TheArabic alphabet,[a] or theArabic abjad, is theArabic script as specifically codified for writing theArabic language. It is aunicameral script written from right-to-left in acursive style, and includes 28 letters,[b] of which most have contextual letterforms. Unlike the modernLatin alphabet, the script has no concept ofletter case. The Arabic alphabet is considered anabjad, with onlyconsonants required to be written; due to its optional use of diacritics to notate vowels, it is considered animpure abjad.[2]
The basic Arabic alphabet contains 28letters. Forms using the Arabic script to write other languages added and removed letters: for example ⟨پ⟩ is often used to represent/p/ in adaptations of the Arabic script. UnlikeGreek-derived alphabets, Arabic has no distinctupper and lower case letterforms.
Many letters look similar but are distinguished from one another by dots (ʾiʿjām) above or below their central part (rasm). These dots are an integral part of a letter, since they distinguish between letters that represent different sounds. For example, the Arabic lettersبb,تt, andثth have the same basic shape, but with one dot added below, two dots added above, and three dots added above respectively. The letterنn 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 calledrasm.
Both printed and written Arabic arecursive, with most letters within a word directly joined to adjacent letters.
There are two maincollating sequences ('alphabetical orderings') for the Arabic alphabet:Hija'i, andAbjadi.
The Hija'i order (هِجَائِيّHijāʾiyy/hid͡ʒaːʔijj/) is the more common order and it is used when sorting lists of words and names, such as in phonebooks, classroom lists, and dictionaries.
The originalAbjadi order (أَبْجَدِيّʾabjadiyy/ʔabd͡ʒadijj/) derives from that used by thePhoenician alphabet and therefore resembles the sequence of letters inHebrew andGreek. Letters are also assigned numerical values (abjad numerals) for purposes ofnumerology, as is done in Hebrewgematria and Greekisopsephy. Letters in the Hija'i order are not considered to have numerical values.
Modern dictionaries and reference books use the Hija'i alphabetical order instead of the Abjadi alphabetical order, in which letters are arranged mainly by similarity of shape. The Hija'i order is never used as numerals.
Commonhija'i order
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
ʾ
b
t
th
j
ḥ
kh
d
dh
r
z
s
sh
ṣ
ḍ
ṭ
ẓ
ʻ
gh
f
q
k
l
m
n
h
w
y
A differenthijāʾī order was used in theMaghreb but is now considered obsolete. The sequence is:[3]
Maghrebianhija'i order (obsolete)
ا
ب
ت
ث
ج
ح
خ
د
ذ
ر
ز
ط
ظ
ك
ل
م
ن
ص
ض
ع
غ
ف
ق
س
ش
ه
و
ي
ʾ
b
t
th
j
ḥ
kh
d
dh
r
z
ṭ
ẓ
k
l
m
n
ṣ
ḍ
ʻ
gh
f
q
s
sh
h
w
y
The colors indicate which letters have different positions from the previous table
The al-Iklīl order, now obsolete, also arranged letters mainly by shape. It was first used in the 10th-century workKitāb al-Iklīl. The sequence is:[4]
Al-Iklīl order (obsolete)
ا
ب
ت
ث
ج
ح
خ
د
ذ
ك
ل
م
و
ن
ص
ض
ع
غ
ط
ظ
ف
ق
ر
ز
ه
س
ش
ي
ʾ
b
t
th
j
ḥ
kh
d
dh
k
l
m
w
n
ṣ
ḍ
ʻ
gh
ṭ
ẓ
f
q
r
z
h
s
sh
y
hijāʾī collation compared to Hebrew, Syriac, and Greek
The Abjadi order is not a simple correspondence with the earlier north Semitic alphabetic order, as it has a position corresponding to the Aramaic lettersamek𐡎, which has no cognate letter in the Arabic alphabet historically. The abjadi order is the usual Arabic order in dictionaries and reference books of the late 1st millennium to the early 2nd millennium.
The loss ofsameḵ was compensated for by:
In theMashriqi abjad sequence, the letterﺱsīn took the place ofsameḵ, and the letterشshīn took place ofšīn𐡔.
In theMaghrebi abjad sequence, the letterṣāḏē𐡑 was split into two independent Arabic letters,ضḍad andصṣad, with the latter taking the place ofsameḵ.
The six other letters that do not correspond to any north Semitic letter are placed at the end.
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 (و ,ز ,ر ,ذ ,د ,ا) can only be linked to their preceding letter. In addition, some letter combinations are written asligatures (special shapes), notablylām-alifلا,[6] which is the only mandatory ligature (the unligated combinationلا is considered difficult to read).
^The Hamza <ء> can be considered a letter but it is not part of the alphabet.
^The romanization depends on each system or country; for exampleج is romanized toG in Egypt andJ in most other Arabic countries.
^The Arabic letter names below are the standard and most universally used names, other names (e.g. letter names in Egypt) might be used instead.
^abAlif can represent different phonemes; initially: a/i/u /a, i, u/ or sometimes silent in the definite article ال (a)l-. Medially and finally it represents a long vowel ā /aː/. It is also used in some hamzah /ʔ/ forms, check#Hamzah forms
^When speaking Modern Standard Arabic (الفصحى al-Fuṣḥā) theج pronunciation varies regionally, most prominently [d͡ʒ] in most of the Arabian Peninsula, parts of the Levant, parts of Egypt (especially the countryside and upper Egypt), Iraq, and northern-central Algeria, it is also considered as the predominant pronunciation of Literary Arabic when reciting the Quran and in Arabic studies outside the Arab world, [ʒ] in most of Northwest Africa and parts of the Levant (especially urban centers) and parts of the Arabian Peninsula, while [ɡ] is the standard pronunciation only in Egypt, ([ɡ] appears as a dialectal pronunciation in coastal Yemen, and coastal Oman), as well as [ɟ] in Sudan.
^ز the standard name of the letter is zāyزاي but it is sometimes miscalled "zayn"زين.
^In certain contexts such as serial numbers and license plates the initial form is used to prevent confusion with the western number zero or Eastern Arabic Numeral for 5(٥). It's also worth mentioning that the initial form هـ is usually used when writing the letter separately, rather than using the isolated form ه.
^abThe letters ⟨و⟩ and ⟨ي⟩ are used to transcribe the vowels/oː/ and/eː/ respectively in loanwords and dialects. ⟨و⟩ also appears as a silent letter in the name عمرو Amr /ʕamr/ which is sometimes romanized wrongly as Amro or Amru.
^in Egypt and Sudan, the yā’ ي is dotless in the isolated and final position, merging with the ʾalif maqṣūrah ى.
^can be considered a letter and plays an important role in Arabic spelling but not considered part of the alphabet.
See the articleRomanization of Arabic for details on various transliteration schemes. Arabic language speakers may usually not follow a standardized scheme when transcribing words or names. Some Arabic letters which do not have an equivalent in English (such as ط) are often spelled as numbers when Romanized. Also names are regularly transcribed as pronounced locally, not as pronounced inLiterary Arabic (if they were of Arabic origin).
Regarding pronunciation, the phonemic values given are those of Modern Standard Arabic, which is taught in schools and universities. In practice, pronunciation may vary considerably from region to region. For more details concerning the pronunciation of Arabic, consult the articlesArabic phonology andvarieties of Arabic.
The names of the Arabic letters can be thought of as abstractions of an older version where they were meaningful words in theProto-Semitic language.
Six letters (و ز ر ذ د ا) do not have a distinct medial form and have to be written with their final form without being connected to the next letter. Their initial form matches the isolated form. The following letter is written in its initial form, or isolated form if it is the final letter in the word.
The letteralif originated in the Phoenician alphabet as a consonant-sign indicating a glottal stop. Today it has lost its function as a consonant, and, together withya’ andwāw, is amater lectionis, a consonant sign standing in for a long vowel (see below), or as support for certain diacritics (maddah andhamzah).
Arabic currently uses apunctuation mark called thehamzah (ء) to denote theglottal stop[ʔ], written alone or with a carrier:
alone:ء
with a carrier:إ أ (above or under analif),ؤ (above awāw),ئ (above a dotlessyā’ oryā’ hamzah).
The hamza has a single form, since it is never linked to a preceding or following letter. However, it is sometimes combined with awāw,yā’, oralif, and in that case the carrier behaves like an ordinarywāw,yā’, oralif, check the table below:
The Hamza/ʔ/ (glottal stop) can be written either alone, as if it were a letter, or with a carrier, when it becomes adiacritic.[7]Hamzat al-madd (آ) indicates a long/ʔ/ +/aː/ sound as inآسفʾāsif/ʔaː.sif/ "sorry", while the other Hamzas indicate the glottal stop/ʔ/ in different positions of the word as inمسؤولmasʾūl/mas.ʔuːl/ andسائلsāʾil/saː.ʔil/, the writing of the Hamza is based on a set of rules, For the writing rule of each form, checkHamza.
used in final position, often for denoting singular femininenoun/word or to make thenoun/word feminine, it has two pronunciations rules; often unpronounced or pronounced/h/ as inمدرسةmadrasa[madrasa] /madrasah[madrasah] "school" and pronounced/t/ inconstruct state as inمدرسة سارةmadrasatu sāra "Sara's school".
In rareirregular noun/word cases, it appears to denote masculine singular nouns as inأسامةʾusāma, or some masculine plural noun forms as inبَقَّالَةbaqqāla plural ofبَقَّالbaqqāl.
plural nouns:āt (a preceding letter followed by afatḥah alif +tāʾ =ـَات)
Two uses: 1. The letter calledأَلِفْ مَقْصُورَةalif maqṣūrah orْأَلِف لَيِّنَةalif layyinah (as opposed toأَلِف مَمْدُودَةalif mamdūdaا), pronounced/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), wheretā’ marbūṭah cannot be used. [citation needed] 2. A way of writing the letterيyāʾ without its dots at the end of words, either traditionally or in contemporary use in Egypt and Sudan.
In the fully vocalized Arabic text found in texts such as the Quran, a longā following a consonant other than ahamzah is written with a shorta sign (fatḥah) on the consonant plus anʾalif after it; longī is written as a sign for shorti (kasrah) plus ayāʾ; and longū as a sign for shortu (ḍammah) plus awāw. Briefly,ᵃa =ā;ⁱy =ī; andᵘw =ū. Longā following ahamzah may be represented by anʾalif maddah or by a freehamzah followed by anʾalif (two consecutiveʾalifs are never allowed in Arabic).
The table below shows vowels placed above or below a dotted circle replacing a primary consonant letter or ashaddah 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 withʾalif,wāw andyāʾ written then with their medial or final form. Additionally, the letteryāʾ 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.
In unvocalized text (one in which the short vowels are not marked), the long vowels are represented by the vowel in question:ʾalif mamdūdah/maqṣūrah,wāw, oryāʾ. Long vowels written in the middle of a word of unvocalized text are treated like consonants with asukūn (see below) in a text that has full diacritics. Here also, the table shows long vowel letters only in isolated form for clarity.
Combinationsوا andيا are always pronouncedwā andyā respectively. The exception is the suffixـوا۟ in verb endings whereʾalif is silent, resulting inū oraw. In addition, when transliterating names and loanwords, Arabic language speakers write out most or all the vowels as long (ā withاʾalif,ē andī withيyaʾ, andō andū withوwāw), meaning it approaches a true alphabet.
A finalyaʾis usually written at the end of words fornisba (اَلنِّسْبَةnisbah) which is a common suffix to form adjectives of relation or pertinence. The suffix isـِيّ-iyy for masculine (ـِيَّة-iyya(t)- for feminine); for exampleاِشْتِرَاكِيّištirākiyy "socialist", it is also used for a singulative ending that applies to human or othersentient beings as inجنديjundiyy "a soldier". However nowadays this finalyaʾ is mostly pronounced with a longyaʾ (yāʾ mamdūdah)-ī as inاِشْتِرَاكِيištirākī/iʃtiraːkiː/ instead ofاِشْتِرَاكِيّištirākiyy/iʃtiraːkijj/. A similar mistake happens at the end of some third person plural verbs as inجَرَوْاjaraw "they ran" which is pronounced nowadays asجَرُواjarū/d͡ʒaruː/.
The use ofligaturein Arabic is common. There is one compulsory ligature, that forlām ل +alif ا, which exists in two forms. All other ligatures, of which there are many,[8] are optional.
Contextual forms
Name
Trans.
Value
Final
Medial
Initial
Isolated
ﻼ
ﻻ
lām + alif
lā
/laː/
A more complex ligature that combines as many as seven distinct components is commonly used to represent the wordAllāhالله. The only ligature within the primary range ofArabic script in Unicode (U+06xx) islām +alif. 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.
Note:Unicode also has in its Presentation Form B FExx range a code for this ligature. If your browser and font are configured correctly for Arabic, the ligature displayed above should be identical to this one,U+FEFB
Users of Arabic usually writelong 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 theQur’ān the three basic vowel signs are mandated, like the Arabic diacritics and other types of marks, like thecantillation 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 theQur’ān 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, calledḥarakāt. All Arabic vowels, long and short, follow a consonant; in Arabic, words like "Ali" or "alif", for example, start with a consonant:‘Aliyy,alif.
Nunation (Arabic:تنوينtanwīn) is the addition of a final-n to anoun oradjective. The vowel before it indicatesgrammatical case. In written Arabic, nunation is indicated by doubling the vowel diacritic at the end of the word, e.g.شُكْرًاšukran[ʃukran]'thank you'.
An Arabicsyllable can be open (ending with a vowel) or closed (ending with a consonant):
open: CV [consonant-vowel] (long or short vowel)
closed: CVC (short vowel only)
A normal text is composed only of a series of consonants plus vowel-lengthening letters; thus, the wordqalb, "heart", is writtenqlb, and the wordqalaba "he turned around", is also writtenqlb. To writeqalaba without this ambiguity, we could indicate that thel is followed by a shorta by writing afatḥah above it.
To writeqalb, we would instead indicate that thel is followed by no vowel by marking it with adiacritic calledsukūn ( ْ), like this:قلْب. This is one step down from full vocalization, where the vowel after theq would also be indicated by afatḥah:قَلْب.
TheQurʾān is traditionally written in full vocalization.
The longi sound in some editions of theQur’ān is written with akasrah followed by a diacritic-lessy, and longu by aḍammah followed by a barew. In others, thesey andw carry asukūn. Outside of theQur’ān, the latter convention is extremely rare, to the point thaty withsukūn will be unambiguously read as thediphthong/aj/, andw withsukūn will be read/aw/.
For example, the lettersm-y-l can be read like Englishmeel ormail, or (theoretically) also likemayyal ormayil. But if asukūn is added on they then them cannot have asukūn (because two letters in a row cannot besukūnated), cannot have aḍammah (because there is never anuy sound in Arabic unless there is another vowel after they), and cannot have akasrah (becausekasrah beforesukūnatedy is never found outside theQur’ān), so itmust have afatḥah and the only possible pronunciation is/majl/ (meaning mile, or even e-mail). By the same token, m-y-t with asukūn over they can bemayt but notmayyit ormeet, and m-w-t with asukūn on thew can only bemawt, notmoot (iw is impossible when thew closes the syllable).
Vowel marks are always written as if thei‘rāb vowels were in fact pronounced, even when they must be skipped in actual pronunciation. So, when writing the nameAḥmad, it is optional to place asukūn on theḥ, but asukūn is forbidden on thed, because it would carry aḍammah if any other word followed, as inAḥmadu zawjī "Ahmad is my husband".
Another example: the sentence that in correct literary Arabic must be pronouncedAḥmadu zawjun shirrīr "Ahmad is a wicked husband", is usually pronounced (due to influence from vernacular Arabic varieties) asAḥmad 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 wereAḥmadu zawjun sharrīrun with atanwīn 'un' at the end. So, it is correct to add anuntanwīn sign on the finalr, but actually pronouncing it would be a hypercorrection. Also, it is never correct to write asukūn on thatr, even though in actual pronunciation it is (and in correct Arabic MUST be)sukūned.
Of course, if the correcti‘rāb is asukūn, it may be optionally written.
General Unicode
Name
Name in Arabic script
Translit.
Phonemic Value (IPA)
0652
ــْـ
sukūn
سُكُون
(no vowel with this consonant letter or diphthong with this long vowel letter)
∅
Thesukūn is also used for transliterating words into the Arabic script. The English name "Mark" is writtenمارك, for example, might be written with asukūn above theر to signify that there is no vowel sound between that letter and theك.
These diacritics are uncommon in modern publications but are often used in Quran and some manuscripts.
General Unicode
Name
Name in Arabic script
Translit.
Phonemic Value (IPA)
0670
ــٰـ
alif khanjariyyah
أَلِف خَنْجَرِيَّة
it indicates that the consonant is followed by a longā, where thealif is normally written.
/aː/
hamzat al-waṣl
هَمْزَةُ الْوَصْل
It indicates that theʾalif is not pronounced as a glottal stop (written as thehamza)
∅
ٰThe alif khanjariyyah (أَلِف خَنْجَرِيَّة, 'dagger ’alif') is written as short vertical stroke on top of a letter. It indicates a long/aː/ sound for whichalif is normally not written. For example:⟨هَٰذَا⟩ (hādhā) or⟨رَحْمَٰن⟩ (raḥmān).
TheWasla orhamzat al-waṣl (هَمْزَةُ ٱلْوَصْلِ, 'hamza of connection') is a variant of the letterhamza (ء) resembling part of the letterṣād (ص) that is rarely placed over the letterʾalif (أَلِف الْوَصْلِʾalif al-waṣl (ا)) to form (ٱ) at the beginning of the word (ٱ). It indicates that theʾalif is not pronounced as a glottal stop (written as thehamza), but that the word is connected to the previous word (likeliaison inFrench). Outside ofvocalised liturgical texts, thewaṣla is usually not written.[9][10] e.g. Abdullahعَبْدُ ٱلله can be written with hamzat al-wasl on the first letter of the wordٱلله but it is mostly written without itعَبْدُ الله.
Some letters take a traditionally different form in specific regions:
Letter
Explanation
Isolated
Final
Medial
Initial
ی
ـی
ـیـ
یـ
The traditional style to write or print the letter, and remains so in theNile Valley region (Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan... etc.) and sometimes Maghreb;yā’ي is dotless in the isolated and final position. Merging with theʾalif maqṣūrahى; e.g.على/ʕalaː/ "on" andعلي/ʕaliː/ "Ali" are both writtenعلى in Egypt and Sudan.
ک
ـک
ـکـ
کـ
An alternative version of finalkāfـک is used (instead ofـك) in some script variants, for example in theMadani script which is used on road signs inMedina and on the logo of the chemical companySABIC writtenسابک.
Some modified letters are used to represent non-native sounds to Modern Standard Arabic. These letters are used as an optional alternative in transliterated names, loanwords and dialectal words. The usage of these letters depends on the writer and their country of origin and their usage is not mandatory.
The phoneme/ɡ/ (considered a standard pronunciation ofج in Egypt, Oman, and coastal Yemen) has the highest number of variations when writing loanwords or foreign proper nouns in Literary Arabic, and it can be written with either the standard lettersج,غ,ق, andك or with the non-standard lettersڨ (used only in Tunisia and Algeria),ڭ (used only in Morocco), andگ (used mainly in Iraq) for example "Golf" pronounced/ɡoːlf/ can be writtenجولف,غولف,قولف,كولف,ڨولف,ڭولف orگولف depending on the writer and their country of origin. On the other hand,/ɡ/ is considered a native phoneme in most Arabic dialects, either as a reflex ofج as in lower Egypt, parts of Oman and parts of Yemen (e.g.جمل[gamal]) or as a reflex ofق as in most of the Arabian peninsula, Iraq, Sudan, and parts of Egypt, Levant and North Africa (e.g.قال[gaːl]).
Only used in Algeria and Tunisia when transliterating foreign names and loanwords instead offā’ف, this form is used to distinguish it fromڨ. only used in foreign words.
Only in Algeria and Tunisia/g/ is officially written usingڨ orق including in city names e.g. the city ofGuelma is writtenڨالمة orقالمة[ɡelmæ],Gafsa is writtenڨفصة orقفصة[gafsˤa], andGabès is writtenڨابس orقابس[gaːbis].
Used in colloquialGulf andMesopotamian Arabic but only when writing dialectal words where/t͡ʃ/ is considered a native phoneme/allophone (e.g.چلب[t͡ʃəlb] "dog" instead of the standardكلب[kalb]). While in Standard Arabic throughout the Arab world, the sequenceت/t/ +ش/ʃ/ (/tʃ/) is usually preferred (e.g.تشاد[tʃaːd] "Chad",التشيك[at.tʃiːk] "Czechia" andتشيلي[tʃiː.liː] "Chile").
Used in Egypt when transliterating foreign names and loanwords where standardج is mostly pronounced/ɡ/ as in the city ofGiza is writtenالجيزة[elˈgiːzæ]., (e.g.چيبة orجيبة[ʒiː.ba] "skirt"). only used in foreign words.
Note: The sounds/p/ and/v/ are non-native to most Arabic dialects (excl.Anatolian Arabic whereذِئْب "Wolf" is pronounced vīp[viːp][12] instead of Standard Arabic[ðɪʔb]), while/g/,/t͡ʃ/ and/ʒ/ appear as a native phoneme or allophone in many dialects.
There are two main kinds of numerals used along with Arabic text;Western Arabic numerals andEastern 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.
In addition, the Arabic alphabet can be used to represent numbers (Abjad numerals). This usage is based on theʾabjadī order of the alphabet.أʾalif is 1,بbāʾ is 2,جjīm is 3, and so on untilيyāʾ = 10,كkāf = 20,لlām = 30, ...,رrāʾ = 200, ...,غghayn = 1000. This is sometimes used to producechronograms.
Evolution of earlyArabic calligraphy (9th–11th century). TheBasmala is taken as an example, fromKuficQur’ān manuscripts. (1) Early 9th century script used no dots ordiacritic marks;[13] (2) and (3) in the 9th–10th century during the Abbasid dynasty,Abu al-Aswad's system used red dots with each arrangement or position indicating a different short vowel. Later, a second system of black dots was used to differentiate between letters likefā’ andqāf;[14] (4) in the 11th century (al-Farāhīdī's system) dots were changed into shapes resembling the letters to transcribe the corresponding long vowels. This system is the one used today.[15]
The Arabic alphabet can be traced back to theNabataean script used to writeNabataean Aramaic. A transitional phase, between the Nabataean Aramaic script and a subsequent, recognizably Arabic script, is known asNabataean Arabic. The pre-Islamic phase of the script as it existed in the fifth and sixth centuries, once it had become recognizably similar to the script as it came to be known in the Islamic era, is known asPaleo-Arabic.[16]
The first known text in the Arabic alphabet is a late fourth-century inscription fromJabal Ram 50 km east of‘Aqabah inJordan, but theZabad trilingual inscription is the earliest dated Arabic text from 512, and was discovered inSyria.[17] Nevertheless, theepigraphic record is extremely sparse. 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 ambiguousBook Pahlavi.)
The first surviving document that definitely uses these dots is also the first surviving Arabicpapyrus (PERF 558), dated April 643, although they did not become obligatory until much later. Important texts were and still are frequently memorized, especially inQurʾan memorization.
Later still, vowel marks and the hamza were introduced, beginning some time in the latter half of the 7th century, preceding the first invention ofSyriac andTiberian vocalizations. Initially, this was done by a system of red dots, said to have been commissioned in theUmayyad era byAbu al-Aswad al-Du'ali, a dot above =a, a dot below =i, a dot on the line =u, and doubled dots indicatednunation. 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 byal-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi.
Other tributes and alphabets written in Arabic dialects
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 theSafaitic inscriptions, amounting to 30,000 inscriptions discovered in theLevant desert.[18]
There are about 3,700 inscriptions inHismaic 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 theNumara inscription.[19]
Musnad script as is clear from one of theSabaean inscriptions.
In 1514, followingJohannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in 1450, Gregorio de Gregorii, a Venetian, published an entirebook of hours in Arabic script; it was entitledKitab Salat al-Sawa'i and was intended for eastern Christian communities.[20] Between 1580 and 1586, type designerRobert Granjon designed Arabic typefaces for CardinalFerdinando de' Medici, and theMedici Oriental Press published many Christian prayer and scholarly Arabic texts in the late 16th century.[21]
A page from the manuscript of Al-Kamil's book on the making of the northern and southernastrolabe and their reasons for geometry and arithmetic byAhmed bin Katheer Al-Farghani, where the letters appear in red in an arranged order expressing numbers.
AlthoughNapoleon generally receives credit for introducing theprinting 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 newspaperAl-Tanbiyyah "The Courier," printing in the Arabic language had started several centuries earlier. A goldsmith (like Gutenberg) designed and implemented an Arabic scriptmovable typeprinting press in the Middle East. TheLebanese Melkite monkAbdallah Zakher set up an Arabic printing press using movable type at the monastery of Saint John at the town ofDhour El Shuwayr in Mount Lebanon, the first homemade press in Lebanon using Arabic script. He cut the type molds and founded the typeface. The first book came off his press in 1734; this press continued in use until 1899.[22]
The Arabic alphabet can be encoded using severalcharacter sets, includingISO-8859-6,Windows-1256 andUnicode, 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 therendering engine to select the properglyph 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.
The basic Arabic range encodes the standard letters and diacritics but does not encode contextual forms (U+0621-U+0652 being directly based onISO 8859-6). It also includes the most common diacritics andArabic-Indic digits. U+06D6 to U+06ED encode Qur'anic annotation signs such as "end ofayah" ۖ and "start ofrub 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.
Arabic Mac keyboard layoutArabic PC keyboard layoutIntellark imposed on a QWERTY keyboard layout
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 aweb 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 theQWERTY layout, but inNorth Africa, whereFrench is the most common language typed using the Roman characters, the Arabic keyboards areAZERTY.
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 rangeArabic presentation forms A (U+FB50 to U+FDFF) contain ligatures while the rangeArabic presentation forms B (U+FE70 to U+FEFF) contains the positional variants. These effects are better achieved in Unicode by using thezero-width joiner andzero-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 inlogical 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'sbi-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.[24][25]
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.[26]
The first software program of its kind in the world that identifies Arabic handwriting in real time was developed by researchers atBen-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.[27]
^Price, James M (7 June 2012)."Helping Vowels and the Elidable Hamza". Arabic Language Lessons: All The Arabic You Never Learned The First Time Around. Retrieved25 March 2014.
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