Arabic letters and diacritics: Difference between revisions

The original Qur'an and many other Islamic sources (some of them not translated yet) are in the Arabic language. Also when discussing Islam in English, there are many Arabic words used, like salah, Allah, masjid, Muhammad and others. Many Arabic words cannot be properly transliterated into English, due to the incompatibility of the alphabets.

The Arabic "alphabet" is not compatible with the English alphabet. There are letters in English, which cannot be transliterated using the Arabic alphabet and vice versa.  

Then there is the next "level" of diacritics, the harakat (حَرَكَات), which is optional and often not present in the Arabic text. The Arabic word "harakat" حَرَكَات without the harakat, would look like this: حركات. The three little lines above the letter determine the three "a" in h'''a'''r'''a'''k'''a'''t.

There are English letters, which cannot be transliterated using the Arabic abjad. There are many words which could be used as examples. The examples used are the cases where the words are similar in Arabic and English.

Arabic abjad cannot express the word "America", since it doesn't have a letter corresponding to the "e" sound. So Arabs drop the "e" between "m" and "r" (and prolong the "i") and pronounce this word as "Amreeka" (أمريكا).

The letter o has no equivalent in the Arabic abjad. Arabs have to say "Awr'''u'''ba" (أوروبا).

There is no letter P in the Arabic abjad. Arabs have to say "Awru'''b'''a" (أوروبا).  

* The word '''P'''akistan is Bakistan (باكستان) in Arabic.

* The word Egy'''p'''t is actually Misr (مصر) in Arabic.

The English letter "v" has no equivalent in Arabic and it often replaced by the letter "f". So the word "'''v'''ideo" is "'''f'''idyu" (فيديو) in Arabic.

There is no letter g (like in '''g'''arden) in Arabic. So '''G'''abriel is '''J'''ibreel (جبريل).  

* The Arabic letter ج (''jim'') is read as "g" in the Egyptian Arabic.

The "ch" letter is also missing in Arabic. But this sound can be emulated using a combination of the letters t (ت) and sh (ش). This sound is also described with two letters in English, but there is still a little difference between "ch" and "tsh", because "ch" really sounds like one letter.

The form of the letter is different when the letter is written alone, when it is at the beginning, middle or the end of a word, so besides the letter alone, this article also provides a sequence of 3 letters. Which is still not enough, since some letters connect to the others and some don't. So when the letter doesn't "like to" connect to the next letter, you won't see a connected form. For example letters lam-dal (ل د) together, would be written this way لد, but letters dal-dal (د د) would be written this way دد. The Arabic letter د doesn't "want to" connect.

** ييي

There are Arabic pairs of letters which are pronounced a little differently, but they are transliterated into English as the same letter. For example the words سلام (''salaam'', peace) and صلاة (''salah'', prayer) start on a different kind of "s".

** Something like alif.

Probably the ugliest sound of all letters:

* خ - '''kh'''aa

** The word Qur'an has a hamza after the "r", which is indicated by the ' sign. So you shouldn't exhale during the whole pronunciation of the word, but (quickly) close your throat after "r" and then (after a little moment of silence) continue with "aan". The hamza is indicated by diacritics in modern Arabic script (القرآن‎‎, al-qur'an), but in the Uthmani script, it was a letter (القرءان, al-qur'an).

When the letters lam (ل) and alif (ا) are one after the other, they are written in a special way:

* لا

There are also many forms where, for example "lam" is connected with the letter "mim", but these are not used as often.

The Arabic letters are written differently in the beginning, middle and end of the word and also when they are written alone. Some of the letters have are connected and some of them are not connected with the others. The easiest way to determine the letters is to copy that word in to a text editor and insert spaces between the letters. That way, you will see their basic form. Some letters look very similar in some cases. Like the letter ف and غ, when they are in a middle of a word. Look at the middle letter:

* ففف (f-f-f)

Of course the correct way to determine the letters is to learn all the forms of the letters.

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.

When the word is alone, the alif in al- prefix is read as a simple "a".

If you know only the English transliteration, you will have to search for the original Arabic word. There is a [[Glossary of Islamic Terms|list]] of Islamic terms, with the original Arabic words on WikiIslam. When you know from which letters this word is derived, you can write the letters. You will probably have to use a virtual keyboard on the screen. On modern operating systems you can easily switch between different keyboard layouts. After some while, you can memorize the positions of the Arabic letter on the English keyboard and you can write "blindly" over the English letters on your keys.

* The Arabic alphabet is not perfect. It cannot express some basic sounds, which can be pronounced. So considering the Arabic language to be the best or universal is not accurate, since it is limited from the beginning by its limited alphabet (abjad).

* English alphabet can pronounce some sounds, which the Arabic one can't and vice versa.

* Although the Arabic alphabet doesn't have a simple letter like "p", it has two different letters for a letter like "t". The two "t" are a little different in pronunciation, but having two letters for this might be considered redundant. Not to mention the ta marbuta.