Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet (Arabic: ‫اَأْلْبَج ِدَّية اْلَعَر ِبَّية‬, al-abjadīyah l-ʿarabīyah
IPA:  [ʔælʔæbʒædijːæ-lʕɑrɑbijːæ] or ‫اْلُح ُر وف اْلَعَر ِبَّية‬, al-ḥurūf l- Arabic alphabet
ʿarabīyah), or Arabic abjad, is the Arabic script as it is codified for
writing Arabic. It is written from right to left in a cursive style and
includes 28 letters. Most letters have contextual letterforms.

The Arabic alphabet is considered an abjad, meaning it only uses

consonants, but it is now considered an "impure abjad".[1] As with other
impure abjads, such as the Hebrew alphabet, scribes later devised means Script type Abjad
of indicating vowel sounds by separate vowel diacritics. Time 3rd or 4th century CE to the present
period
Consonants Direction right-to-left script 
Languages Arabic
The basic Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters. Adaptations of the Arabic
Related scripts
script for other languages added and removed some letters, as for
example Persian, Ottoman Turkish, Kurdish, Urdu, Sindhi, Azerbaijani Parent Egyptian hieroglyphs
(in Iran), Malay, Pashto, Punjabi, Uyghur, Arwi and Arabi Malayalam, systems
all of which have additional letters as shown below. There are no distinct Proto-Sinaitic
upper and lower case letter forms.
Phoenician
Many letters look similar but are distinguished from one another by dots Aramaic
(ʾiʿjām) above or below their central part (rasm). These dots are an
integral part of a letter, since they distinguish between letters that Nabataean
represent different sounds. For example, the Arabic letters ‫( ب‬b), ‫( ت‬t)
and ‫( ث‬th) have the same basic shape, but have one dot below, two dots Arabic script
above and three dots above, respectively. The letter ‫( ن‬n) also has the
Arabic alphabet
same form in initial and medial forms, with one dot above, though it is
somewhat different in isolated and final form.
ISO 15924
Both printed and written Arabic are cursive, with most of the letters ISO 15924 Arab (160), ​Arabic
within a word directly connected to the adjacent letters. Unicode
Unicode Arabic
Alphabetical order alias
Unicode U+0600–U+06FF (https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0600.pdf)
There are two main collating sequences for the Arabic alphabet: abjad range Arabic,
and hija.
U+0750–U+077F (https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0750.pdf)
The original ʾabjadīy order (‫)َأْبَج ِدّي‬, used for lettering, derives from the Arabic Supplement,
order of the Phoenician alphabet, and is therefore similar to the order of U+0870-U+089F (https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0870.pdf)
other Phoenician-derived alphabets, such as the Hebrew alphabet. In this
Arabic Extended-B,
order, letters are also used as numbers, Abjad numerals, and possess the
same alphanumeric code/cipher as Hebrew gematria and Greek U+08A0–U+08FF (https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U08A0.pdf)
isopsephy. Arabic Extended-A,

U+FB50–U+FDFF (https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFB50.pdf)
The hijā’ī (‫ )ِهَج اِئي‬or alifbāʾī (‫ )َأِلْفَباِئي‬order, used where lists of names
Arabic Presentation Forms-A,
and words are sorted, as in phonebooks, classroom lists, and
dictionaries, groups letters by similarity of shape. U+FE70–U+FEFF (https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/UFE70.pdf)
Arabic Presentation Forms-B,

Abjadī U+10EC0-U+10EFF (https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U10EC0.pdf)

Arabic Extended-C ,
The ʾabjadī order is not a simple historical continuation of the earlier U+1EE00–U+1EEFF (https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1EE00.pdf)
north Semitic alphabetic order, since it has a position corresponding to
Arabic Mathematical Alphabetic Symbols
the Aramaic letter samekh/semkat ‫ס‬, yet no letter of the Arabic alphabet
historically derives from that letter. Loss of sameḵ was compensated for
by the split of shin ‫ ש‬into two independent Arabic letters, ‫( ش‬shīn) and ‫( ﺱ‬sīn) which
moved up to take the place of sameḵ. The six other letters that do not correspond to any north
Semitic letter are placed at the end.

Countries that use the Arabic or Perso-Arabic script:

   as the sole official script
   as a co-official script
 Common abjadī sequence
‫ا‬ ‫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 ‫ء‬

ʾ b j d h w z ḥ ṭ y k l m n s ʿ f ṣ q r sh t th kh dh ḍ ẓ gh ʾ
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 2000

This is commonly vocalized as follows:

ʾabjad hawwaz ḥuṭṭī kalaman saʿfaṣ qarashat thakhadh ḍaẓagh.

Another vocalization is:

ʾabujadin hawazin ḥuṭiya kalman saʿfaṣ qurishat thakhudh ḍaẓugh

Maghrebian abjadī sequence (probably older)[2]

‫ا‬ ‫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 ‫ء‬
ʾ b j d h w z ḥ ṭ y k l m n ṣ ʿ f ḍ q r s t th kh dh ẓ gh sh ʾ
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 29

The colors indicate which letters have different positions from the previous table

This can be vocalized as:

ʾabujadin hawazin ḥuṭiya kalman ṣaʿfaḍ qurisat thakhudh ẓaghush

hijāʾī

Modern dictionaries and other reference books do not use the abjadī order to sort alphabetically; instead, the newer hijāʾī order is used wherein letters are partially
grouped together by similarity of shape. The hijāʾī order is never used as numerals.

Common hijāʾī 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 ‫ء‬
ʾ b t th j ḥ kh d dh r z s sh ṣ ḍ ṭ ẓ ʿ gh f q k l m n h w y ʾ

Another kind of hijāʾī order was used widely in the Maghreb until recently (The Maghreb alphabet is still used in many Quranic schools in Algeria) when it was
replaced by the Mashriqi order.[2]

Maghrebian hijāʾī order

‫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 ‫ء‬

ʾ b t th j ḥ kh d dh r z ṭ ẓ k l m n ṣ ḍ ʿ gh f q s sh h w y ʾ

The colors indicate which letters have different positions from the previous table

Letter forms

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 (‫ا‬, ‫د‬, ‫ذ‬, ‫ر‬, ‫ز‬, ‫ )و‬can only be
linked to their preceding letter. For example, ‫( أرارات‬Ararat) has only isolated forms because each letter cannot be connected to its following one. In addition,
some letter combinations are written as ligatures (special shapes), notably lām-alif ‫ال‬,[3] which is the only mandatory ligature (the un-ligated combination ‫ ‍ل‍‌ا‬is
considered difficult to read).
Table of basic letters

Arabic letters usage in Literary Arabic

Letter
Common Maghrebian name Letter Value Contextual forms
name in Closest English
Trans-
(Classical in Literary equivalent in
literation
Arabic Arabic pronunciation
ʾAbjadī Hijāʾī ʾAbjadī Hijāʾī pronunciation) script (IPA) Final Medial Initial

1. 1. 1. 1. ʾalif ‫َأِلف‬ ʾ /ʔ/[a] car, cat ‫ـا‬

2. 2. 2. 2. bāʾ/bah ‫َبه‬/‫َباء‬ b /b/[b] barn ‫ـب‬ ‫ـبـ‬ ‫بـ‬
22. 3. 22. 3. tāʾ/tah ‫َته‬/‫َتاء‬ t /t/ table or stick ‫ـت‬ ‫ـتـ‬ ‫تـ‬
th
23. 4. 23. 4. thāʾ/thah ‫َثه‬/‫َثاء‬
(also ṯ )
/θ/ think ‫ـث‬ ‫ـثـ‬ ‫ثـ‬
j
3. 5. 3. 5. jīm ‫ِج يم‬
(also ǧ ) /d͡ʒ/[b][c] gem ‫ـج‬ ‫ـجـ‬ ‫جـ‬
no equivalent
ḥ
(pharyngeal h, may be
8. 6. 8. 6. ḥāʾ/ḥah ‫َح ه‬/‫َح اء‬
(also ḩ )
/ħ/
approximated as a ‫ـح‬ ‫ـحـ‬ ‫حـ‬
whispered hat)

kh
24. 7. 24. 7. khāʾ/khah ‫َخه‬/‫َخاء‬
(also ḫ, ḵ, ẖ ) /x/ Scottish loch ‫ـخ‬ ‫ـخـ‬ ‫خـ‬
/‫َداء‬/‫َدال‬
4. 8. 4. 8. dāl/dāʾ/dah
‫َده‬
d /d/ dear ‫ـد‬
dh
/‫َذاء‬/‫َذال‬
25. 9. 25. 9. dhāl/dhāʾ/dhah
‫َذه‬ (also ḏ ) /ð/ that ‫ـذ‬
Scottish English curd,
20. 10. 20. 10. rāʾ/rah ‫َر ه‬/‫َر اء‬ r /r/
Spanish rolled r as in perro ‫ـر‬
/‫َز اي‬
7. 11. 7. 11. zāy/zayn/zāʾ/zah /‫َز اء‬/‫َز ين‬
‫َز ه‬
z /z/ zebra ‫ـز‬
15. 12. 21. 24. sīn ‫ِس ين‬ s /s/ sin ‫سـ ـسـ ـس‬
sh
21. 13. 28. 25. shīn ‫ِش ين‬
(also š ) /ʃ/ shin ‫شـ ـشـ ـش‬
no equivalent
ṣ
(can be approximated
18. 14. 15. 18. ṣād ‫َصاد‬
(also ş ) /sˤ/
with sauce, but with ‫صـ ـصـ ـص‬
the throat constricted)

no equivalent
ḍ
/‫َضاد‬ (can be approximated
26. 15. 18. 19. ḍād/ḍāʾ/ḍah
‫َضه‬/‫َضاء‬ (also ḑ )
/dˤ/
with dawn, but with ‫ضـ ـضـ ـض‬
the throat constricted)

no equivalent
ṭ
(can be approximated
9. 16. 9. 12. ṭāʾ/ṭah ‫َطه‬/‫َطاء‬
(also ţ )
/tˤ/
with table, but with the ‫ـط‬ ‫ـطـ‬ ‫طـ‬
throat constricted)

no equivalent
ẓ
(can be approximated
27. 17. 26. 13. ẓāʾ/ẓah ‫َظه‬/‫َظاء‬
(also z̧ )
/ðˤ/
with either, but with ‫ـظ‬ ‫ـظـ‬ ‫ظـ‬
the throat constricted)
 no equivalent

16. 18. 16. 20. ʿayn ‫َعْين‬ ʿ /ʕ/ (similar to ḥāʾ above, ‫ـع‬ ‫ـعـ‬ ‫عـ‬
but voiced)

gh no equivalent
28. 19. 27. 21. ghayn ‫َغْين‬
(also ġ, ḡ ) /ɣ/[b]
(Spanish abogado) ‫ـغ‬ ‫ـغـ‬ ‫غـ‬

17. 20. 17. 22. fāʾ/fah ‫َفه‬/‫َفاء‬ f /f/[b] far ‫ـف‬ ‫ـفـ‬ ‫فـ‬
19. 21. 19. 23. qāf ‫َقاف‬ q /q/[b] MLE cut ‫ـق‬ ‫ـقـ‬ ‫قـ‬

11. 22. 11. 14. kāf/kāʾ/kah

/‫َكاف‬
k /k/[b] cap
/‫ ـك‬/‫ ـكـ‬/‫كـ‬
‫َكه‬/‫َكاء‬
‫ڪـ ـڪـ ـڪ‬
12. 23. 12. 15. lām ‫َالم‬ l /l/ lamp ‫ـل‬ ‫ـلـ‬ ‫لـ‬
13. 24. 13. 16. mīm ‫ِميم‬ m /m/ me ‫ـم‬ ‫ـمـ‬ ‫مـ‬
14. 25. 14. 17. nūn ‫ُنون‬ n /n/ nun ‫ـن‬ ‫ـنـ‬ ‫نـ‬
5. 26. 5. 26. hāʾ/hah ‫َهه‬/‫َهاء‬ h /h/ hat ‫ـه‬ ‫ـهـ‬ ‎‫هـ‬
/w/, /uː/,
6. 27. 6. 27. wāw ‫َواو‬ w/ū/∅
∅[b]
wet, pool ‫ـو‬
/‫ـي‬
yāʾ/yah ‫َيه‬/‫َياء‬ /j/, /iː/[b] ‫ـيـ‬ ‫يـ‬
‫ـے‬
10. 28. 10. 28. y/ī Yoshi, meet

[e]
‫ء‬
29. 29. 29. 29. hamzah ‫َهْمزة‬ ʾ /ʔ/  uh–oh (used in medial a
positions as an
letter)

‫َأِلف‬
‫ـٵ‬/‫ـأ‬
ʾalif hamzah
‫َهْمزة‬
‫ـإ‬
‫ـٶ‬/‫ـؤ‬
‫َواو‬
wāw hamzah
‫َهْمزة‬

/‫ئ‬
/‫ـئـ‬
‫َياء‬ /‫ـٸ‬ /‫ئـ‬
yāʾ hamzah/yah hamzah ‫َيه‬/‫َهْمزة‬ /‫ـٸـ‬
‫َهْمزة‬ /ࢨ‫ـ‬ ‫ࢨـ‬/‫ٸـ‬
‫ـࢨـ‬
‫ـۓ‬
ʾalif maddah ‫َأِلف َمَّدة‬ ā /aː/ ‫ـآ‬
‫تاء‬
/‫مربوطة‬
[f] tāʾ marbūṭah/tah marbūṭah
‫ته‬ ‫ـة‬ (end only)
‫مربوطة‬

‫الف‬
[g] ʾalif maqṣūrah
‫مقصورة‬ ‫ـى‬ ‫ـىـ‬ ‎‫ىـ‬
Notes

a. Alif can represent many phonemes. See the section on ʾalif.

b. See the section on non-native letters and sounds; the letters ⟨‫ ⟩ك‬,⟨‫ ⟩ق‬,⟨‫ ⟩غ‬,⟨‫ ⟩ج‬are sometimes used to transcribe the phoneme /ɡ/ in loanwords,
⟨‫ ⟩ب‬to transcribe /p/ and ⟨‫ ⟩ف‬to transcribe /v/. Likewise the letters ⟨‫ ⟩و‬and ⟨‫ ⟩ي‬are used to transcribe the vowels /oː/ and /eː/ respectively in
loanwords and dialects.
c. ‫ ج‬is pronounced differently depending on the region. See Arabic phonology#Consonants.
d. See the section on regional variations in letter form.
e. (counted as a letter in the alphabet and plays an important role in Arabic spelling) denoting most irregular female nouns
f. (not counted as a letter in the alphabet but plays an important role in Arabic grammar and lexicon, including indication [denoting most female
nouns] and spelling) An alternative form of ‫"( ت‬bound tāʼ " / ‫ )تاء مربوطة‬is used at the end of words to mark feminine gender for nouns and
adjectives. It denotes the final sound /-h/ or /-t/. Standard tāʼ, to distinguish it from tāʼ marbūṭah, is referred to as tāʼ maftūḥah (‫تاء مفتوحة‬,
"open tāʼ ").
g. (not counted as a letter in the alphabet but plays an important role in Arabic grammar and lexicon, including indication [denotes verbs] and
spelling). It is used at the end of words with the sound of /aː/ in Modern Standard Arabic that are not categorized in the use of tāʼ marbūṭah (‫)ة‬
[mainly some verbs tenses and Arabic masculine names].
See the article Romanization 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 don't have an equivalent in English (such as ‫ )ق‬are often
spelled as numbers when Romanized. Also names are regularly transcribed as pronounced locally, not as pronounced in Literary 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
articles Arabic phonology and varieties of Arabic.
The names of the Arabic letters can be thought of as abstractions of an older version where they were meaningful words in the Proto-Semitic
language. Names of Arabic letters may have quite different names popularly.
Six letters (‫ )و ز ر ذ د ا‬do 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 letter alif originated in the Phoenician alphabet as a consonant-sign indicating a glottal stop. Today it has lost its function as a consonant,
and, together with ya’ and wāw, is a mater lectionis, a consonant sign standing in for a long vowel (see below), or as support for certain
diacritics (maddah and hamzah).
Arabic currently uses a diacritic sign, ‫ء‬, called hamzah, to denote the glottal stop [ʔ], written alone or with a carrier:
alone: ‫ء‬
with a carrier: ‫( إ أ‬above or under an alif), ‫( ؤ‬above a wāw), ‫( ئ‬above a dotless yā’ or yā’ hamzah).

In academic work, the hamzah (‫ )ء‬is transliterated with the modifier letter right half ring (ʾ), while the modifier letter left half ring (ʿ)
transliterates the letter ‘ayn (‫)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
wāw, yā’, or alif, and in that case the carrier behaves like an ordinary wāw, yā’, or alif.

Variations

The modern hijā’ī sequence and abjadī sequence (excluding hamzah) in 15 fonts:

‫ي‬ ‫و‬ ‫ه‬ ‫ن‬ ‫م‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ك‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫غ‬ ‫ع‬ ‫ظ‬ ‫ط‬ ‫ض‬ ‫ص‬ ‫ش‬ ‫س‬ ‫ز‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ذ‬ ‫د‬ ‫خ‬ ‫ح‬ ‫ج‬ ‫ث‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ا‬ hijā’ī 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

‫غ‬ ‫ظ‬ ‫ض‬ ‫ذ‬ ‫خ‬ ‫ث‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ص‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ع‬ ‫س‬ ‫ن‬ ‫م‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ك‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ط‬ ‫ح‬ ‫ز‬ ‫و‬ ‫ه‬ ‫د‬ ‫ج‬ ‫ب‬ ‫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

Alif

Context Form Value Closest English Equivalent

Initial position: father hip

initially: a/i/u   /a, i, u/ or sometimes silent in the definite article ‫( ال‬a)l-
Without diacritics ‫ا‬ medially or finally: ā/ī/ū   /aː, iː, uː/
Medial/ Final position:
father
 Initial/ Medial/ Final
With hamzah over position: ʾa - father; ʾu -

(hamzah alif) ‫ٵ‬/‫أ‬ Initial position: followed by fatḥah - ʾa - or  ḍammah - ʾu pour

Medial/ Final position: followed by fatḥah - āʾ - or  ḍammah - ūʾ Isolated or on its own
without a vowel: glottal
stop in uh-oh

With hamzah under

initially: ʾi   /ʔi/
(hamzah alif) ‫إ‬ Initial position: ʾi - hip
medially or finally: īʾ   /iːʔ/

With maddah ‫آ‬ ā   /aː/

Initial/ Medial/ Final
position: art

Initial/ Medial/ Final position: silent

/ʔ/ Marker/connector/conjoiner between two words, either using the Arabic definite article al or
With waslah ‫ٱ‬ with an alif or hamzah alif to form a phrase, phrasal noun, or even name: e.g. 'Abd 'Allah ‫َع ْب َد‬
Glottal stop in uh-oh or
silent
‫ ٱلله‬- "servant of Allah (God)"

Modified letters

The following are not individual letters, but rather different contextual variants of some of the Arabic letters.

Conditional forms
Name Translit. Phonemic Value (IPA)
Isolated Final Medial Initial
ʾalif maddah

‫آ‬ ‫ـآ‬ (‫َمَّدة‬ ‫)َأِلْف‬

ā /ʔaː/(aka "lengthening/ stressing 'alif")

(aka "correlated tā'")

tāʾ marbūṭah 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
‫ة‬ ‫ـة‬ (‫)َتاْء َمْر ُبوَطة‬
h or
t/ẗ appears to denote the "masculine"; singular nouns: /a/,

plural nouns: āt (a preceding letter followed by a fatḥah alif + tāʾ = ‫َـات‬‎)

Two uses:

1. The letter called ‫ َأِلْف َمْقُصوَر ة‬alif maqṣūrah or ‫ َْأِلف َلِّيَنة‬alif layyinah,
‫َأ‬ pronounced /aː/ in Modern Standard Arabic. It is used only at the end of
ʾalif maqṣūrah ( ‫ِلْف‬
‫ى‬ ‫ـى‬ ‫ـىـ‬ ‫ىـ‬ ‫)َمْقُصوَر ة‬
á or
y/ỳ
words in some special cases to denote the neuter/non-feminine aspect of
the word (mainly verbs), where tā’ marbūṭah cannot be used.
2. A way of writing the letter ‫ ي‬yāʾ without its dots at the end of words, either
traditionally or in contemporary use in Egypt and Sudan.

Ligatures

The use of ligature in Arabic is common. There is one compulsory ligature, that for lām ‫ ل‬+ alif ‫ا‬, which exists in two
forms. All other ligatures, of which there are many,[4] are optional.

Contextual forms
Name Trans. Value
Final Medial Initial Isolated

‫ﻼ‬‎ ‫ﻻ‬ lām + alif laa /laː/

‫ﳰ ﲓ‬‎ ‫ﳝ‬ [5] ‫ﱘ‬‎ yāʾ + mīm īm /iːm/

‫ﳭ ﲅ‬ ‫ﳌ‬ ‫ﱂ‬ lam + mīm lm /lm/

A more complex ligature that combines as many as seven distinct components is commonly used to represent the word
Allāh. Components of a ligature for "Allah":
1. alif
The only ligature within the primary range of Arabic script in Unicode (U+06xx) is lām + alif. This is the only one
2. hamzat waṣl (‫َْه ْم َز ة َو ْص ل‬‎)
compulsory for fonts and word-processing. Other ranges are for compatibility to older standards and contain other
3. lām
ligatures, which are optional.
4. lām
5. shadda (‫)َش َّد ة‬‎
lām + alif
6. dagger alif (‫َخ ْن َج رَّی ة‬ ‫َأِل ْف‬‎)
7. hāʾ
 ‎‫لا‬

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 ARABIC LIGATURE LAM WITH ALEF ISOLATED FORM:

‫ﻻ‬
U+0640 ARABIC TATWEEL + lām + alif

‎‫ـلا‬

Note: Unicode also has in its Presentation Form B U+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+FEFC ARABIC LIGATURE LAM WITH ALEF FINAL FORM

‎‫ﻼ‬

Another ligature in the Unicode Presentation Form A range U+FB50 to U+FDxx is the special code for glyph for the ligature Allāh ("God"), U+FDF2 ARABIC
LIGATURE ALLAH ISOLATED FORM:

‫ﷲ‬
This is a work-around for the shortcomings of most text processors, which are incapable of displaying the correct vowel marks for the word Allāh in Koran.
Because Arabic script is used to write other texts rather than Koran only, rendering lām + lām + hā’ as the previous ligature is considered faulty.

This simplified style is often preferred for clarity, especially in non-Arabic languages, but may not be considered appropriate in situations where a
more elaborate style of calligraphy is preferred. –SIL International[6]

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.

lām + lām + hā’ = LILLĀH (meaning "to Allāh [only to God]")

‎‫هلل هلل‬   or  

alif + lām + lām + hā’ = ALLĀH (the Arabic word for "god")

‎‫اهلل اهلل‬   or  

alif + lām + lām + U+0651 ARABIC SHADDA + U+0670 ARABIC LETTER SUPERSCRIPT ALEF + hā’

‫اهّٰلل‬   (DejaVu Sans and KacstOne don't show the added 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 lām
 (alif +) lām + lām + U+200d ZERO WIDTH JOINER + hā’

‎‫ ال‍له‬‎‫ل‍له‬
  ‎ 

Gemination

Gemination is the doubling of a consonant. Instead of writing the letter twice, Arabic places a W-shaped sign called shaddah, 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 ḥarakāt).

General Unicode Name Name in Arabic script Transliteration

0651 ‫ـّــ‬ shaddah ‫َش َّد ة‬ (consonant doubled)

Nunation

Nunation (Arabic: ‫ تنوين‬tanwīn) is the addition of a final -n  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.

Vowels
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 Qur’ān the three basic vowel signs (see
below) are mandated, like the ḥarakāt and all the other diacritics or other types of marks, for example the cantillation signs.

Short vowels

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
Qur’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, called ḥarakāt. All Arabic vowels, long and
short, follow a consonant; in Arabic, words like "Ali" or "alif", for example, start with a consonant: ‘Aliyy, alif.

Short vowels Name in Arabic

Code Name Trans. Value Remarks
(fully vocalized text) script

‫ـَــ‬ 064E fat·ḥah ‫َف ْت َح ة‬ a /a/

Ranges from [æ], [a], [ä], [ɑ], [ɐ], to [e], depending on the native dialect, position,
and stress.

‫ـُــ‬ 064F ḍammah ‫َض َّم ة‬ u /u/

Ranges from [ʊ], [o], to [u], depending on the native dialect, position, and stress.
Approximated to English "OO" (as "boot" but shorter)

‫ـِـ ـ‬ 0650 kasrah ‫َكْس َر ة‬ i /i/

Ranges from [ɪ], [e], to [i], depending on the native dialect, position, and stress.
Approximated to English "I" (as in "pick")

Long vowels

In the fully vocalized Arabic text found in texts such as Quran, a long ā following a consonant other than a hamzah is written with a short a sign (fatḥah) on the
consonant plus an ʾalif after it; long ī is written as a sign for short i (kasrah) plus a yāʾ; and long ū as a sign for short u (ḍammah) plus a wāw. Briefly, ᵃa = ā; ⁱy =
ī; and ᵘw = ū. Long ā following a hamzah may be represented by an ʾalif maddah or by a free hamzah followed by an ʾalif (two consecutive ʾalifs are never
allowed in Arabic).

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. Most consonants do connect to the left with ʾalif, wāw and yāʾ written then
with their medial or final form. Additionally, the letter yāʾ 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 vocalized text)
Unicode Letter with diacritic Name Trans. Variants Value

064E 0627 ‫َــا‬ fatḥah ʾalif ā aa

/aː/

064E 0649
‫َــٰى‬‎ fatḥah ʾalif maqṣūrah ā aa

0650 0649
‫ِـ ـٖى‬‎ kasrah ʾalif maqṣūrah y iy /iː/

064F 0648 ‫ُــو‬‎ ḍammah wāw ū uw/ ou /uː/

0650 064A ‫ِـ ـي‬‎ kasrah yāʾ ī iy /iː/

In unvocalized text (one in which the short vowels are not marked), the long vowels are represented by the vowel in question: ʾalif ṭawīlah/maqṣūrah, wāw, or
yāʾ. 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 ‫ وا‬and ‫ يا‬are always pronounced wā and yāʾ respectively. The exception is the suffix ‫ ـو۟ا‬in verb endings where ʾalif is silent, resulting in ū or aw.

Long vowels
Name Trans. Value
(unvocalized text)

0627

‫ا‬‎ (implied fatḥah) ʾalif ā

/aː/
0649

‫ى‬‎ (implied fatḥah) ʾalif maqṣūrah ā/y

0648

‫و‬‎ (implied ḍammah) wāw ū /uː/

064A

‫ي‬‎ (implied kasrah) yāʾ ī /iː/

In addition, when transliterating names and loanwords, Arabic language speakers write out most or all the vowels as long (ā with ‫ ا‬ʾalif, ē and ī with ‫ ي‬yaʾ, and ō
and ū with ‫ و‬wāw), meaning it approaches a true alphabet.

Diphthongs

The diphthongs /aj/ and /aw/ are represented in vocalized text as follows:

Diphthongs
Name Trans. Value
(fully vocalized text)

064A 064E

‫َــي‬ fatḥah yāʾ ay /aj/

0648 064E

‫َــو‬ fatḥah vāv/ wāw aw /aw/

Hi

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 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.

‫ْل‬
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: ‫قْلب‬.

This is one step down from full vocalization, where the vowel after the q would also be indicated by a fatḥah: ‫َقْلب‬.

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 /aj/, and w with sukūn will be read /aw/.

For example, the letters m-y-l 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 /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
mispronounced (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 Name in Arabic Phonemic Value

Name Translit.
Unicode script (IPA)

(no vowel with this consonant letter

0652 ‫ـْــ‬‎ sukūn ‫ُس ُكون‬
or
diphthong with this long vowel
∅
letter)

0670 ‫ـٰـ ـ‬‎ alif khanjariyyah [dagger ’alif - smaller ’alif written above
consonant]
‫َأِلف َخ ْنَج ِرَّية‬ ā /aː/

ٰٰ The sukūn is also used for transliterating words into the Arabic script. The Persian word ‫( ماسک‬mâsk, from the English word "mask"), for example, might be
written with a sukūn above the ‫ ﺱ‬to signify that there is no vowel sound between that letter and the ‫ک‬.

Additional letters

Regional variations

Some letters take a traditionally different form in specific regions:

Letter
Explanation
Isolated Final Medial Initial

‫ڛ‬ ‫ـڛ‬‎ ‫ـڛـ‬‎ ‫ڛـ‬‎ A traditional form to denotate the sīn ‫ س‬letter, used in areas influenced by Persian script and former Ottoman script, although
rarely. Also used in older Pashto script.[7]

‫ڢ‬ ‫ـڢ‬ ‫ـڢـ‬‎ ‫ڢـ‬‎ A traditional Maghrebi variant (except for Libya and Algeria) of fā’ ‫ف‬.

/‫ـڧـ‬ /‫ڧـ‬
‫ٯ‬/‫ڧ‬‎ ‫ـٯ‬/‫ـڧ‬ A traditional Maghrebi variant (except for Libya and Algeria) of qāf ‫ق‬. Generally dotless in isolated and final positions and dotted in

‫ـٯـ‬‎ ‫ٯـ‬‎
the initial and medial forms.

‫ک‬ ‫ـک‬‎ ‫ـکـ‬‎ ‫کـ‬‎ An alternative version of kāf ‫ ك‬used especially in Maghrebi under the influence of the Ottoman script or in Gulf script under the
influence of the Persian script.

‫ی‬‎ ‫ـی‬ ‫ـیـ‬‎ ‫یـ‬‎

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; yā’ ‫ ي‬is dotless in the isolated and final position. Visually identical to alif maqṣūrah ‫ ;ى‬resembling the
Perso-Arabic letter ‫ یـ ـیـ ـی ی‬which was also used in Ottoman Turkish.

Non-native letters to Standard Arabic

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

Foreign letters

‫پ‬‎ /p/
It is a Persian letter. Sometimes used in Arabic as well when transliterating foreign names and loanwords. Can be substituted with bā’
pronounced as such.
‫ب‬‎and

‫ڤ‬‎ Used in loanwords and dialectal words instead of fā’ ‫ف‬‎.[8] Not to be confused with ‫ڨ‬‎.

/v/

‫ڥ‬‎ Used in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.

It is a Persian letter. Sometimes used in Arabic as well when transliterating foreign names and loanwords and in the Gulf and Arabic dialects. The
/t͡ʃ/1 sequence ‫ تش‬‎tāʼ-shīn is usually preferred (e.g. ‫تشاد‬‎for "Chad").
‫چ‬‎ /ʒ/2 Used in Egypt and can be a reduction of /d͡ʒ/, where ‫ ج‬‎is pronounced /ɡ/.

Used in Israel, for example on road signs.

‫گ‬‎ It is a Persian letter. Sometimes used in Arabic as well.

‫ڨ‬‎ /ɡ/3
Used in Tunisia and in Algeria for loanwords and for the dialectal pronunciation of qāf ‫ق‬‎in some words. Not to be confused with ‫ڤ‬‎.

/‫ڭ‬
Used in Morocco.

‫ݣ‬‎
1. /t͡ʃ/ is considered a native phoneme/allophone in some dialects, e.g. Kuwaiti and Iraqi dialects.
2. /ʒ/ is considered a native phoneme in Levantine and North African dialects and as an allophone in others.
3. /ɡ/ is considered a native phoneme/allophone in most modern Arabic dialects.

Used in languages other than Arabic

Numerals
Eastern
There are two main kinds of numerals used along with Arabic text; Western Arabic numerals and Eastern Western Central
Arabic numerals. In most of present-day North Africa, the usual Western Arabic numerals are used. Like (Maghreb, Europe) (Mideast) Persian Urdu
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. 0 ٠ ۰ ۰

Letters as numerals 1 ١ ۱ ۱

In addition, the Arabic alphabet can be used to represent numbers (Abjad numerals). This usage is based on the 2 ٢ ۲ ۲
ʾabjadī order of the alphabet. ‫ أ‬ʾalif is 1, ‫ ب‬bāʾ is 2, ‫ ج‬jīm is 3, and so on until ‫ ي‬yāʾ = 10, ‫ ك‬kāf = 20, ‫ ل‬lām =
30, ..., ‫ ر‬rāʾ = 200, ..., ‫ غ‬ghayn = 1000. This is sometimes used to produce chronograms. 3 ٣ ۳ ۳

History 4 ٤ ۴ ۴

The Arabic alphabet can be traced back to the Nabataean alphabet used to write Nabataean. The first known 5 ٥ ۵ ۵
text in the Arabic alphabet is a late 4th-century inscription from Jabal Ramm (50  km east of ‘Aqabah) 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 6 ٦ ۶ ۶
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 7 ٧ ۷ ۷
become indistinguishable in shape, so that in the early writings 15 distinct letter-shapes had to do duty for 29
sounds; cf. the similarly ambiguous Pahlavi alphabet.) 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
8 ٨ ۸ ۸
obligatory until much later. Important texts were and still are frequently memorized, especially in Qurʾan
memorization. 9 ٩ ۹ ۹

10 ١٠ ۱۰ ۱۰
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 Hebrew vocalization. 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, a dot below = i, a dot on
the line = u, 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-Farāhīdī.

Arabic printing

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 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]
Evolution of early Arabic calligraphy (9th–
Between 1580 and 1586, type designer Robert Granjon designed Arabic typefaces for Cardinal Ferdinando de' 11th century). The Basmala is taken as
an example, from Kufic Qur’ān
Medici, and the Medici press published many Christian prayer and scholarly Arabic texts in the late 16th century.[13]
manuscripts. (1) Early 9th century script
Maronite monks at the Maar Quzhayy Monastery in Mount Lebanon published the first Arabic books to use movable used no dots or diacritic marks;[9] (2) and
type in the Middle East. The monks transliterated the Arabic language using Syriac script. (3) in the 9th–10th century during the
Abbasid dynasty, Abu al-Aswad's system
Although Napoleon Bonaparte generally receives credit for introducing the printing press to Egypt during his invasion used red dots with each arrangement or
of that country in 1798, and though he did indeed bring printing presses and Arabic script presses to print the French position indicating a different short vowel.
occupation's official newspaper Al-Tanbiyyah ("The Courier"), printing in the Arabic language started several Later, a second system of black dots was
centuries earlier. used to differentiate between letters like
fā’ and qāf;[10] (4) in the 11th century (al-
A goldsmith (like Gutenberg) designed and implemented an Arabic-script movable-type printing-press in the Middle Farāhīdī's system) dots were changed into
East. The Greek Orthodox monk Abd Allah Zakhir set up an Arabic printing press using movable type at the shapes resembling the letters to
monastery of Saint John at the town of Dhour El Shuwayr in Mount Lebanon, the first homemade press in Lebanon transcribe the corresponding long vowels.
using Arabic script. He personally cut the type molds and did the founding of the typeface. The first book came off his This system is the one used today.[11]
press in 1734; this press continued in use until 1899.[14]

Computers
The Arabic alphabet can be encoded using several character sets, including ISO-8859-6, Windows-1256 and Unicode (see links in Infobox above), latter thanks to
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.

Unicode

As of Unicode 15.0, the Arabic script is contained in the following blocks:[15]

Arabic (0600–06FF, 256 characters)

Arabic Supplement (0750–077F, 48 characters)
Arabic Extended-A (08A0–08FF, 96 characters)
Arabic Extended-B (0870–089F, 41 characters)
Arabic Extended-C (10EC0–10EFF, 3 characters)
Arabic Presentation Forms-A (FB50–FDFF, 631 characters)
Arabic Presentation Forms-B (FE70–FEFF, 141 characters)
Rumi Numeral Symbols (10E60–10E7F, 31 characters)
Indic Siyaq Numbers (1EC70–1ECBF, 68 characters)
Ottoman Siyaq Numbers (1ED00–1ED4F, 61 characters)
Arabic Mathematical Alphabetic Symbols (1EE00—1EEFF, 143 characters)

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.

Keyboards

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 Mac keyboard layout
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 Arabic PC keyboard layout
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]

Handwriting recognition Intellark imposed on a QWERTY keyboard layout

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]

See also
Abjad numerals Arabic numerals
Ancient South Arabian script Arabic phonology
Algerian braille Arabic script – about other languages written in Arabic script
Arabic braille ArabTeX – provides Arabic support for TeX and LaTeX
Arabic calligraphy Kufic
Arabic chat alphabet Modern Arabic mathematical notation
Arabic diacritics Perso-Arabic script
Arabic letter frequency Rasm
Arabic Mathematical Alphabetic Symbols Romanization of Arabic

References
1. Zitouni, Imed (2014). Natural Language Processing of Semitic 8. "Arabic Dialect Tutorial" (https://web.archive.org/web/20081217151
Languages. Springer Science & Business. p. 15. ISBN 978- 017/http://www1.ccls.columbia.edu/~cadim/ArabicDialectTutorialA
3642453588. MTA2006.pdf) (PDF). Archived from the original (http://www1.ccls.c
2. (in Arabic) Alyaseer.net ‫ترتيب المداخل والبطاقات في القوائم والفهارس‬ olumbia.edu/~cadim/ArabicDialectTutorialAMTA2006.pdf) (PDF) on
‫ الموضوعية‬Ordering entries and cards in subject indexes (http://alya 17 December 2008. Retrieved 2 December 2008.
seer.net/vb/showthread.php?t=8807) Archived (https://web.archive.o 9. File:Basmala kufi.svg - Wikimedia Commons
rg/web/20071223135008/http://alyaseer.net/vb/showthread.php?t=8 10. File:Kufi.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
807) 23 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine Discussion 11. File:Qur'an folio 11th century kufic.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
thread (Accessed 2009-October–06)
12. "294° anniversario della Biblioteca Federiciana: ricerche e curiosità
3. Rogers, Henry (2005). Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach.
sul Kitab Salat al-Sawai" (http://www.viverefano.com/2014/11/19/29
Blackwell Publishing. p. 135.
4-anniversario-della-biblioteca-federiciana-ricerche-e-curiosit-sul-ki
4. "A list of Arabic ligature forms in Unicode" (https://graphemica.com/s tab-salat-al-sawai/504874/). Retrieved 31 January 2017.
earch?q=arabic+ligature). 13. Naghashian, Naghi (21 January 2013). Design and Structure of
5. Depending on fonts used for rendering, the form shown on-screen Arabic Script (https://books.google.com/books?id=Xu2y8w_o2sQC
may or may not be the ligature form. &q=Robert+Granjon+designed+Arabic+typefaces&pg=PA11).
6. "Scheherazade New" (https://software.sil.org/scheherazade/desig epubli. ISBN 9783844245059.
n/). SIL International. Retrieved 4 February 2022. 14. Arabic and the Art of Printing – A Special Section (http://www.saudia
7. Notice sur les divers genres d'écriture ancienne et moderne des ramcoworld.com/issue/198102/arabic.and.the.art.of.printing-a.speci
arabes, des persans et des turcs / par A.-P. Pihan (http://gallica.bnf.f al.section.htm) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20061229133
r/ark:/12148/bpt6k5824879v/f26.item.zoom). 1856. 008/http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198102/arabic.and.th
e.art.of.printing-a.special.section.htm) 29 December 2006 at the
Wayback Machine, by Paul Lunde
15. "UAX #24: Script data file" (https://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDAT 17. See also Multilingual Computing with Arabic and Arabic
A/Scripts.txt). Unicode Character Database. The Unicode Transliteration: Arabicizing Windows Applications to Read and
Consortium. Write Arabic & Solutions for the Transliteration Quagmire Faced by
16. For more information about encoding Arabic, consult the Unicode Arabic-Script Languages (https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/mideas
manual available at The Unicode website (https://www.unicode.or t/Multilingual_Computing_with_Arabic_and_Arabic_Transliteration.
g/) pdf) and A PowerPoint Tutorial (with screen shots and an English
voice-over) on how to add Arabic to the Windows Operating System
(https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/mideast/multilingual_computing
_arabic.ppt). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/2011091102430
3/https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/su/mideast/Multilingual_Computin
g_with_Arabic_and_Arabic_Transliteration.pdf) 11 September 2011
at the Wayback Machine
18. "Yamli in the News" (http://www.yamli.com/press/).
19. "Israel 21c" (http://www.israel21c.org/technology/arabic-handwriting
-gets-computerized-thanks-to-israeli-innovation/). 14 May 2007.

External links
Shaalan, Khaled; Raza, Hafsa (August 2009). "NERA: Named entity recognition for Arabic" (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264209
725). Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 60 (8): 1652–1663. doi:10.1002/asi.21090 (https://doi.org/10.1
002%2Fasi.21090).
Arabic alphabet (https://welcome2jordan.com/arabic-alphabet/) learning resources

This article contains major sections of text from the very detailed article Arabic alphabet from the French Wikipedia, which has been partially translated into
English. Further translation of that page, and its incorporation into the text here, are welcomed.

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