Arabic
Type	Abjad (originally)
Languages	Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Pashtun, Kurdish, Sindhi, Punjabi, etc.
Time period	400 AD to the present
Parent systems	Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician Aramaic Syriac Nabataean Arabic
ISO 15924	Arab, 160
Direction	Right-to-left
Unicode alias	Arabic
Unicode range	U+0600..U+06FF U+0750..U+077F U+FB50..U+FDFF U+FE70..U+FEFF U+08A0..U+08FF
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols.

The Arabic script is a writing system used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa, such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. Even until the sixteenth century, it was used to write some texts in Spanish.^[1] After the Latin script, it is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world.^[2]

The Arabic script is written from right to left in a cursive style. In most cases the letters transcribe consonants, so most Arabic alphabets are classified as abjads.

The script was first used to write texts in Arabic, most notably the Qurʾān, the holy book of Islam. With the spread of Islam, it came to be used to write languages of many language families, leading to the addition of new letters and other symbols, with some versions, such as Kurdish being abugidas or true alphabets. (See section Languages written with the Arabic script below.) It is also the basis for a rich tradition of Arabic calligraphy.

The Arabic script has the ISO 15924 codes Arab and 160.

Languages written with the Arabic script[link]

Basic Arabic Alphabet

The Arabic script has been adopted for use in a wide variety of languages besides Arabic, including Persian, Kurdish, 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), so 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: all the Indian and Turkic languages written in Arabic script tend to use the Persian modified letters, whereas Indonesian languages 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.

In the case of Kurdish, vowels are mandatory, making the script an abugida rather than an abjad as it is for most languages. Kashmiri and Uyghur, also, write all vowels.

Use of the Arabic script in West African languages, especially in the Sahel, developed with the penetration 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 fāʾ and qāf). Additional diacritics have come into use to facilitate writing of sounds not represented in the Arabic language. The term ʿAǧamī, which comes from the Arabic root for "foreign", has been applied to Arabic-based orthographies of African languages.

Languages currently written with the Arabic alphabet[link]

Today Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Israel and China are the main non-Arabic speaking states using the Arabic alphabet to write one or more official national languages, including Dari, Kurdish (sorani dialect/southern Kurdish), Pashto, Urdu, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Saraiki, and Uyghur.

The Arabic alphabet is currently used for the following:

Middle East and Central Asia[link]

Calligraphy

Arabic Chinese Georgian Indian Japanese Korean Kufic Nepalese Persian Sini Tibetan Western

• Avestan language of zartoshti in Iran ^[3][4]
• Garshuni (or Karshuni) originated in the seventh century AD, when Arabic was becoming the dominant spoken language in the Fertile Crescent, but Arabic script was not yet fully developed and widely read. There is evidence that writing Arabic in 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;
• Kazakh in Pakistan, Iran, China, and Afghanistan;
• Kurdish in Northern Iraq, and Northwest Iran. (In Turkey and Syria, the Latin script is used for Kurdish);
• Kyrgyz by its 150,000 speakers in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwestern China;
• Turkmen in Afghanistan and Iran;
• Official Persian and related regional languages
• Baluchi in Iran^[5]. An Academy for Baluchi Language Protection academy was established in 2009^[6]
• Southwestern Iranian languages as Lori dialects and Bakhtiari Language^{[7] [8]}
• Official Dari (which differs to a degree from Persian) and Pashto and all regional languages including Uzbek in Afghanistan;
• Tajik also differs only to a minor degree from Persian, and while in Tajikistan the usual Tajik alphabet is an extended Cyrillic script, there is also some use of Arabic-script Persian books from Iran; in the southwestern region of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China Arabic script is the official one (like for Uyghur in the rest of Xinjiang);
• Uyghur changed to Latin script in 1969 and back to a simplified, fully voweled, Arabic script in 1983.
• Judeo-Arabic languages
  • Judeo-Tunisian Arabic ^[9]
  • Karaim language
• Azerbaijani language in Iran

East Asia[link]

• The Chinese language is written by some Hui in the Arabic-derived Xiao'erjing alphabet.
• The Turkic Salar language is written by some Salar in the Arabic alphabet
• Sini (script)
• Uyghur alphabets

South Asia[link]

• Official language Urdu and regional languages including
  • Balochi in Pakistan, Balochi bible in Arabic script^[10]
  • Dari in Afghanistan and Pakistan
  • Kashmiri in Pakistan
  • Pashto in Pakistan and Afghanistan
  • Punjabi (where the script is known as Shahmukhi) Shahmukhī script of Pakistan
  • Saraiki
  • Sindhi in Arabic script. British commissioner in Sindh on August 29, 1857 ordered to change Arabic script.^[11]
  • Aer language^[12]
  • Bhadrawahi language ^[13]
  • Ladakhi language and Balti dialect^[14]
  • Brahui language of Brahui people of Pakistan and Afghanistan ^[15]
  • Burushaski or Burushko language a language isolate in Pakistan ^[16]
• Urdu, Sindhi and Kashmiri in South Asia. Urdu is one of several official languages in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh; Kashmiri also uses Sharada script
• Some Hindi languages used Arabic script of Urdu Hindi-Urdu or Hindustani हिन्दुस्तानी, ہندوستانی)
  • Dogri language (डोगरी or ڈوگرى) spoken by about five million people in India and Pakistan, chiefly in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, but also in northern Punjab
• The 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 Nadu Muslims.
• Malayalam language represented by Arabic script variant is known as Arabi Malayalam. The script has particular letters to represent the peculiar sounds of Malayalam. This script is mainly used in Madrassas of South Indian state of Kerala and Lakshadweep to teach Malayalam.
• Chittagonian language of Chittagong people in Bangladesh ^[17]
• Rohingya language (Ruáingga) is a language spoken by the Rohingya people of Arakan (Rakhine), Burma (Myanmar). It is smiliar to Chittagonian language in neighboring Bangladesh^[18]

Southeast Asia[link]

• Malay in the Arabic script known as Jawi. Arabic script or Jawi can be seen or used for the sign board or market or shop board. Particularly in Brunei, Jawi is practically used in terms of writing or reading for Islamic Religious Educational Program which is like Primary school, Secondary School, College even higher educational institute such as University. In addition, some television programs is associated with Jawi for announcement, advertisement, news, social programs, obviously religious program and etc.
  • co-official in Brunei
  • Malaysia
  • Indonesia
  • Southern Thailand
  • Singapore
  • Predominantly Muslim areas of the Philippines (especialy Tausug language).
  • Ida'an language (also Idahan) a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by the Ida'an people of Sabah, Malaysia^[19]
• Cham language in Cambodia^[20]

Africa[link]

• North Africa
  • Arabic language of North Africa in West of Egyptian Delta, Liybia, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco & Mauritania
  • Berber languages have often been written in an adaptation of the Arabic alphabet. The use of the Arabic alphabet, as well as the competing Latin and Tifinagh scripts, has political connotations.
  • Tuareg language (also Tamasheq)
  • Coptic language of Egyptian Coptics as Coptic text written in Arabic letters^[21]
• North East Africa
  • Bedawi or Beja, mainly in northeastern Sudan
  • Nubian languages
    • Dongolawi language or Andaandi language of Nubians in Sudan and Egypt
    • Nobiin language is written in Arabic scripts^[22][23]
  • Fur language of Darfur, Sudan
• South East Africa
  • Comorian (Comorian) in the Comoros, currently side by side with the Latin alphabet (neither is official)
  • 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.
  • Wadaad's writing, used in Somalia
• West Africa
  • Zarma language (also spelled Djerma, Dyabarma, Dyarma, Dyerma, Adzerma, Zabarma, Zarbarma, Zarma, Zarmaci, and Zerma) of the Songhay languages. It is the language of the southwestern lobe of the West African nation of Niger and it is the second leading for Niger, after Hausa, which is spoken in south central Niger.^[24]
  • Tadaksahak language or Dawsahak language is a Songhay language spoken by the pastoralist Idaksahak of the Ménaka area of Mali.^[25]
  • Hausa language, for many purposes, especially religious (known as Ajami), also includes newspapers, mass mobilization posters and public information^[26]
• Dyula language is a Mande language spoken in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire and Mali.^[27]
  • Jola-Fonyi language of the Casamance region of Senegal^[28]
  • Balanta language a Bak language of west Africa spoken by the Balanta people and Balanta-Ganja dialect in Senegal
  • Mandinka, widely but unofficially (known as Ajami), (another non-Latin script used is the N'Ko script)
  • Fula, especially the Pular of Guinea (known as Ajami)
  • Wolof (at zaouia schools), known as Wolofal.
• Arabic script outside Africa
  • in writings of African American slaves
    • Writings of by Omar Ibn Said (1770–1864) of Sengal
    • The Bilali Document also known as Bilali Muhammad Document is a handwritten, Arabic manuscript 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.
    • Letter written by Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (1701–1773)
    • Letter written by Abdulrahman Ibrahim Ibn Sori (1762-1829)

Alphabet[link]

• ڤ‎ and/or ۋ‎ – Ve, used in Kurdish language when written in Arabic script to represent the sound /v/. Also used as pa in the Jawi script.

• پ – Pe, used to represent the phoneme /p/ in Persian, Urdu, and Kurdish.

• چ – Che, used to represent /t͡ʃ/ ("ch"). It is used in Persian, Urdu, and Kurdish.
  • Ca in the Jawi script

• ژ – Že/zhe, used to represent the voiced postalveolar fricative /ʒ/ in, Persian, Kurdish, Urdu and Uyghur.

• ڭ‎ – Ng, used to represent the [ŋ] phone in Ottoman Turkish, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Uyghur.

• ݙ‎ – used in Saraiki to represent a voiced retroflex implosive [ɗ̢].

• ݐ‎ – used to represent the equivalent of the Latin letter Ƴ (palatalized glottal stop [ʔʲ]) in some African languages such as Fulfulde.

• ݫ‎ – used in Ormuri to represent a voiced alveolo-palatal fricative [ʑ], as well as in Torwali.

• ݭ‎ – used in Kalami to represent a voiceless retroflex fricative [ʂ], and in Ormuri to represent a voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative.

• ݜ‎ – used in Shina to represent a voiceless retroflex fricative [ʂ].

• ݪ‎ – used in Marwari to represent a retroflex lateral flap [ɺ̢], and in Kalami to represent a voiceless lateral fricative [ɬ].

• ٻ‎ – B̤ē, used to represent a voiced bilabial implosive [ɓ] in Hausa, Sindhi and Saraiki.

• ٺ‎ – Ṭhē, represents the aspirated voiceless retroflex plosive [ʈʰ] in Sindhi.

• ﮎ‎ – Khē, represents [kʰ] in Sindhi.

• ﭦ‎ – Ṭe, used to represent Ṭ (a voiceless retroflex plosive [ʈ]) in Urdu.

• ڳ‎ – represents a voiced velar implosive /ɠ/ in Sindhi and Saraiki

• ڱ‎ – represents the Velar nasal /ŋ/ phoneme in Sindhi.

• ڻ‎ – represents the retroflex nasal /ɳ/ phoneme in Sindhi.

• ݨ‎ – used in Saraiki .

• ڀ‎ – represents an aspirated voiced bilabial plosive [bʱ] in Sindhi.

• ھ – Hāʾ do chahmsi, represents a aspirated consonant [ʰ] in Urdu.

• ڑ‎ – Aṛ, represents a retroflex flap [ɽ] in Urdu.

• ڕ‎ – used in Kurdish to represent rr [r] in Yekgirtú spelling.

• گ – Gaf, represents a voiced velar plosive [ɡ] in Persian, Urdu, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Kurdish, Uyghur, and Ottoman Turkish.

• ݢ‎ or ڬ‎ – Gaf, represents a voiced velar plosive [ɡ] in the Jawi script of Malay.

• ے‎ – Bari ye, represents "ai" or "e" in Urdu [ɛː, eː] and Punjabi.

• ێ‎ – represents Ê or É [e] in Kurdish.

• ۆ‎ – represents O [o] in Kurdish, and in Uyghur it represents the sound similar to the French eu and œu [ø] sound

• ۋ‎ – represents a voiced labiodental fricative [v] in Kyrgyz, Uyghur, and Old Tatar; and /w, ʊw, ʉw/ in Kazakh; also formerly used in Nogai.

• ڽ‎ – Nya in the Jawi script.

• ڠ‎ – Nga in the Jawi script.

• ۏ‎ – Va in the Jawi script.

• ڈ‎ – Ḍ [ɖ] in Urdu.

Languages formerly written with the Arabic alphabet[link]

Speakers of languages that were previously unwritten used Arabic script as a basis to design writing systems for their mother languages. This choice could be influenced by Arabic being their second language, the language of scripture of their faith, or the only written language they came in contact with. Additionally, since most education was once religious, choice of script was determined by the writer's religion; which meant that Muslims would use Arabic script to write whatever language they spoke. This led to Arabic script being the most widely used script during the Middle Ages.

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,^[29] 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 Iran.^[30]

Most languages of the Iranian languages family continue to use Arabic script, as well as the Indo-Aryan languages of Pakistan and of Muslim populations in India, but the Bengali language of Bangladesh is written in the Bengali alphabet.

Africa[link]

• Afrikaans (as it was first written among the "Cape Malays", see Arabic Afrikaans);
• Berber in North Africa, particularly Shilha in Morocco (still being considered, along with Tifinagh and Latin, for Central Atlas Tamazight);
• Harari, by the Harari people of the Harari Region in Ethiopia. Now uses the Ge'ez and Latin alphabets.
• For the West African languages – Hausa, Fula, Mandinka, Wolof and some more – the Latin alphabet has officially replaced Arabic transcriptions for use in literacy and education;
• Malagasy in Madagascar (script known as Sorabe);
• Nubian;
• Somali (see Wadaad's writing) has used only the Latin alphabet since 1972;
• Songhay in West Africa, particularly in Timbuktu;
• Swahili (has used the Latin alphabet since the 19th century);
• Yoruba in West Africa (this was probably limited, but still notable)

Europe[link]

• Albanian called Elifbaja shqip
• Aljamiado (script used sometimes for Mozarabic, Berber, Spanish or Ladino)
• Azeri in Azerbaijan (now written in the Latin alphabet and Cyrillic script scripts in Azerbaijan);
• Belarusian (among ethnic Tatars; see Belarusian Arabic alphabet)
• Bosnian (only for literary purposes; currently written in the Latin alphabet; Text example:

مۉلیمۉ سه ته‌بی بۉژه‎ = Molimo se tebi, Bože (We pray to you, o God); see Arebica)

• Crimean Tatar
• English by British authors and researchers from the across the British Empire during the Victorian Era.^{[dubious – discuss][citation needed]}
• French by the Arabs and Berbers in Algeria and other parts of North Africa during the French colonial period.
• Greek in certain areas and Greece and Anatolia
• Medieval Albanian
• Medieval Bosnian
• Mozarabic, Aragonese, Portuguese, and Spanish, when the Muslims ruled the Iberian peninsula (see Aljamiado)
• Ottoman Turkish
• Polish (among ethnic Lipka Tatars)
• Romanian in certain areas of Transylvania (until the 17th century a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire)^{[citation needed]}.

Central Asia and Russian Federation[link]

• 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
• Avar as well as other languages of Daghestan: Nogai, Kumyk, Lezgian, Lak, Dargwa;
• Bashkir (officially for some years from the October Revolution of 1917 until 1928, changed to Latin, now uses the Cyrillic script);
• Chaghatai across Central Asia;
• Chechen (sporadically from the adoption of Islam; officially from 1917 until 1928);^[31]
• Circassian and some other members of the Abkhaz–Adyghe family in the western Caucasus and sporadically – in the countries of Middle East, like Syria;
• Ingush;
• Karachay-Balkar language in the central Caucasus;
• Karakalpak
• Kazakh in Kazakhstan (until 1930s, changed to Latin, now uses the Cyrillic script);
• Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan (until 1930s, changed to Latin, now uses the Cyrillic script);
• Tatar before 1928 (changed to Latin Janalif), reformed in 1880s (iske imlâ), 1918 (yaña imlâ – with the omission of some letters)
• Belarussia Belarusian Arabic alphabet
• Chinese and Dungan, among the Hui people (script known as Xiao'erjing);
• Tat in South-Eastern Caucasus;
• Turkmen in Turkmenistan (changed to Latin in 1929, then to the Cyrillic script, then back to Latin in 1991);
• Uzbek in Uzbekistan (changed to Latin, then to the Cyrillic script, then back to Latin in 1991);
• Some Northeast Caucasian languages of the Muslim peoples of the USSR between 1918 and 1928 (many also earlier), including Chechen, Lak etc. After 1928 their script became Latin, then later Cyrillic.

Southeast Asia[link]

• Banjar language in Indonesia
• Pegon alphabet of Javanese and Sundanese in Indonesia, used only in Islamic schools and institutions
• Maguindanaon in the Philippines
• Malay in Malaysia and Indonesia
• Minangkabau in Indonesia
• Tausug in the Philippines

Middle East[link]

• Kurdish (Kurmanji dialect) in Turkey and Syria was written in Arabic script until 1932, when a modified Kurdish Latin alphabet was introduced by Jaladat Ali Badirkhan in Syria.
• Turkish in the Ottoman Empire was written in Arabic script until Mustafa Kemal Atatürk declared the change to Latin script in 1928. This form of Turkish is now known as Ottoman Turkish and is held by many to be a different language, due to its much higher percentage of Persian and Arabic loanwords (Ottoman Turkish alphabet);

Table[link]

Unicode[link]

In Unicode the characters of the Arabic script are contained in four blocks:

• Arabic (0600–06FF)
• Arabic Supplement (0750–077F)
• Arabic Presentation Forms-A (FB50–FDFF)
• Arabic Presentation Forms-B (FE70–FEFF)

See also[link]

• Arabic (Unicode block)

References[link]

This article uses bare URLs for citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are available to assist in formatting. (Reflinks documentation) (April 2012)

v t e Arabic عربي Overviews Language Alphabet History Romanization Numerology Influence on other languages Alphabet Arabic numerals Eastern numerals Arabic braille Diacritics Hamza Tāʾ marbūṭah Letters ʾAlif Bāʾ Tāʾ Ṯāʾ Ǧīm Ḥāʾ Ḫāʾ Dāl Ḏāl Rāʾ Zayn Sīn Šīn Ṣād Ḍād Ṭāʾ Ẓāʾ ʿAyn Ġayn Fāʾ Qāf Kāf Lām Mīm Nūn Hāʾ Wāw Yāʾ Eras Ancient North Arabian Classical Modern Notable varieties Standardized Modern Standard Arabic Regional Egyptian Iraqi Levantine Maghrebi Sudanese Arabian Yemeni Ethnic/Religious Judeo-Arabic Academic Literature Names Linguistics Phonology Sun and moon letters ʾIʿrāb (inflection) Grammar Triliteral root Mater lectionis IPA Quranic Arabic Corpus