Writing system for Arabic and several other languages
The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script),[2] the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it, and the third-most by number of users (after the Latin and Chinese scripts).[3]
The script is written from right to left in a cursive style, in which most of the letters are written in slightly different forms according to whether they stand alone or are joined to a following or preceding letter. The script does not have capital letters.[7] In most cases, the letters transcribe consonants, or consonants and a few vowels, so most Arabic alphabets are abjads, with the versions used for some languages, such as Kurdish dialect of Sorani, Uyghur, Mandarin, and Bosniak, being alphabets. It is the basis for the tradition of Arabic calligraphy.
History
The Arabic alphabet is derived either from the Nabataean alphabet[8][9] or (less widely believed) directly from the Syriac alphabet,[10] which are both derived from the Aramaic alphabet (which also gave rise to the Hebrew alphabet), which, in turn, descended from the Phoenician alphabet. In addition to the Aramaic script (and, therefore, the Arabic and Hebrew scripts), the Phoenician script also gave rise to the Greek alphabet (and, therefore, both the Cyrillic alphabet and the Latin alphabet used in America and most European countries.).
Origins
In the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, northern Arab tribes emigrated and founded a kingdom centred around Petra, Jordan. These people (now named Nabataeans from the name of one of the tribes, Nabatu) spoke Nabataean Arabic, a dialect of the Arabic language. In the 2nd or 1st centuries BCE,[11][12] the first known records of the Nabataean alphabet were written in the Aramaic language (which was the language of communication and trade), but included some Arabic language features: the Nabataeans did not write the language which they spoke. They wrote in a form of the Aramaic alphabet, which continued to evolve; it separated into two forms: one intended for inscriptions (known as "monumental Nabataean") and the other, more cursive and hurriedly written and with joined letters, for writing on papyrus.[13] This cursive form influenced the monumental form more and more and gradually changed into the Arabic alphabet.
Overview
The Arabic script has been adapted for use in a wide variety of languages aside from Arabic, including Persian, Malay and Urdu, which are not Semitic. Such adaptations may feature altered or new characters to represent phonemes that do not appear in Arabic phonology. For example, the Arabic language lacks a voiceless bilabial plosive (the [p] sound), therefore many languages add their own letter to represent [p] in the script, though the specific letter used varies from language to language. These modifications tend to fall into groups: Indian and Turkic languages written in the Arabic script tend to use the Persian modified letters, whereas the languages of Indonesia tend to imitate those of Jawi. The modified version of the Arabic script originally devised for use with Persian is known as the Perso-Arabic script by scholars.[citation needed]
When the Arabic script is used to write Serbo-Croatian, Sorani, Kashmiri, Mandarin Chinese, or Uyghur, vowels are mandatory. The Arabic script can, therefore, be used as a true alphabet as well as an abjad, although it is often strongly, if erroneously, connected to the latter due to it being originally used only for Arabic.[citation needed]
Use of the Arabic script in West African languages, especially in the Sahel, developed with the spread of Islam. To a certain degree the style and usage tends to follow those of the Maghreb (for instance the position of the dots in the letters fāʼ and qāf).[14][15] Additional diacritics have come into use to facilitate the writing of sounds not represented in the Arabic language. The term ʻAjamī, which comes from the Arabic root for "foreign", has been applied to Arabic-based orthographies of African languages.[citation needed]
Garshuni (or Karshuni) originated in the 7th century, when Arabic became the dominant spoken language in the Fertile Crescent, but Arabic script was not yet fully developed or widely read, and so the Syriac alphabet was used. There is evidence that writing Arabic in this other set of letters (known as Garshuni) influenced the style of modern Arabic script. After this initial period, Garshuni writing has continued to the present day among some Syriac Christian communities in the Arabic-speaking regions of the Levant and Mesopotamia.
Dogri, spoken by about five million people in India and Pakistan, chiefly in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir and in Himachal Pradesh, but also in northern Punjab, although Dogri is more commonly written in Devanagari
Arwi language (a mixture of Arabic and Tamil) uses the Arabic script together with the addition of 13 letters. It is mainly used in Sri Lanka and the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu for religious purposes. Arwi language is the language of Tamil Muslims
Arabi Malayalam is Malayalam written in the Arabic script. The script has particular letters to represent the peculiar sounds of Malayalam. This script is mainly used in madrasas of the South Indian state of Kerala and of Lakshadweep.
Malay in the Arabic script known as Jawi. In some cases it can be seen in the signboards of shops and market stalls. Particularly in Brunei, Jawi is used in terms of writing or reading for Islamic religious educational programs in primary school, secondary school, college, or even higher educational institutes such as universities. In addition, some television programming uses Jawi, such as announcements, advertisements, news, social programs or Islamic programs
Dongolawi language or Andaandi language of Nubia, in the Nile Vale of northern Sudan
Nobiin language, the largest Nubian language (previously known by the geographic terms Mahas and Fadicca/Fiadicca) is not yet standardized, being written variously in both Latinized and Arabic scripts; also, there have been recent efforts to revive the Old Nubian alphabet.[27][28]
Swahili, was originally written in Arabic alphabet, Swahili orthography is now based on the Latin alphabet that was introduced by Christian missionaries and colonial administrators
Zarma language of the Songhay family. It is the language of the southwestern lobe of the West African nation of Niger, and it is the second leading language of Niger, after Hausa, which is spoken in south central Niger[29]
Tadaksahak is a Songhay language spoken by the pastoralist Idaksahak of the Ménaka area of Mali[30]
Hausa language uses an adaptation of the Arabic script known as Ajami, for many purposes, especially religious, but including newspapers, mass mobilization posters and public information[31]
Yoruba, earliest attested history of use since 17th century, however earliest verifiable history of use dates to the 19th century. Yoruba Ajami used in Muslim praise verse, poetry, personal and esoteric use[34]
Arabic script outside Africa
In writings of African American slaves
Writings of by Omar Ibn Said (1770–1864) of Senegal[35]
The Bilali Document also known as Bilali Muhammad Document is a handwritten, Arabic manuscript[36] on West African Islamic law. It was written by Bilali Mohammet in the 19th century. The document is currently housed in the library at the University of Georgia
With the establishment of Muslim rule in the subcontinent, one or more forms of the Arabic script were incorporated among the assortment of scripts used for writing native languages.[38] In the 20th century, the Arabic script was generally replaced by the Latin alphabet in the Balkans,[dubious – discuss] parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia, while in the Soviet Union, after a brief period of Latinisation,[39] use of Cyrillic was mandated. Turkey changed to the Latin alphabet in 1928 as part of an internal Westernizing revolution. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many of the Turkic languages of the ex-USSR attempted to follow Turkey's lead and convert to a Turkish-style Latin alphabet. However, renewed use of the Arabic alphabet has occurred to a limited extent in Tajikistan, whose language's close resemblance to Persian allows direct use of publications from Afghanistan and Iran.[40]
For the West African languages—Hausa, Fula, Mandinka, Wolof and others—the Latin alphabet has officially replaced Arabic transcriptions for use in literacy and education
Bosnian (only for literary purposes; currently written in the Latin alphabet; Text example: مۉلٖىمۉ سه تهبٖى بۉژه = Molimo se tebi, Bože (We pray to you, O God); see Arebica)
Adyghe language also known as West Circassian, is an official languages of the Republic of Adygea in the Russian Federation. It used Arabic alphabet before 1927
^From right: start, middle, end, and isolated forms.
^Joined to the letter, closest to the letter, on the first letter, or above.
^Further away from the letter, or on the second letter, or below.
^A variant that end up with loop also exists.
^Although the letter also known as Waw with Damma, some publications and fonts features filled Damma that looks similar to comma.
^Shown in Naskh (top) and Nastaliq (bottom) styles. The Nastaliq version of the connected forms are connected to each other, because the tatweel character U+0640 used to show the other forms does not work in many Nastaliq fonts.
Letter construction
Most languages that use alphabets based on the Arabic alphabet use the same base shapes. Most additional letters in languages that use alphabets based on the Arabic alphabet are built by adding (or removing) diacritics to existing Arabic letters. Some stylistic variants in Arabic have distinct meanings in other languages. For example, variant forms of kāf ك ک ڪ are used in some languages and sometimes have specific usages. In Urdu and some neighbouring languages, the letter Hā has diverged into two forms ھ dō-čašmī hē and ہ ہـ ـہـ ـہ gōl hē,[45] while a variant form of ي yā referred to as baṛī yē ے is used at the end of some words.[45]
^ There are broadly two standards for Pashto orthography, the Afghan orthography in Afghanistan and the Peshawar orthography in Pakistan where /g/ is represented by ګ instead of the Afghani گ.
^"Arabic Alphabet". Encyclopædia Britannica online. Archived from the original on 26 April 2015. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
^Vaughan, Don. "The World's 5 Most Commonly Used Writing Systems". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 29 July 2023. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
^Cham romanization table background. Library of Congress
^Mahinnaz Mirdehghan. 2010. Persian, Urdu, and Pashto: A comparative orthographic analysis. Writing Systems Research Vol. 2, No. 1, 9–23.
^"Exposición Virtual. Biblioteca Nacional de España". Bne.es. Archived from the original on 18 February 2012. Retrieved 6 April 2012.
^Ahmad, Syed Barakat. (11 January 2013). Introduction to Qur'anic script. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-11138-9. OCLC 1124340016.
^Gruendler, Beatrice (1993). The Development of the Arabic Scripts: From the Nabatean Era to the First Islamic Century According to Dated Texts. Scholars Press. p. 1. ISBN 9781555407100.
^Healey, John F.; Smith, G. Rex (13 February 2012). "II - The Origin of the Arabic Alphabet". A Brief Introduction to The Arabic Alphabet. Saqi. ISBN 9780863568817.
^Senner, Wayne M. (1991). The Origins of Writing. U of Nebraska Press. p. 100. ISBN 0803291671.
^"Nabataean abjad". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
^Naveh, Joseph. "Nabatean Language, Script and Inscriptions" (PDF).
^Taylor, Jane (2001). Petra and the Lost Kingdom of the Nabataeans. I.B.Tauris. p. 152. ISBN 9781860645082.
^"Zribi, I., Boujelbane, R., Masmoudi, A., Ellouze, M., Belguith, L., & Habash, N. (2014). A Conventional Orthography for Tunisian Arabic. In Proceedings of the Language Resources and Evaluation Conference (LREC), Reykjavík, Iceland".
^Brustad, K. (2000). The syntax of spoken Arabic: A comparative study of Moroccan, Egyptian, Syrian, and Kuwaiti dialects. Georgetown University Press.
^"Sayad Zahoor Shah Hashmii". baask.com.
^Sarlak, Riz̤ā (2002). "Dictionary of the Bakhtiari dialect of Chahar-lang". google.com.eg.
^Iran, Mojdeh (5 February 2011). "Bakhtiari Language Video (bak) بختياري ها! خبری مهم" – via Vimeo.
^"Ethnologue". Retrieved 1 February 2020.
^"Pakistan should mind all of its languages!". tribune.com.pk. June 2011.
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^"The Bible in Brahui". Worldscriptures.org. Archived from the original on 30 October 2016. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
^"Rohingya Language Book A-Z". Scribd.
^"Ida'an". scriptsource.org.
^"The Coptic Studies' Corner". stshenouda.com. Archived from the original on 19 April 2012. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
^"--The Cradle of Nubian Civilisation--". thenubian.net. Archived from the original on 24 April 2012. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
^"2 » AlNuba egypt". 19 July 2012. Archived from the original on 19 July 2012.
^"Zarma". scriptsource.org.
^"Tadaksahak". scriptsource.org.
^"Lost Language — Bostonia Summer 2009". bu.edu.
^"Dyula". scriptsource.org.
^"Jola-Fonyi". scriptsource.org.
^"African Arabic-Script Languages Title: From the 'Sacred' to the 'Profane': the Yoruba Ajami Script and the Challenges of a Standard Orthography". ResearchGate. October 2021.
^"Ibn Sayyid manuscript". Archived from the original on 8 September 2015. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
^"Muhammad Arabic letter". Archived from the original on 8 September 2015. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
^"Charno Letter". Muslims In America. Archived from the original on 20 May 2013. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
^Asani, Ali S. (2002). Ecstasy and enlightenment : the Ismaili devotional literature of South Asia. Institute of Ismaili Studies. London: I.B. Tauris. p. 124. ISBN 1-86064-758-8. OCLC 48193876.
^Alphabet Transitions – The Latin Script: A New Chronology – Symbol of a New Azerbaijan Archived 2007-04-03 at the Wayback Machine, by Tamam Bayatly
^Sukhail Siddikzoda. "Tajik Language: Farsi or Not Farsi?" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 June 2006.
^"Brief history of writing in Chechen". Archived from the original on 23 December 2008.
^p. 20, Samuel Noel Kramer. 1986. In the World of Sumer: An Autobiography. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
^J. Blau. 2000. Hebrew written in Arabic characters: An instance of radical change in tradition. (In Hebrew, with English summary). In Heritage and Innovation in Judaeo-Arabic Culture: Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the Society For Judaeo-Arabic Studies, p. 27-31. Ramat Gan.
^Lorna Priest Evans; M. G. Abbas Malik. "Proposal to encode ARABIC LETTER LAM WITH SMALL ARABIC LETTER TAH ABOVE in the UCS" (PDF). www.unicode.org. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
^ a b"Urdu Alphabet". www.user.uni-hannover.de. Archived from the original on 11 September 2019. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Arabic script.
Unicode collation charts—including Arabic letters, sorted by shape
"Why the right side of your brain doesn't like Arabic"
Arabic fonts by SIL's Non-Roman Script Initiative
Alexis Neme and Sébastien Paumier (2019), "Restoring Arabic vowels through omission-tolerant dictionary lookup", Lang Resources & Evaluation, Vol. 53, pp. 1–65. arXiv:1905.04051; doi:10.1007/s10579-019-09464-6
"Preliminary proposal to encode Arabic Crown Letters" (PDF). Unicode.
"Proposal to encode Arabic Crown Letters" (PDF). Unicode.