Arabic Alphabet – Learn Arabic Grammer Online 1
The table below shows vowels placed above or below a dotted circle replacing a primary consonant letter or a shaddah 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. Please note that most consonants do connect to the left with alif, wāw and yā’ written then with their medial or final form. Additionally, the letter yā’ 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.
Long vowels
(fully vocalised text) Name Trans. Value
064E 0627
َا fatḥah alif ā /aː/
064E 0649
َى fatḥah alif maqṣūrah ā / á /aː/
064F 0648
ُو ḍammah wāw ū /uː/
0650 064A
ِي kasrah yā’ ī /iː/
In unvocalized text (one in which the short vowels are not marked), the long vowels are represented by the vowel in question: alif, alif maqṣūrah (or ya’), wāw, or yā’. Long vowels written in the middle of a word of unvocalized text are treated like consonants with a sukūn (see below) in a text that has full diacritics. Here also, the table shows long vowel letters only in isolated form for clarity.
Combinations وا and يا are always pronounced wā and yā respectively. The exception is when وا is the verb ending, where alif is silent, resulting in ū.
Long vowels
(unvocalized text) Name Trans. Value
0627
ا (implied fatḥah) alif ā /aː/
0649
ى (implied fatḥah) alif maqṣūrah ā / aỳ /aː/
0648
و (implied ḍammah) wāw ū / uw /uː/
064A
ي (implied kasrah) yā’ ī / iy /iː/
In addition, when transliterating names and loanwords, Arabic language speakers write out most or all the vowels as long (ā with ا alif, ē and ī with ي ya’, and ō and ū with و wāw), meaning it approaches a true alphabet.
Diphthongs
The diphthongs /aj/ and /aw/ are represented in vocalized text as follows:
Diphthongs
(fully vocalized text) Name Trans. Value
064E 064A
َي fatḥah yā’ ay /aj/
064E 0648
َو fatḥah wāw aw /aw/
Vowel omission
An Arabic syllable 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 word qalb, “heart”, is written qlb, and the word qalab, “he turned around”, is also written qlb.
To write qalab without this ambiguity, we could indicate that the l is followed by a short ‘a’ by writing a fatha 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: قلْبْ).
This is one step down from full vocalization, where the vowel after the q would also be indicated by afatḥah: قَلْبْ.
The Qur’ān is traditionally written in full vocalization.
The long i sound in some qurans is written with a kasra followed diacriticless yā’, and long u by a damma followed by a bare wāw. In other qurans, this ya and this waw carry a sukūn. Outside of the Qur’ān, the latter convention is extremely rare, to the point that yā’ with sukūn will be unambiguously read as the diphthong /aj/, and wāw with sukūn will be read /aw/.
For example, the letters m-y-l can be read like English meel or like English mail, or (theoretically) also some other ways, like ‘mayyal’ or ‘mayil’. But if a sukuun is added on the ya’ then the miim cannot have a sukuun (because two letters in a row cannot be sukunated), cannot have a damma (because there is never an ‘uy’ sound in Arabic unless there is another vowel after the ya), and cannot have a kasra (because kasra before sukunated ya’ is never found outside qurans), so it MUST have a fatha and the only possible pronunciation is /mayl/ (meaning mile, or even e-mail). By the same token, m-y-t with a sukoon over the y can be mayt but not mayyit or meet, and m-w-t with a sukoon 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 sukoon on the ḥ, but a sukoon is forbidden on the d, because that d would carry a damma if any other word followed, as in Aḥmadu zawjī meaning “Ahmad is my husband”.
Another example: the sentence that in correct Arabic must be pronounced Aḥmadu zawjun sharrīr, meaning “Ahmed is a wicked husband”, is usually mispronounced as Aḥmad zawj sharrīr. 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 tanween ‘un’ at the very end. So, it is correct to add an ‘un’ tanween sign on the final r, but actually pronouncing it would be a hypercorrection. Also, it is never correct to write a sukoon on that r, even though in actual pronunciation that r is (and in correct Arabic MUST be) sukooned.
Of course, if the correct i`râb is a sukuun, it may be optionally written.
General
Unicode Name Translit. Phonemic Value (IPA)
0652
ْ sukūn (no vowel with this consonant letter or
diphthong with this long vowel letter) ∅
0670
ٰ alif above ā /aː/
The sukūn is also used for transliterating words into the Arabic script. The Persian word ماسک (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 ک.
Additional letters
Regional variations
ڢ – a Maghrebi variation of the letter ف (fā’) .
ٯ and ڧ – a Maghrebi variation of standard letter ق (as a rule, dotless in isolated and final positions and dotted in the initial and medial forms ڧـ ـڧـ ـٯ).
Additional modified letters, used in non-Arabic languages, or in Arabic for transliterating names, loanwords, spoken dialects only, include:
Sometimes used for writing names, loanwords and dialects
ڤ – (not to be confused with ڨ) used in Kurdish language when written in Arabic script and sometimes used in Arabic language to represent the sound /v/ when transliterating names and loanwords in Arabic. Also used in writing dialects with that sound.[6] (Usually the letter ف (fā’) transliterates /v/.) Also used as pa in the Jawi script. The phoneme /v/ in Tunisia and some other regions of Maghreb is rendered using ڥ.
پ – used to represent the phoneme /p/ in Persian, Urdu, and Kurdish; sometimes used in Arabic language when transliterating names and loanwords, although Arabic mostly substitutes /b/ for /p/ in the transliteration of names and loanwords. So, “7up” can be transcribed as سفن أب or سڤن أپ.
چ – used to represent /t͡ʃ/ (“ch”). It is used in Persian, Urdu, and Kurdish and sometimes used when transliterating names and loanwords in Arabic. In the Iraqi spoken dialect it may be used, especially when referring in the feminine, although it is rarely written, as well as rarely used in the Maghrebi spelling. Nevertheless, Arabic usually substitutes other letters in the transliteration of names and loanwords: normally the combination تش (tā’-shīn) is used to transliterate the /t͡ʃ/, as in “Chad”. In Egypt چ is used for /ʒ/ (or /d͡ʒ/, which is approximated to [ʒ]). In Israel, it’s used to render /ɡ/ in Arabic language, for example on roadsigns.
Ca in the Jawi script.
گ – used to represent /ɡ/. Normally used in Persian, Kurdish, and Urdu.[6] Often names and loanwords with /ɡ/ are transliterated in Arabic with ك (kāf), ق (qāf), غ (ghayn) or ج (jīm), which may or may not change the original sound. In Egypt ج is normally pronounced [ɡ].
ڨ – a Maghrebi letter, sometimes used for [ɡ] (not to be confused with ڤ). In Tunisia it is sometimes used to represent the phoneme /ɡ/. In final and isolate form it has the form which resembles the letter ق qāf whence it derives.
ڜ – a Maghrebi letter for [t͡ʃ].
ٻ، Saraiki
ڄ, Saraiki
ݙ, Saraiki
ڳ, Saraiki
ݨ, Saraiki