The Arabic Alphabet

The Arabic script evolved from the Nabataean Aramaic script. It has been used since the 4th century AD, but the earliest document, an inscription in Arabic, Syriac and Greek, dates from 512 AD. The Aramaic language has fewer consonants than Arabic, so during the 7th century new Arabic letters were created by adding dots to existing letters in order to avoid ambiguities. Further diacritics indicating short vowels were introduced, but are only generally used to ensure the Qur'an was read aloud without mistakes.

There are two main types of written Arabic:

1. Classical Arabic - the language of the Qur'an and classical literature. It differs from Modern Standard Arabic mainly in style and vocabulary, some of which is archaic. All Muslims are expected to recite the Qur'an in the original language, however many rely on translations in order to understand the text.
2. Modern Standard Arabic - the universal language of the Arabic-speaking world which is understood by all Arabic speakers. It is the language of the vast majority of written material and of formal TV shows, lectures, etc.

Each Arabic speaking country or region also has its own variety of colloquial spoken Arabic. These colloquial varieties of Arabic appear in written form in some poetry, cartoons and comics, plays and personal letters. There are also translations of the bible into most varieties of colloquial Arabic.

Please note that the characters of the Arabic alphabet are neither capital nor small; they have one form only.

Also note that some of these Arabic letters are very similar to English letter sounds e.g. 'baa' is very close to the letter 'B' in the English language; this is a useful way to remember the sounds.  However, many Arabic letters have no equivalent sound in English e.g. 'ein', and some letters have subtle but important differences in pronunciation, e.g. 'haa' which is pronounced with a lot more emphasis in the throat than the letter 'H' in English.

Also, please note that the Arabic script is read from right to left. Please read the Arabic alphabet below starting from the right and proceeding to each letter to its left.

In the Arabic alphabet, we have 29 letters three of which are long vowels. The rest of the letters are consonants. Each letter is given a name which contains the letter itself.

• The Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters. Some additional letters are used in Arabic when writing placenames or foreign words containing sounds which do not occur in Standard Arabic, such as /p/ or /g/.
• Words are written in horizontal lines from right to left, numerals are written from left to right
• Most letters change form depending on whether they appear at the beginning, middle or end of a word, or on their own. (see below)
• Letters that can be joined are always joined in both hand-written and printed Arabic. The only exceptions to this rule are crossword puzzles and signs in which the script is written vertically.
• The long vowels /a:/, /i:/ and /u:/ are represented by the letters 'alif, yā' and wāw respectively.
• Vowel diacritics, which are used to mark short vowels, and other special symbols apppear only in the Qur'ān (Koran). They are also used, though with less consistancy, in other religious texts, in classical poetry, in textbooks children and foreign learners, and occasionally in complex texts to avoid ambiguity. Sometimes the diacritics are used for decorative purposes in book titles, letterheads, nameplates, etc.

 Arabic consonants

 Syllables are the building blocks of speech and they come in three types; 1) consonant vowel, 2) vowel consonant, and 3) consonant vowel consonant. That is to say, a syllable may be formed by having a consonant followed by a vowel, such as in the word 'TO', a vowel followed by consonant, such as in the word 'OF', or two vowels with a consonant in between, such as in the word 'FOR'. In Arabic, we use only types one and three.

Since the Arabic alphabet has no letters which are vowels, there are symbols that are placed either above or beneath the consonants and these act as vowel sounds. They are three.

Furthermore, towards the end of words, the vowels may be doubled. When a vowel is doubled i.e. two of the symbols for that vowel are placed atop or underneath the letter, the sound of the word ends with an 'N'. Click on the vowels in the charts to hear the demonstrations. The long vowels will be discussed in chapters to come.

Note that each vowel has a name, the vowels collectively have a name, the letters which contain a vowel have a name, letters are named specifically depending on which vowel they hold, and doubled vowels are also given names. The first row of the charts contain the examples, the second rows show the individual names of the vowels, the third rows show the adjective used to describe the letter which is attributed with the given vowel, the fourth rows show the English equivalents, and the columns to the right show the collective name for the group.

Finally, note that a letter has been chosen at random to demonstrate the vowels; this is because vowels don't simply appear by themselves, they must be associated to a letter.

Arabic vowels