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It is thought that the Arabic alphabet is a derivative of the
Nabataean The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; Arabic: , , singular , ; compare grc, Ναβαταῖος, translit=Nabataîos; la, Nabataeus) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Lev ...
variation of the
Aramaic alphabet The ancient Aramaic alphabet was adapted by Arameans from the Phoenician alphabet and became a distinct script by the 8th century BC. It was used to write the Aramaic languages spoken by ancient Aramean pre-Christian tribes throughout the Fertil ...
, which descended from the
Phoenician alphabet The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization. The Phoenician alpha ...
, which among others also gave rise to the
Hebrew alphabet The Hebrew alphabet ( he, wikt:אלפבית, אָלֶף־בֵּית עִבְרִי, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew languag ...
and the
Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as we ...
, the latter one being in turn the base for the
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and
Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...
s.


Origins

The Arabic alphabet evolved either from the Nabataean, or (less widely believed) directly from the
Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
. The table below shows changes undergone by the shapes of the letters from the Aramaic original to the Nabataean and Syriac forms. The Arabic script shown is that of post-Classical and Modern Arabic—notably different from 6th century Arabic script. (Arabic is placed in the middle for clarity and not to mark a time order of evolution.) It seems that the Nabataean alphabet became the Arabic alphabet thus: *In the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, northern Arab tribes emigrated and founded a kingdom centred around
Petra Petra ( ar, ٱلْبَتْرَاء, Al-Batrāʾ; grc, Πέτρα, "Rock", Nabataean Aramaic, Nabataean: ), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu or Raqēmō, is an historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. It is adjacent to t ...
,
Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
. These people (now named
Nabataeans The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; Arabic language, Arabic: , , singular , ; compare grc, Ναβαταῖος, translit=Nabataîos; la, Nabataeus) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabian Pe ...
from the name of one of the tribes, Nabatu) spoke
Nabataean Arabic Nabataean Arabic was the dialect of Arabic spoken by the Nabataeans in antiquity. In the 1st century AD, the Nabataeans wrote their inscriptions, such as the legal texts carved on the façades of the monumental tombs at Mada'in Salih, ancient ...
, a
Northwest Semitic Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic language, Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite ...
language. *In the 2nd or 1st centuries BCE, 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
inscription Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...
s (known as "monumental Nabataean") and the other, more cursive and hurriedly written and with joined letters, for writing on
papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
. This cursive form influenced the monumental form more and more and gradually changed into the Arabic alphabet. *
Laïla Nehmé Laïla Nehmé (born 1966) is a Lebanese-French archaeologist. A specialist in the archaeology and epigraphy of the Ancient Near East, she is known for her research on Nabatean writings, the evolution of the Nabatean script into the Arabic, and arc ...
has demonstrated the transition of scripts from the Nabataean Aramaic to the recognisably Arabic form that appears to have occurred between the third and fifth centuries CE, replacing the indigenous Arabic alphabet.


Pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions

The first recorded text in the Arabic alphabet was written in 512. It is a trilingual dedication in
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
,
Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
and
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
found at Zabad in
Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
. The version of the Arabic alphabet used includes only 21 letters, of which only 15 are different, being used to note 28
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s: Many thousands of pre-Classical Arabic inscriptions are attested, in alphabets borrowed from Epigraphic South Arabian alphabets (however, Safaitic and Hismaic are not strictly Arabic, but
Ancient North Arabian Ancient North Arabian (ANA)http://e-learning.tsu.ge/pluginfile.php/5868/mod_resource/content/0/dzveli_armosavluri_enebi_-ugarituli_punikuri_arameuli_ebrauli_arabuli.pdf is a collection of scripts and possibly a language or family of languages (or ...
dialects, and written Nabataean is an Aramaic dialect): *
Safaitic Safaitic ( ''Al-Ṣafāʾiyyah'') is a variety of the South Semitic scripts used by the nomads of the basalt desert of southern Syria and northern Jordan, the so-called Ḥarrah, to carve rock inscriptions in various dialects of Old Arabic and A ...
(over 13,000; almost all graffiti), 11-14 *
Hismaic Hismaic is a variety of the Ancient North Arabian script and the language most commonly expressed in it. The Hismaic script may have been used to write Safaitic dialects of Old Arabic, but the language of most inscriptions differs from Safaitic i ...
in the southern parts of central Arabia *Preclassical Arabic inscriptions dating to the 1st century BC from Qaryat Al-Faw *
Nabataean The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; Arabic: , , singular , ; compare grc, Ναβαταῖος, translit=Nabataîos; la, Nabataeus) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Lev ...
inscriptions in
Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
, written in the
Nabataean alphabet The Nabataean script is an abjad (consonantal alphabet) that was used to write Nabataean Aramaic and Nabataean Arabic from the second century BC onwards.Arabic alphabet are very few, with only 5 known for certain. They mostly use no dots, making them sometimes difficult to interpret, as many letters are the same shape as other letters (they are written with
rasm ''Rasm'' ( ar, رَسْم) is an Arabic writing script often used in the early centuries of Classical Arabic literature (7th century – early 11th century AD). Essentially it is the same as today's Arabic script except for the big difference ...
only) Below are descriptions of inscriptions found in the Arabic alphabet, and the inscriptions found in the Nabataean alphabet that show the beginnings of Arabic-like features. Cursive Nabataean writing changed into Arabic writing, likeliest between the dates of the an-Namāra inscription and the Jabal Ramm inscription. Most writing would have been on perishable materials, such as papyrus. As it was cursive, it was liable to change. The epigraphic record is extremely sparse, with only five certainly
pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions It is thought that the Arabic alphabet is a derivative of the Nabataean alphabet, Nabataean variation of the Aramaic alphabet, which descended from the Phoenician alphabet, which among others also gave rise to the Hebrew alphabet and the Greek a ...
surviving, though some others may be pre-Islamic.


Phonemes / letters inventory

The Nabataean alphabet was designed to write 22
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s, but Arabic has 28 consonant phonemes; thus, when used to write the Arabic language, 6 of its letters must each represent two phonemes: *''d'' also represented ''ð'', *''ħ'' also represented ''kh'' %, *''ṭ'' also represented ''ẓ'', *''ayin'' also represented ''gh'' %, *''ṣ'' also represented ''ḍ'' %, *''t'' also represented ''þ''. In the cases marked %, the choice was influenced by
etymology Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...
, as common Semitic ''kh'' and ''gh'' became Hebrew ''ħ'' and ''
ayin ''Ayin'' (also ''ayn'' or ''ain''; transliterated ) is the sixteenth letter of the Semitic scripts, including Phoenician , Hebrew , Aramaic , Syriac ܥ, and Arabic (where it is sixteenth in abjadi order only). The letter represents a ...
'' respectively. As cursive Nabataean writing evolved into Arabic writing, the writing became largely joined-up. Some of the letters became the same shape as other letters, producing more ambiguities, as in the table: Here the Arabic letters are listed in the traditional Levantine order but are written in their current forms, for simplicity. The letters which are the same shape have coloured backgrounds. The second value of the letters that represent more than one
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
is after a comma. In these tables, ''ǧ'' is ''j'' as in English "June". In the Arabic language, the ''g'' sound seems to have changed into ''j'' in fairly late pre-Islamic times, but this seems not to have happened in those tribes who invaded
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
and settled there. When a letter was at the end of a word, it often developed an end loop, and as a result most Arabic letters have two or more shapes. *''b'' and ''n'' and ''t'' became the same. *''y'' became the same as ''b'' and ''n'' and ''t'' except at the ends of words. *''j'' and ''ħ'' became the same. *''z'' and ''r'' became the same. *''s'' and ''sh'' became the same. After all this, there were only 17 letters that were different in shape. One letter-shape represented 5 phonemes (''b t th n'' and sometimes ''y''), one represented 3 phonemes (''j ħ kh''), and 5 each represented 2 phonemes. Compare the Hebrew alphabet, as in the table: .


Early Islamic changes

The Arabic alphabet is first attested in its classical form in the 7th century. See
PERF 558 PERF 558 is the oldest surviving Arabic papyrus, found in Heracleopolis in Egypt, and is also the oldest dated Arabic text using the Islamic era, dating to 643. It is a bilingual Arabic-Greek fragment, consisting of a tax receipt,Kaplony, Andreas ...
for the first surviving Islamic Arabic writing. The Quran was transcribed in
Kufic Kufic script () is a style of Arabic script that gained prominence early on as a preferred script for Quran transcription and architectural decoration, and it has since become a reference and an archetype for a number of other Arabic scripts. It ...
script at first, which was then developed along with the
Meccan Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valle ...
and scripts, according to
Ibn an-Nadim Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Nadīm ( ar, ابو الفرج محمد بن إسحاق النديم), also ibn Abī Ya'qūb Isḥāq ibn Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Warrāq, and commonly known by the ''nasab'' (patronymic) Ibn al-Nadīm ...
in ''
Al-Fihrist The ''Kitāb al-Fihrist'' ( ar, كتاب الفهرست) (''The Book Catalogue'') is a compendium of the knowledge and literature of tenth-century Islam compiled by Ibn Al-Nadim (c.998). It references approx. 10,000 books and 2,000 authors.''The ...
''. In the 7th century, probably in the early years of
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
while writing down the
Qur'an The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing. ...
, scribes realized that working out which of the ambiguous letters a particular letter was from context was laborious and not always possible, so a proper remedy was required. Writings in the Nabataean and Syriac alphabets already had sporadic examples of dots being used to distinguish letters which had become identical, for example as in the table on the right. By analogy with this, a system of dots was added to the Arabic alphabet to make enough different letters for
Classical Arabic Classical Arabic ( ar, links=no, ٱلْعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ, al-ʿarabīyah al-fuṣḥā) or Quranic Arabic is the standardized literary form of Arabic used from the 7th century and throughout the Middle Ages, most notab ...
's 28 phonemes. Sometimes the resulting new letters were put in alphabetical order after their un-dotted originals, and sometimes at the end. The first surviving document that definitely uses these dots is also the first surviving Arabic
papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
(
PERF 558 PERF 558 is the oldest surviving Arabic papyrus, found in Heracleopolis in Egypt, and is also the oldest dated Arabic text using the Islamic era, dating to 643. It is a bilingual Arabic-Greek fragment, consisting of a tax receipt,Kaplony, Andreas ...
), dated April, 643. The dots did not become obligatory until much later. Important texts like the
Qur'an The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing. ...
were frequently memorized; this practice, which survives even today, probably arose partly to avoid the great ambiguity of the script, and partly due to the scarcity of books in times when
printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ea ...
was unheard-of in the area and every copy of every book had to be written by hand. The alphabet then had 28 letters, and so could be used to write the numbers 1 to 10, then 20 to 100, then 200 to 900, then 1000 (see
Abjad numerals The Abjad numerals, also called Hisab al-Jummal ( ar, حِسَاب ٱلْجُمَّل, ), are a decimal alphabetic numeral system/alphanumeric code, in which the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet are assigned numerical values. They have been us ...
). In this numerical order, the new letters were put at the end of the alphabet. This produced this order: alif (1), b (2), j (3), d (4), h (5), w (6), z (7), H (8), T (9), y (10), k (20), l (30), m (40), n (50), s (60), ayn (70), f (80), S (90), q (100), r (200), sh (300), t (400), th (500), dh (600), kh (700), D (800), Z (900), gh (1000). The lack of vowel signs in Arabic writing created more ambiguities: for example, in
Classical Arabic Classical Arabic ( ar, links=no, ٱلْعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ, al-ʿarabīyah al-fuṣḥā) or Quranic Arabic is the standardized literary form of Arabic used from the 7th century and throughout the Middle Ages, most notab ...
''ktb'' could be ''kataba'' = "he wrote", ''kutiba'' = "it was written" or ''kutub''="books". Later, vowel signs and
hamza Hamza ( ar, همزة ') () is a letter in the Arabic alphabet, representing the glottal stop . Hamza is not one of the 28 "full" letters and owes its existence to historical inconsistencies in the standard writing system. It is derived from ...
s were added, beginning some time in the last half of the 6th century, at about the same time as the first invention of Syriac and Hebrew vocalization. Initially, this was done using a system of red dots, said to have been commissioned by
Hajjaj ibn Yusuf Abu Muhammad al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ibn al-Hakam ibn Abi Aqil al-Thaqafi ( ar, أبو محمد الحجاج بن يوسف بن الحكم بن أبي عقيل الثقفي, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf ibn al-Ḥakam ibn Abī ʿAqīl al-T ...
, the
Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...
governor of
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
, according to traditional accounts: a dot above = ''a'', a dot below = ''i'', a dot on the line = ''u'', and doubled dots giving ''
tanwin Nunation ( ar, تَنوِين, ' ), in some Semitic languages such as Literary Arabic, is the addition of one of three vowel diacritics (''ḥarakāt'') to a noun or adjective. This is used to indicate the word ends in an alveolar nasal without ...
''. However, this was cumbersome and easily confusable with the letter-distinguishing dots, so about 100 years later, the modern system was adopted. The system was finalized around 786 by al-Farahidi. All administrative texts were previously recorded by
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
scribes in
Middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle Per ...
using
Pahlavi script Pahlavi is a particular, exclusively written form of various Middle Iranian languages. The essential characteristics of Pahlavi are: *the use of a specific Aramaic-derived script; *the incidence of Aramaic words used as heterograms (called '' ...
, but many of the initial orthographic alterations to the Arabic alphabet might have been proposed and implemented by the same scribes. When new signs were added to the Arabic alphabet, they took the alphabetical order value of the letter which they were an alternative for: '' tā' marbūta'' (see also below) took the value of ordinary ''t'', and not of ''h''. In the same way, the many diacritics do not have any value: for example, a doubled consonant indicated by
shadda Shaddah ( ar, شَدّة ' , "
ign of ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and Mass media, entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San ...
emphasis", also called by the verbal noun from the same root, tashdid ' "emphasis") is one of the Arabic diacritics, diacritics used with the Arabic alphabet, indicating a gemination, geminated consonant. ...
does not count as a letter separate from the single one. Some features of the Arabic alphabet arose because of differences between
Qur'an The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing. ...
ic spelling and the form of
Classical Arabic Classical Arabic ( ar, links=no, ٱلْعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ, al-ʿarabīyah al-fuṣḥā) or Quranic Arabic is the standardized literary form of Arabic used from the 7th century and throughout the Middle Ages, most notab ...
that was phonemically and orthographically standardized later. These include: *''tā' marbūta'': This arose because, in many dialects, the ''-at'' ending of feminine nouns ( tā' marbūta) was lenited over time and was often pronounced as ''-ah'' and written as ''h''. This pronunciation eventually became standard, and so to avoid altering Quranic spelling, the dots of ''t'' were written over the ''h''. *''y'' (alif maksura ى) used to spell ''ā'' at the ends of some words: This arose because ''ā'' arising from
contraction Contraction may refer to: Linguistics * Contraction (grammar), a shortened word * Poetic contraction, omission of letters for poetic reasons * Elision, omission of sounds ** Syncope (phonology), omission of sounds in a word * Synalepha, merged ...
where single ''y'' dropped out between vowels was in some dialects pronounced at the ends of words with the tongue further forward than for other ''ā'' vowels, and as a result in the Qu'ran it was written as ''y''. *''ā'' not written as alif in some words: The Arabic spelling of ''
Allāh Allah (; ar, الله, translit=Allāh, ) is the common Arabic word for God. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The word is thought to be derived by contraction from '' al- ilāh'', which means "the god", an ...
'' was decided before the Arabs started using alif to spell ''ā''. In other cases (for example the first ''ā'' in ''hāðā'' = "this"), it may be that some dialects pronounced those vowels short. *hamza: Originally alif was used to spell the
glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
. But Meccans did not pronounce the glottal stop, replacing it with ''w'', ''y'' or nothing, lengthening an adjacent vowel, or, intervocalically, dropping the glottal stop and contracting the vowels. Thus, Arabic grammarians invented the
hamza Hamza ( ar, همزة ') () is a letter in the Arabic alphabet, representing the glottal stop . Hamza is not one of the 28 "full" letters and owes its existence to historical inconsistencies in the standard writing system. It is derived from ...
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...
sign and used it to mark the glottal stop.


Reorganization of the alphabet

Less than a century later, Arab grammarians reorganized the alphabet, for reasons of teaching, putting letters next to other letters which were nearly the same shape. This produced a new order which was not the same as the numeric order, which became less important over time because it was being competed with by the
Indian numerals Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...
and sometimes by the
Greek numerals Greek numerals, also known as Ionic, Ionian, Milesian, or Alexandrian numerals, are a system of writing numbers using the letters of the Greek alphabet. In modern Greece, they are still used for ordinal numbers and in contexts similar to tho ...
. The Arabic grammarians of North Africa changed the new letters, which explains the differences between the alphabets of the East and the
Maghreb The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...
. The old alphabetical order, as in the other alphabets shown here, is known as the
Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
ine or
Abjadi order The Abjad numerals, also called Hisab al-Jummal ( ar, حِسَاب ٱلْجُمَّل, ), are a decimal alphabetic numeral system/alphanumeric code, in which the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet are assigned numerical values. They have been us ...
. If the letters are arranged by their numeric order, the Levantine order is restored: (Note: here "numeric order" means the traditional values when these letters were used as numbers. See
Arabic numerals Arabic numerals are the ten numerical digits: , , , , , , , , and . They are the most commonly used symbols to write Decimal, decimal numbers. They are also used for writing numbers in other systems such as octal, and for writing identifiers ...
,
Greek numerals Greek numerals, also known as Ionic, Ionian, Milesian, or Alexandrian numerals, are a system of writing numbers using the letters of the Greek alphabet. In modern Greece, they are still used for ordinal numbers and in contexts similar to tho ...
and
Hebrew numerals The system of Hebrew numerals is a quasi-decimal alphabetic numeral system using the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The system was adapted from that of the Greek numerals in the late 2nd century BCE. The current numeral system is also known as t ...
for more details)
This order is much the oldest. The first written records of the Arabic alphabet show why the order was changed.


Abbasid standardizations

Arabic script reached a climax in aesthetics and geographic spread under the
Abbasid Caliphate The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...
. In this period,
Ibn al-Bawwab Ibn al-Bawwāb (), also known as Ali ibn-Hilal, Abu'l-Hasan, and Ibn al-Sitri, was an Arabic calligrapher and illuminator who lived in Baghdad. He is the figure most associated with the adoption of round script to transcribe the Qur'an. He most ...
and
Ibn Muqla Abu Ali Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Muqla ( ar, أبو علي محمد بن علي ابن مقلة, Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muqla; 885/6 – 20 July 940/1), commonly known as Ibn Muqla, was an official of the Abbasid Caliphate of Pers ...
had the most influence on the standardization of Arabic script. They were associated with al-khatt al-mansūb (), or "proportioned script."


Adapting the Arabic alphabet for other languages

When the Arabic alphabet spread to countries which used other languages, extra letters had to be invented to spell non-Arabic sounds. Usually the alteration was three dots above or below:- *
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and
Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''
Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...
: : *
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and
Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''
Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...
: : *
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and
Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''
Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...
: : *
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and
Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
: : . That is because represents in Egyptian Arabic (and some other dialects) while in the majority of Arabic dialects it represents ~ *in
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
: , ; : ; ,. *in
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
,
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
and many other Arabic countries : : is written as + and realized as + *
Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''
retroflex A retroflex ( /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal ( /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the ha ...
sounds: as the corresponding dentals but with a small letter ط above. (This problem in adapting a Semitic alphabet to write Indian languages also arose long before this: see
Brahmi Brahmi (; ; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such ...
) *In South-East Asia: as in "sing": or * Some letters are often used in transcriptions of names and loanwords, in Egypt and other Arabic speaking countries *This bookp.93, "The Koran, A Very Short Introduction" by Michael Cook, publ
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 2000 AD, shows an example of ''ch'' (
Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...
''cz'') being written as in an Arabic-Polish
bilingual Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...
Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...
for Muslim
Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different
s living in
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
.


Decline in use by non-Arabic states

Since the early 20th century, as the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
collapsed and European influence increased, many non-Arab Islamic areas began using the
Cyrillic , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = G ...
or
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
alphabet, and local adaptations of the Arabic alphabet were abandoned. In many cases, the writing of a language in Arabic script has become restricted to classical texts and traditional purposes (as in the Turkic States of
Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
, or
Hausa Hausa may refer to: * Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa * Hausa language, spoken in West Africa * Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states * Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse See also * ...
and others in
West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Maurit ...
), while in others, the Arabic alphabet is used alongside the Latin one (as with Jawi in
Brunei Brunei ( , ), formally Brunei Darussalam ( ms, Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , ), is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its South China Sea coast, it is completely sur ...
).


See also

*
Abjad An abjad (, ar, أبجد; also abgad) is a writing system in which only consonants are represented, leaving vowel sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with other alphabets, which provide graphemes for both consonants and vowels ...
* Levantine order *
Writing Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically Epigraphy, inscribed, Printing press, mechanically transferred, or Word processor, digitally represented Symbols (semiot ...


References


External links


A brief history of the Arabic script with emphasis on diacritical points, vowel markers and alphabet arrangements
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arabic Arabic script Palaeography History of writing