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 Letters==

The basic 28 letters:

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.  

Although there are letters which represent vowels, they are used only to represent long vowels. The short vowels in words are either indicated by (optional) diacritics, or just not indicated at all and the reader just has to know how to pronounce it. There are two "levels" of diacritics. The first is I‘jām (إِعْجَام), small dots which are considered to be a part of the letter. They were not present in the earliest Qur'anic manuscripts. They are absolutely important as they determine the consonant. For example:

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.

====P like in Euro'''p'''e====

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

====V like in '''v'''ideo====

====G like in '''G'''abriel====

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

====CH like in '''Ch'''arles====

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 (the same) letters written together. 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 (not connected). The Arabic letter د doesn't "want to" connect. The Arabic pronunciation of the name of the letter is in the brackets.

===ِArabic letters ambiguously compatible with the English alphabet===

These letters (t, d, s) have two versions. The difference is like "je vais" and "je veux" in French. The best way to learn the difference would be to watch some videos on the Arabic alphabet and hear the difference.

There is also another kind of "t", that is pronounced as ت. It occurs usually at the end of a word and words ending on this letter are usually feminine. Thiw "t" is not read when reading the word alone, but it is read when the word is in a context of Arabic text. For example the word prayer, صلاة, can be read as either "salat" or "salah". When the "t" is not read, it is usually transliterated as "h".

Then there are these two similar letters (k, q).

Then there are these two letters, both transliterated as "h". Sometimes ح is transliterated as "h" with a dot below it.

And a special letter:

===ِArabic letters not compatible with the English alphabet===

Probably the ugliest sound of all letters:

These two are a pair similar to د/ض and others, but the basic doesn't have a proper equivalent in the English alphabet:

These two are very unique and definitely has to be heard to learn them:

And a glottal stop:

===ِArabic letters mixed together===

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

There are also many forms where, for example, ل "goes down into" the letter م, but these are not used as often in a regular text.

==The Arabic Diacritics==

===The basic diacritics===

ِAlif with a fatha is simply read as "aa", with a kasrah as "ii" (ee), with a dammah as "uu" (ww, oo).

The last vowel of the last word of a speech is not pronounced. So when you read one Qur'anic verse in Arabic, you don't pronounce the last vowel mark.

===Special alif diacritics===

===Nunation===

Nunation (تنوين‎‎, ''tanween'') is adding the sound of the letter ن (nun) to the end of a word (using diacritics). It is used on ء (hamza), ة (ta marbuta) and ا (alif). If the word ends on other letter, ا (alif) is added. Besides adding the "n", these diacritics add a vowel, similarly to fathah, kasrah and dammah. These word endings also determine whether the word is in the nominative, genitive or accusative case. This list uses the letter ا (alif):

===َQur'an stop signs===

==The Arabic Numerals==

To make the list complete, this is the list of Arabic numerals:

Bigger numbers are written in the same order (from left to right) as in English. So 390 would be written as ٣٩٠.

===How to "extract" letters from an Arabic word===

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:

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

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".

So A'''l'''-Quran (القران) is read as A'''l'''-Quran, but A'''l'''-Rahman (الرحمان) is read as A'''r'''-Rahman, because ر is a sun letter.  

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 on WikiIslam, with the original Arabic words. 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. Or write directly on Arabic keyboard on a touch screen. You add diacritics after writing the letter.

===How to read the Qur'an===

==Conclusions==

==See also==

==References==