Arabic diacritics

The sukūn may also be used to help represent a diphthong. A followed by the letter <ﻱ> with a sukūn over it indicates the diphthong /ay/ (IPA ). A followed by the letter <ﻭ> (wāw) with a sukūn indicates .

The three vowel diacritics may be doubled at the end of a word to indicate that the vowel is followed by the consonant n. These may or may not be considered , and are known as ( ), or nunation. The signs indicate, from left to right, -un, -in, -an. These endings are used as non-pausal grammatical indefinite case endings in MSA or Classical Arabic (triptotes only). In a vocalised text, they may be written even if they are not pronounced (see pausa). See for more details. In spoken Arabic dialects, these endings are absent. Many Arabic textbooks introduce standard Arabic without these endings. The grammatical endings may not be written in some vocalised Arabic texts. As knowledge of varies from country to country and there is a trend in simplifying the Arabic grammar.

The sign is most commonly written in combination with (alif), ( ) or stand-alone (hamza). Alif should always be written (except for words ending in tāʼ marbūṭa, hamza or diptotes), even if "an" is not. Grammar cases and endings in indefinite triptote forms:

* -un: nominative case

* -an: accusative case, also serves as an adverbial marker.

* -in: genitive case

The shadda ( ) or ( ) is a diacritic shaped like a small written Latin "w". It is used to indicate gemination (consonant doubling or extra length), which is phonemic in Arabic. It is written above the consonant which is to be doubled. It is the only that is sometimes used in ordinary spelling to avoid ambiguity. Example: <دّ> ; ( ) school vs. ( ) teacher (f.).

Early manuscripts of the Qurʾan did not use diacritics either for vowels or to distinguish the different values of the rasm. Vowel pointing was introduced first, as a red dot placed above, below, or beside the rasm, and later consonant pointing was introduced, as thin, short black single or multiple dashes placed above or below the rasm (image). These iʿjam became black dots about the same time as the harakat became small black letters or strokes.

Typically, Egyptians do not use dots under final yāʾ (ي), both in handwriting and in print, resulting in substantial confusion with ʾalif maqṣūra (ى) to those not accustomed to the practice. This practice is also used in the Mus'hafs (copies of Koran) scribed by Uthman Taha. The same unification of yāʾ and ʾalif maqṣūra has happened in Persian, resulting in what The Unicode Standard calls " ", that looks exactly the same as yāʾ in initial and medial forms, but exactly the same as ʾalif maqṣūra in final and isolated forms.

Which letter is to be used to support the hamza depends on the quality of the adjacent vowels. If the syllable occurs at the beginning of the word, the glottal stop is always indicated by hamza on an alif. But if the syllable occurs in the middle of the word, alif is used only if it is not preceded or followed by or . If is before or after the glottal stop, a with a hamza is used (the two dots which are usually beneath the disappear in this case – <ئ>). If is there, a wāw sukūn with a hamza is used. Consider the following words: <أَخ> ( , brother), <ِإِسْرَائِيل> ( , Israel), <أُمْ> ( , mother). All three of above words "begin" with a vowel opening the syllable, and in each case, alif is used to designate the initial glottal stop (the actual beginning). But if we consider middle syllables "beginning" with a vowel: <نَشْأة ( , 'origin'), <ِإِسْرَائِيل ( , 'Israel' – notice the syllable), <ِرَؤُوف> ( 'lenient'), the situation is different, as noted above. See the comprehensive article on hamza for more details.

History

Abu al-Aswad's system

Al Farāhídi's system

See also

References

External links

Category:Arabic words and phrases Category:Qur'an Category:Phonetic guides