Introduction:

Arabic is a Semitic language that emerged first in the 4th century. More than 400 million people around the world speak the Arabic language, it is an official language in 27 countries and a national language in 6 other countries.

In this blog, we will see some basic Arabic alphabet and pronunciation rules.

• The Arabic Alphabet

There are 28 letters in the Arabic alphabet, which all represent only consonants. To represent long vowels in certain contexts, three letters should be present, namely Āalif (ا), wāw (و), and yāĀ (ي). 

For short vowels, most of the letters are arranged in groups of two or three with similar shapes and are differentiated by the presence and placement of small dots above or below the shape of the letter.

The Arabic language is written with the letters of the alphabet and with a number of characters that are not included as the part of the alphabet but has different spellings, short vowel markers, other markers of pronunciation and grammar, and also a peculiar shape-shifting consonant which is called as hamzaŧ. 

While these characters are important for correct writing and others are required in texts and seldom written.

Arabic writing has a high degree of consistency between the letters and characters of the language and also their sounds and it is written with the Arabic script. This is written from right to left in a cursive style, there is no distinction between upper-case and lower-case letters, and these are in print as well as in handwriting.

Depending upon their position in the word in the Arabic script, letters take different shapes and they are connected to a preceding letter. All letters are connected from the right side but some of them do not connect from the left side. 

Every letter connects from both sides or does not connect to the subsequent letter. But many letters are connectors and only a few are non-connectors.

Connectors have four shapes

• Independent: not connected to any other letter
• Initial: connected to the subsequent letter only
• Medial: connected to the preceding and subsequent letters
• Final: connected to the preceding letter only

Here is an example, for Connectors of the Arabic letter bāĀ.

	Final	Medial	Initial	Independent
	ـب	ـبـ	بـ	ب

Non-connectors have two shapes:

• Independent: not connected to any other letter
• Final: connected to the preceding letter only

Here is an example, for non-connectors of the Arabic letter Āalif

	Final	Medial	Initial	Independent
	ـا	ـ	ـ	ا

 

• Basic Pronunciation Rules 

There are a variety of accents and different local pronunciations

Always Arabic letters are not pronounced the same, it bears repeating. especially the “vowel” letters.

Somewhere else single letter in a word might sound totally different and also, keep in mind that these descriptions can be interpreted wrongly.

In Arabic pronunciation, descriptions help to actually hear these letters at the end of the word for how you can practice Arabic pronunciation.

Egyptian pronunciation of these letters can be compared to English.

• Conclusion

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