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Arabic letters and diacritics: Difference between revisions
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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. | 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. | ||
The word "alphabet" is derived from the words "'''a'''lpha" and "'''b'''eta", but Arabic doesn't have a letter like "a" (it has a letter "alif", which is however more complicated). Also many words consist of only | The word "alphabet" is derived from the words "'''a'''lpha" and "'''b'''eta", but Arabic doesn't have a letter like "a" (it has a letter "alif", which is however more complicated). Also many Arabic words consist of only consonant letters and the vowels are added by diacritics. So "alphabet" might not be the best way to describe the Arabic letters and abjad is used instead (الأَبْجَدِيَّة العَرَبِيَّة, ''al-abjadīyah al-ʻarabīyah'', the Arabic abjad). | ||
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: | 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: | ||