Arabic letters and diacritics: Difference between revisions

[unchecked revision][unchecked revision]
Line 183: Line 183:


==The Arabic Diacritics==
==The Arabic Diacritics==
The diacritics will be demonstrated with the letter د (d). The diacritics add additional "letters" (sounds in pronunciation) after the letter.
===The basic diacritics===
* دَ - fathah (فَتْحَة)
** Fathah (a line above the letter) means a short vowel "a" after the letter. So دَ is "da", بَ is "ba" and so on.
* دِ - kasrah (كَسْرَة)
** Kasrah (a line below the letter) means a short vowel "i" (ee) after the letter.
* دُ - dammah (ضَمَّة) <-- don't confuse the name with "maddah" and don't confuse the diacritic sign with "alif waslah" (ٱ)
** Dammah (و above the letter) means a short vowel "w" (eu) after the letter.
* دْ Sukun (سُكُون)
** Sukun (a circle above the letter) indicates that there is no vowel after the letter.
* دّ - shaddah (شَدَّة)
** Shaddah (looks like 3 written horizontally, or like w) doubles the time of pronunciation of the letter.
ِAlif with a fatha is simply read as "aa", with a kasrah as "ii" (ee), with a dammah as "uu" (ww, oo).
===Special alif diacritics===
* دٰ - dagger alif (أَلِف خَنْجَرِيَّة, ''alif khanjarīyah'')
** Dagger alif (vertical line above a letter) means a long vowel "aa" after the letter.
** It is used a lot in the Qu'ran in the Uthmani script, but in the modern Imla'ei script, the words are often written with regular alif placed after the letter instead.
** This diacritic is missing on Arabic keyboard layout. The Unicode number is U+0670.
* آ - alif maddah (أَلِف مَدَّة) <-- don't confuse with "dammah"
** maddah (a tilde above the letter) indicates a glottal stop before the alif (alif is long "aa"). Fot example the word Qur'an: قُرْآن. You have to do a "glottal stop" (close the throat) between "qur" and "aan". In the Uthmani script there was a letter hamza before the alif: القرءان. The hamza represented the glottal stop before alif.
* ٱ - alif waslah (أَلِف وَصْلَة) <-- don't confuse the sign with the dammah (اُ)
** Waslah (similar to a the first part of the letter ص) above alif means that the alif is not pronounced, when it is preceded by a vowel (from the previous word). However if the alif waslah is at the beginning of the speech, it is read as a regular alif.
** The ال (al-) prefix has an alif waslah. So the alif is usually not pronounced and you will hear only the ل (l). Or you won't hear the "l" either, if the first letter of the word is a ''sun letter''.
===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):
* اٌ "un" <-- don't confuse with the sign dammah (اُ) or waslah (ٱ)
** The letter و with a break on the left side, above a letter, besides the "un" sound, symbolizes the nominative case of the word.
* اٍ "in"
** Two kasras below the last letter mean that the word is in the genitive case.
* اً "an"
** Two fathas above the last letter mean that the word is in the accusative case.
Editors, em-bypass-2
4,744

edits