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Arabic letters and diacritics: Difference between revisions
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→How to "extract" letters from an Arabic word
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Of course the correct way to determine the letters is to learn all the forms of the letters. | Of course the correct way to determine the letters is to learn all the forms of the letters. | ||
==How to read a word== | |||
If you know the alphabet, you can read the sounds of the letters in a word. But the vowels are often missing, so you have to either determine them from the Arabic diacritics, or from the English transliteration of the word, or from hearing the word. | |||
The words often start with the ال (al-) prefix. The prefix indicates a definite article, like "the" in English. Reading this prefix is complicated. The pronunciation of the alif (ا) is determined by ending vowel of the word before and the pronunciation of the lam (ل) is determined by the first letter after the ل. The alif is just read as the last vowel of the word before. The lam is sometimes read as "l", but sometimes it is read as the first letter of the word. When it is read as the first letter of the word, there is a shadda diacritic sign on the first letter of the word, indicating that the letter is to be pronounced with double length. The Arabic alphabet is divided into sun and moon letters. The sun letters "eat" the lam, the moon letters don't. When a word stars with a moon letter, the ل in ال is read as a regular "l". | |||
* Sun letters ("eat" the "l" in pronunciation): ت ث د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ل ن | |||
* Moon letters (keep the "l" in pronunciation): ا ب ج ح خ ع غ ف ق ك م ه و ي | |||
So A'''l'''-Quran is read as A'''l'''-Quran (القران), but A'''l'''-Rahman (الرحمان) is read as Ar-'''R'''ahman, because ر is a sun letter. | |||
When the word is alone, the alif in al- prefix is read as a simple "a". | |||