Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Aleph (or alef or alif, transliterated ʾ) is the first letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician ʾālep 𐤀, Hebrew ʾālef א , Aramaic ʾālap 𐡀, Syriac ʾālap̄ ܐ, Arabic ʾalif ا , and North Arabian 𐪑.
[1] [2] As Wright notes "[alif] was at first more rarely marked than the other long vowels, and hence it happens that, at a later period, after the invention of the vowel-points, it was indicated in some very common words merely by a fatḥa [i.e. the dagger alif.]" [3] Most keyboards do not have dagger alif.
The deficiencies of this alphabet were both technical (abundance of positional letterforms complicated adoption of modern technology such as typewriters and teleprinters) and linguistic (Arabic language has only three vowel qualities, but Tatar has nine, which had to be mapped onto combinations and variations of the three existing vowel letters).
The waṣla (Arabic: وَصْلَة , lit. 'an instance of connection') or hamzatu l-waṣli (هَمْزَةُ ٱلْوَصْلِ, 'hamza of connection') is a variant of the letter hamza (ء) resembling part of the letter ṣād (ص) that is sometimes placed over the letter ʾalif at the beginning of the word ().
The Arabic alphabet, [a] or the Arabic abjad, is the Arabic script as specifically codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right-to-left in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters, [ b ] of which most have contextual letterforms.
All of these forms are frequently lexicalized (i.e. they are given additional meanings and become the origin of many lexical items in the vocabulary). In fact, participles and verbal nouns are one of the most productive sources of new vocabulary. A number of Arabic borrowings in English are actually lexicalized verbal nouns, or closely related ...
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
Other forms of Arabic-based scripts existed in the region, notably the Pegon alphabet used for Javanese in Java and the Serang alphabet used for Buginese in South Sulawesi. Both writing systems applied extensive use of Arabic diacritics and added several letters which were formed differently from Jawi letters to suit the languages.