓ |
fāʼ | f | /f/ |
| 0642 ق |
FED5 ﻕ |
FED6 ﻖ |
FED8 ﻘ |
FED7 ﻗ |
qāf | q | /q/ |
| 0643 ك |
FED9 ﻙ |
FEDA ﻚ |
FEDC ﻜ |
FEDB ﻛ |
kāf | k | /k/ |
| 0644 ل |
FEDD ﻝ |
FEDE ﻞ |
FEE0 ﻠ |
FEDF ﻟ |
lām | l | /l/, ([lˁ] in Allah only) |
| 0645 م |
FEE1 ﻡ |
FEE2 ﻢ |
FEE4 ﻤ |
FEE3 ﻣ |
mīm | m | /m/ |
| 0646 ن |
FEE5 ﻥ |
FEE6 ﻦ |
FEE8 ﻨ |
FEE7 ﻧ |
nūn | n | /n/ |
| 0647 ه |
FEE9 ﻩ |
FEEA ﻪ |
FEEC ﻬ |
FEEB ﻫ |
hāʼ | h | /h/ |
| 0648 و |
FEED ﻭ |
FEEE ﻮ |
— | wāw | w / ū | /w/ / /uː/ | |
| 064A ي |
FEF1 ﻱ |
FEF2 ﻲ |
FEF4 ﻴ |
FEF3 ﻳ |
yāʼ | y / ī | /j/ / /iː/ |
Letters lacking an initial or medial version are never tied to the following letter, even within a word. As to ﺀ hamza, it has only a single graphic, since it is never tied to a preceding or following letter. However, it is sometimes 'seated' on a waw, ya or alif, and in that case the seat behaves like an ordinary waw, ya or alif.
Modified letters
The following are not actual letters, but rather different orthographical shapes for letters.
| General Unicode |
Conditional forms | Name | Translit. | Phonemic Value (IPA) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | Final | Medial | Initial | ||||
| 0622 آ |
FE81 ﺁ |
FE82 ﺂ |
— | ʼalif madda | ʼā | /ʔaː/ | |
| 0629 ة |
FE93 ﺓ |
FE94 ﺔ |
— | tāʼ marbūṭa | h or t / h / ẗ | /a/, /at/ | |
| 0649 ى |
FEEF ﻯ |
FEF0 ﻰ |
— | ʼalif
maqṣūra ("broken alif") (Arabic) (see note below) |
ā / ỳ | /a/ | |
| 06CC ی |
FBFC ﯼ |
FBFD ﯽ |
FBFF ﯿ |
FBFE ﯾ |
yeh (Persian, Urdu) (see note below) |
ī / ỳ | /iː/ |
- Notes
The ʼalif maqṣūra ("broken alif") commonly using Unicode 0x0649 (ى) in Arabic, is sometimes replaced in Persian or Urdu, with Unicode 0x06CC (ی), called "Persian Yeh". This is appropriate to its pronunciation in those languages. The glyphs are identical in isolated and final form (ﻯ ﻰ), but not in initial and medial form, in which the Persian Yeh gains two dots below (ﻳ ﻴ) while the ʼalif maqṣūra has neither an initial nor a medial form.
Although this is the common situation, the problem is not so simple, and no solution is met yet at the time of September, 2007[1].
Ligatures
The only compulsory ligature is lām + ʼalif. All other ligatures (yāʼ+mīm, etc.) are optional.
- (isolated) lām + ʼalif (lā /laː/) :
-
- ﻻ
- (final) lām + ʼalif (lā /laː/) :
-
- ﻼ
Unicode has a special glyph for the ligature allāh (“God”). U+FDF2 ARABIC LIGATURE ALLAH ISOLATED FORM:
-
- ﷲ
The latter is a work-around for the shortcomings of most text processors, which are incapable of displaying the correct vowel marks for the word Allāh, because it should compose a small ʼalif sign above a gemination šadda sign. Compare the display of the composed equivalents below (the exact outcome will depend on your browser and font configuration):
- lām, (geminated) lām (with implied short-a vowel), (vowel reversed) hāʼ :
-
- لله
- ʼalif, lām, (geminated) lām (with implied short-a vowel), (vowel reversed) hāʼ :
-
- الله
Hamza
Initially, the letter ʼalif indicated an occlusive glottal, or glottal stop, transcribed by [ʔ], confirming the alphabet came from the same Phoenician origin. Now it is used in the same manner as in other abjads, with yāʼ and wāw, as a mater lectionis, that is to say, a consonant standing in for a long vowel (see below). In fact, over the course of time its original consonantal value has been obscured, since ʼalif now serves either as a long vowel or as graphic support for certain diacritics (madda or hamza).
The Arabic alphabet now uses the hamza to indicate a glottal stop, which can appear anywhere in a word. This letter, however, does not function like the others: it can be written alone or on a support in which case it becomes a diacritic:
- alone: ء ;
- with a carrier: إ, أ (above and under a ʼalif), ؤ (above a wāw), ئ (above a dotless yāʼ or yāʼ hamza).
Diacritics
Shadda
The šadda ( ّ◌ ) marks the gemination (doubling) of a consonant; a kasra ( ِ◌ ) vowel sign (when present) moves to between the geminated (doubled) consonant and the šadda.
The w-shaped šadda glyph above the second consonant that it geminates, is in fact the beginning of a small šīn letter.
| General Unicode |
Name is | Translit. | Phonetic Value (IPA) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0651 ّ◌ |
šadda | (consonant doubled) | [◌◌] (name is pronounced [ʃːdda]) |
Sukūn and ʼalif above
An Arabic syllable can be open (ended by a vowel) or closed (ended by a consonant).
- open: CV[consonant-vowel] (long or short vowel)
- closed: CVC (short vowel only)
When the syllable is closed, we can indicate that the consonant that closes it does not carry a vowel by marking it with a sign called sukūn ( ْ ) to remove any ambiguity, especially when the text is not vocalised: it's necessary to remember that a standard text is only composed of series of consonants; thus, the word qalb, "heart", is written qlb. The sukūn is also used for transliterating words to Arabic script. The Persian word ماسك (mâsk, from the English word mask), for example, might be written with a sukūn above the ﺱ to signify that there is no vowel sound between that letter and the ك.
Sukūn allows us to know where not to place a vowel: qlb could, in effect, be read qalab (meaning "he turned around"), but written with a sukūn over the l and the b, it can only be interpreted as the form /qVlb/; we write this قلْْب. This is one stage from full vocalization, where the a vowel would also be indicated by a fatḥa: قَلْْب,
The Qur’an is traditionally written in full vocalization. Outside of the Qur’an, putting a sukūn above a yāʼ which indicates [i:], or above a wāw which stands for [u:] is extremely rare, to the point that yāʼ with sukūn will be unambiguously read as the diphthong [ai], and wāw with sukūn will be read [au].
The letters m-w-s-y-q-ā (موسيقى with an ʼalif maqṣūra at the end of the word) will be read most naturally as the word mūsīqā (“music”). If you were to write sukūns above the wāw, yāʼ and ʼalif, you’d get موْسيْقىْ, which would be read as *mawsaykāy (note however that the final ʼalif maqṣūra is an ʼalif and never takes sukūn). The word, entirely vocalised, would be written مُوْسِيْقَى in the Qur’an (if it happened to appear there!), or مُوسِيقَى elsewhere. (The Quranic spelling would have no sukūn sign above the final ʼalif maqṣūra, but instead a miniature ʼalif above the preceding qaf consonant, which is a valid Unicode character but most Arabic computer fonts cannot in fact display this miniature ʼalif as of 2006.)
A sukūn is not placed on word-final consonants, even if no vowel is pronounced, because fully vocalised texts are always written as if the i`rab vowels were in fact pronounced. For example, ʼaḥmad zawǧ šarr, meaning “Ahmed is a bad husband”, for the purposes of Arabic grammar and orthography, is treated as if still pronounced with full i`rab, i.e. ʼaḥmadu zawǧun šarrun with the complete desinences.
| General Unicode |
Name | Translit. | Phonemic Value (IPA) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0652 ْ◌ |
sukūn | (no vowel with this consonant letter or diphthong with this long vowel letter) |
Ø / /a͡-/ |
| 0670 ٰ◌ |
ʼalif above | (no vowel with next final consonant letter or diphthong with next final long vowel letter) |
Ø / /a͡-/ |
Vowels
Arabic short vowels are generally not written when writing Arabic, except in sacred texts (such as the Qurʼan, where they must be written) and sometimes in didactics, which are known as vocalised texts.
Before the introduction of printing, occasionally short vowels would be marked where the word would otherwise be ambiguous and could not be resolved simply from context, or simply wherever they looked nice. This custom has now all but disappeared, to the point that many Arabs believe (wrongly) that the use of vowel marks is forbidden outside of the Quran. Most software (such as most text editors and all mobile phones) does not allow the writer to add short vowels, and displays them illegibly if at all.
Short vowels may be written with diacritics placed above or below the consonant that precedes them in the syllable. (All Arabic vowels, long and short, follow a consonant; contrary to appearances, there is a consonant at the start of a name like Ali — in Arabic ʻAliyy — or a word like ʼalif.)
| Short vowels (fully vocalized text) |
Name | Trans. | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 064E َ◌ |
fatḥa | a | /a/ |
| 064F ُ◌ |
ḍamma | u | /u/ |
| 0650 ِ◌ |
kasra | i | /i/ |
Long "a" following a consonant other than hamzah is written with a short-"a" mark on the consonant plus an alif after it (ʼalif). Long "i" is a mark for short "i" plus a yaa yāʼ, and long u is mark for short u plus waaw, so aā = ā, iy = ī and uw = ū); long "a" following a hamzah sound may be represented by an alif-madda or by a floating hamzah followed by an alif.
In the table below, vowels will be placed above or below a dotted circle replacing a primary consonant letter or shadda. Please note, that most consonants (except 6 of them) do join to the left with ʼalif, wāw and yāʼ written then with their medial or final form. Additionally, the yāʼ letter in the last row may connect to the letter on its left, and then will use a medial or initial form. For clarity in the table below, the primary letter on the left used to mark these long vowels are shown only in their isolated form. Use the table of primary letters to look at their actual glyph and joining types.
| Long vowels (fully vocalized text) |
Name | Trans. | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 064E 0627 َا◌ |
fatḥa ʼalif | ā | /aː/ |
| 064E 0649 َى◌ |
fatḥa ʼalif maqṣūra (Arabic) | ā / aỳ | /a/ |
| 064E 06CC َی◌ |
fatḥa yeh (Persian, Urdu) | ā / aỳ | /a/ |
| 064F 0648 ُو◌ |
ḍamma wāw | ū / uw | /uː/ |
| 0650 064A ِي◌ |
kasra yāʼ | ī / iy | /iː/ |
In an un-vocalised text (one in which the short vowels are not marked), the long vowels are represented by the consonant in question : ʼalif, ʼalif maqṣūra (or yeh), wāw, yāʼ. Long vowels written in the middle of a word of un-vocalized text are treated like consonants taking sukūn (see below) in a text that has full diacritics. Here also, the table shows long vowel letters only in isolated form for clarity.
| Long vowels (un-vocalized text) |
Name | Trans. | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0627 ا |
(implied fatḥa) ʼalif | ā | /aː/ |
| 0649 ى |
(implied fatḥa) ʼalif maqṣūra (Arabic) | ā / aỳ | /a/ |
| 06CC ی |
(implied fatḥa) yeh (Persian, Urdu) | ā / aỳ | /a/ |
| 0648 و |
(implied ḍamma) wāw | ū / |