The language of the Arabs, Arabic was a relatively minor language until the Arabs conquered most of the Middle East, northern Africa, and southern Europe. It then gained a prominence diminished very little to this day. Arabic script is always written in a cursive-like fashion, and read right to left.

A language spoken by over 250 million people from Syria to Iraq to Mauritania and understood, to varying degrees, by Muslims across the world.

Standard Arabic ('fusHa') is a modernized form of classical Arabic and is used as a lingua franca in the Arab world, primarily in written form. It is also used in newscasts, official and academic lectures and in religious situations.

Each region (each town in some areas) has its own colloquial version of Arabic composed of standard Arabic and various loan words used with a simplified (usually), flexible grammar. This diglossia is pronounced in certain regions to the extent that many North African dialects (Moroccan, Algerian, Hassania -- from Mauritania) are nearly unintelligble to Arabs from Lebanon and Yemen. Egyptian Arabic is widely understood due to Cairo's status as the media center of the Arab world. This is true of the Levantine (Syria and Lebanon) dialect to a lesser extent.

Arabic (العربية)

A few English words that came from Arabic:
Arabic is a funky language, as well as being very old. And it is very different to Indo-European languages. For one thing, almost all verbs have exactly three letters in their base form. The base form by convention in Arabic is actually the past tense third person. All other forms of the verb are variations on the base form; made by inserting specific letters in any of the four possible places: before the first, between first and second, between second and third and after the third. The verbs that don't have three letters tend to be the ones that came in from other languages.

One more cool thing: the verb for "to do" is also three letters long, being fa,ain and lam. So in grammatical textbooks, the first letter of a verb is called "fa" the second is called "ain" and the last letter is called "lam". So it's a big self-referential mess.

Arabic grammar

See Arabic pronunciation for my guide to pronunciation of Classical (Quranic) Arabic, and my system of transliteration of the script.

Arabic grammar, like that of all Semitic languages, hinges on a 'root' of three consonants (occasionally two or four). The root is not pronounced: it is not a word. It carries the basic meaning, and words are formed by filling in the consonant root with vowels and adding affixes in characteristic patterns.

The consonants k-t-b denote writing, j-l-s denotes sitting, d-r-s denotes studying, sh-r-b drinking.

The verb

As simple verbs the roots are filled and inflected for person as follows. For now I stick to the singular of the perfect.

    katabtu    I wrote
    katabta    you (masc.) wrote
    katabti    you (fem.) wrote
    kataba     he wrote
    katabat    she wrote

Note that a gender distinction is made not only in the third person as in most European languages, but also in the second person. The simplest form of the verb is the 'he' form. We name our verbs with the infinitive, 'to write'; Arabs speak of the verb kataba 'he wrote'.

Similarly jalasa 'he sat', darasa 'he studied', shariba 'he drank'. Most verbs have an a-a-a pattern in the perfect, some have a-i-a like shariba, and a few have a-u-a.

Arabic is an aspectual language. It doesn't have tenses as such, it has two aspects, perfect (or perfective) and imperfect(ive). The imperfect often covers present and future times. The vowel pattern is different and so are the person affixes:

    ?aktubu    I am (was) writing
    taktubu    you (masc.) are writing
    taktubiina you (fem.) are writing
    yaktubu    he is writing
    taktubu    she is writing

The she form and the you-masculine form are the same here.

The future is formed by prefixing sa-: sataktabu 'she will write'.

Only the singular forms were given above. There are plurals formed along similar lines (katabnaa 'we wrote', naktubu 'we are writing'), and in the second and third persons there is also a dual. Gender distinction extends into the plural.

Where the perfect has a-i-a pattern the imperfect has a-a-u, as in sharibnaa 'we drank', nashrabu 'we are drinking'.

The noun

Other parts of speech can also be formed from these consonantal roots, e.g. maktuub 'writer', maktabah 'office', kitaab 'book', majlis 'assembly, session, parliament', madrasah 'school'.

'Patterns' of vowels and affixes are pervasive in the language. Some nouns have plurals that are made simply by adding something to the singular. The 'weak' masculine ending is -uun:

    t!aalib    student
    t!aalibuun students

but the majority change the vowel pattern internally and often add affixes. Although some rules exist, in general there is no comprehensive way of predicting these. You just have to learn what plural class a singular belongs to. This is called the 'broken plural'. Some words can have both kinds of plural.

    t!aalib    student     t!ullaab   students
    kitaab     book        kutub      books
    bayt       house       buyuut     houses
    manzil     house (sic) manaazil   houses
    walad      boy         ?awlaad    boys
    jawab      answer      ?ajwibah   answers
    su?aal     question    ?as?ilah   questions

The feminine ending is -ah in the singular; it forms its plural by changing to -aat in the plural: malikah 'queen', malikaat 'queens'.

There is a dual, used for two things, so the plural is only for three or more. The dual ending is -aan, with feminine -ataan.

Case endings

Arabic has three cases, nominative, accusative, and genitive. In the singular these have the respective endings -u, -a, -i. They are also used on broken plurals. When the word is said in isolation these endings are not pronounced, so I have omitted them in the above. They are also not pronounced at the end of a phrase. This may be called the pausal form.

The weak masculine plural ending is actually -uuna, with accusative and genitive -iina. The dual ending is actually -aani with accusative/genitive -ayni. The final vowels of these are also omitted in pausal position, giving -uun, -iin, -aan, -ayn.

The feminine -ah is pausal; when it's followed by a case ending it's pronounced -at-. This alternation of consonants is ancient in Semitic, paralleled in Hebrew, and is called the ta marbuta.

The adjective

Adjectives follow nouns and agree in gender and number. However, broken plurals may be treated as feminine singular.

    kitaabu kabiir          big book
    kutubu kabiirah         big books
    madrasatu kabiirah      big school
    madrasaatu kabiiraat    big schools

The article

The definite article is a prefix al-, familiar from words like alcohol and algebra: al-kitaab 'the book', al-malikaat 'the queens'.

Agreeing adjectives also take it: al-baytu al-kabiir 'the big house'. The vowel of the article drops off after another one, so that's pronounced al-baytu-l-kabiir.

This is classical (Quranic) Arabic; in modern Arabic you often see el-.

The L of the article assimilates phonetically to a lot of consonants. These are called 'sun letters' because the L assimilates to the SH of shams 'sun', and where there is no change they are called 'moon letters' because of qamar 'moon'.

    ash-shams    the sun
    as-su?aal    the question
    at!-t!aalib  the student
    ad-dars      the lesson
    an-nahr      the river

The indefinite article is -n on the case ending: baytun kabiirun 'a big house', pronounced baytun kabiir because the second ending is pausal. It also occurs on some proper names, e.g. Muh!ammad-un.

The a of the definite article is also lost after prepositions, such as: fii 'in', li 'to', bi 'with, by', and min 'from'. Long vowels shorten, and min grows its own linking vowel. They take the genitive. So fii al-kitaabi 'in the book' is pronounced fi-l-kitaab, and 'from the sun' is mina-sh-shams.

The article is used after the demonstratives: 'this, these' is m.sg. haadhaa, f.sg. haadhihii, m.dual haadhaani, f.dual haataani, pl. haa?ulaa?i, again with shortening of the final long vowel: haadha-l-bayt 'this house'. The corresponding words for 'that' are m.sg. dhaalika, f.sg. tilka, m.dual dhaanika, f.dual taanika, pl. ?ulaa?ika.

The sentence

There is no verb 'to be' in the present. A nominal sentence is one where the adjective is not definite:
al-baytu kabiir 'the house is big'. In the past the verb kaana is used, future yakuunu.

Where a verb is used it occurs initially:
qara?a Muh!ammadun al-kitaab 'Muhammad read the book'.

Numerals

The numerals are
  1. ?ah!ad masc., ?ih!daa fem.
  2. ithnaan masc., ithnataan fem.
  3. thalaath(ah)
  4. ?arba&(ah)
  5. khams(ah)
  6. sitt(ah)
  7. sab&(ah)
  8. thamaaniy(ah)
  9. tis&(ah)
  10. &ashar(ah)
The numerals from three onward have the peculiar property (shared with other Semitic languages) that they have opposite gender to the noun they qualify.

    thalaathatu ?awlaad  three boys
    thalaathu malikaat   three queens

Derived verbs

From the simple verb a number of other verb stems can be derived by internal change and affixation. For example, kasara 'he broke' gives the intensive kassara 'he smashed' by consonant doubling. These derived stems typically have a characteristic meaning, but often they have departed a great deal in semantic latitude from the original meaning, and just have to be learnt. No verb exhibits all the possible derived stems, but using kasara 'break' as the example, the other stems are kassara, kaasara, ?aksara, takassara, takaasara, inkasara, iktasara, istaksara. All of these have their own personal inflections, imperfects, passives, and derived nouns. (Arab grammarians use the verb fa&ala 'do, make' as the paradigm.)
Disclaimer. Needless to say this is a very simplified sketch and omits anything that looks like an exception. But that said, /msg me if you notice any corrections that need to be made.

The Arabic script is used for writing the Arabic language, and has been extended for representing a number of other languages, such as Persian, Urdu, Sindhi and Kurdish. Urdu is often written with the ornate Nastaliq script variety. Some languages, such as Indonesian/Malay, Turkish and Ingush, formerly used the Arabic script, but now employ the Latin or Cyrillic scripts.

The Arabic script is written in cursive form, even when printed. As a result, the same letter may be written in different forms depending on how it joins with its neighbors. Vowels and various other marks may be written as combining marks called harakat, which are applied to consonantal base letters. In normal writing, the harakat are omitted.

The Arabic script is written right tot left. See the Bidirectional Algorithm.

Unicode encodes the basic Arabic characters in the same relative positions as ISO 8859-6. ISO 8859-6, in turn, was based on EMCA 114 which was based on ASMO 449.

See also, the code blocks Arabic Supplement, Arabic Presentation Forms A and Arabic Presentation Forms B


Unicode's Arabic code block reserves the 256 code points from U+0600 to U+06FF, of which 250 are currently assigned.

Hebrew <-- Arabic --> Syriac

Number of characters added in each version of the Unicode standard :
Unicode 1.1 : 194
Unicode 3.0 : 12
Unicode 3.2 : 2
Unicode 4.0 : 19
Unicode 4.1 : 8
Unicode 5.1 : 15

Number of characters in each General Category :

Letter, Modifier       Lm :  3
Letter, Other          Lo :149
Mark, Non-Spacing      Mn : 51
Mark, Enclosing        Me :  1
Number, Decimal Digit  Nd : 20
Punctuation, Other     Po : 12
Symbol, Math           Sm :  3
Symbol, Currency       Sc :  1
Symbol, Other          So :  5
Other, Format          Cf :  5

Number of characters in each Bidirectional Category :

Right To Left Arabic         AL :162
European Number              EN : 10
European Number Terminator   ET :  3
Arabic Number                AN : 17
Common Number Separator      CS :  1
Non Spacing Mark            NSM : 52
Other Neutral                ON :  5

The columns below should be interpreted as :

  1. The Unicode code for the character
  2. The character in question
  3. The Unicode name for the character
  4. The Unicode General Category for the character
  5. The Unicode Bidirectional Category for the character
  6. The Unicode version when this character was added

If the characters below show up poorly, or not at all, see Unicode Support for possible solutions.

 

Arabic

     Subtending marks

U+0600   ؀   Arabic number sign Cf AN 4.0
U+0601   ؁   Arabic sign sanah Cf AN 4.0
U+0602   ؂   Arabic footnote marker Cf AN 4.0
U+0603   ؃   Arabic sign safha Cf AN 4.0

     Radix symbols

U+0606   ؆   Arabic indic cube root Sm ON 5.1
ref U+221B   ∛   cube root (Mathematical Operators)
U+0607   ؇   Arabic indic fourth root Sm ON 5.1
ref U+221C   ∜   fourth root (Mathematical Operators)

     Letterlike symbol

U+0608   ؈   Arabic ray Sm AL 5.1

     Punctuation

U+0609   ؉   Arabic indic per mille sign Po ET 5.1
ref U+2030   ‰   per mille sign (General Punctuation)
U+060A   ؊   Arabic indic per ten thousand sign Po ET 5.1
ref U+2031   ‱   per ten thousand sign (General Punctuation)

     Currency sign

U+060B   ؋   afghani sign Sc AL 4.1
* Afghani

     Punctuation

U+060C   ،   Arabic comma Po CS 1.1
* also used with Thaana and Syriac in modern text
ref U+002C   ,   comma (Basic Latin)
U+060D   ؍   Arabic date separator Po AL 4.0

     Poetic marks

U+060E   ؎   Arabic poetic verse sign So ON 4.0
U+060F   ؏   Arabic sign misra So ON 4.0

     Honorifics

U+0610   ؐ   Arabic sign sallallahou alayhe wassallam Mn NSM 4.0
* represents sallallahu alayhe wasallam "may God's peace and blessings be upon him"
U+0611   ؑ   Arabic sign alayhe assallam Mn NSM 4.0
* represents alayhe assalam "upon him be peace"
U+0612   ؒ   Arabic sign rahmatullah alayhe Mn NSM 4.0
* represents rahmatullah alayhe "may God have mercy upon him"
U+0613   ؓ   Arabic sign radi allahou anhu Mn NSM 4.0
* represents radi allahu 'anhu "may God be pleased with him"
U+0614   ؔ   Arabic sign takhallus Mn NSM 4.0
* sign placed over the name or nom-de-plume of a poet, or in some writings used to mark all proper names

     Koranic annotation signs

U+0615   ؕ   Arabic small high tah Mn NSM 4.0
* marks a recommended pause position in some Korans published in Iran and Pakistan
* should not be confused with the small TAH sign used as a diacritic for some letters such as 0679
U+0616   ؖ   Arabic small high ligature alef with lam with yeh Mn NSM 5.1
U+0617   ؗ   Arabic small high zain Mn NSM 5.1
U+0618   ؘ   Arabic small fatha Mn NSM 5.1
* should not be confused with 064E FATHA
U+0619   ؙ   Arabic small damma Mn NSM 5.1
* should not be confused with 064F DAMMA
U+061A   ؚ   Arabic small kasra Mn NSM 5.1
* should not be confused with 0650 KASRA

     Punctuation

U+061B   ؛   Arabic semicolon Po AL 1.1
* also used with Thaana and Syriac in modern text
ref U+003B   ;   semicolon (Basic Latin)
U+061E   ؞   Arabic triple dot punctuation mark Po AL 4.1
U+061F   ؟   Arabic question mark Po AL 1.1
* also used with Thaana and Syriac in modern text
ref U+003F   ?   question mark (Basic Latin)
ref U+2E2E   ⸮   reversed question mark (Supplemental Punctuation)

     Based on ISO 8859-6

U+0621   ء   Arabic letter hamza Lo AL 1.1
ref U+02BE   ʾ   modifier letter right half ring (Spacing Modifier Letters)
U+0622   آ   Arabic letter alef with madda above Lo AL 1.1
U+0623   أ   Arabic letter alef with hamza above Lo AL 1.1
U+0624   ؤ   Arabic letter waw with hamza above Lo AL 1.1
U+0625   إ   Arabic letter alef with hamza below Lo AL 1.1
U+0626   ئ   Arabic letter yeh with hamza above Lo AL 1.1
U+0627   ا   Arabic letter alef Lo AL 1.1
U+0628   ب   Arabic letter beh Lo AL 1.1
U+0629   ة   Arabic letter teh marbuta Lo AL 1.1
U+062A   ت   Arabic letter teh Lo AL 1.1
U+062B   ث   Arabic letter theh Lo AL 1.1
U+062C   ج   Arabic letter jeem Lo AL 1.1
U+062D   ح   Arabic letter hah Lo AL 1.1
U+062E   خ   Arabic letter khah Lo AL 1.1
U+062F   د   Arabic letter dal Lo AL 1.1
U+0630   ذ   Arabic letter thal Lo AL 1.1
U+0631   ر   Arabic letter reh Lo AL 1.1
U+0632   ز   Arabic letter zain Lo AL 1.1
U+0633   س   Arabic letter seen Lo AL 1.1
U+0634   ش   Arabic letter sheen Lo AL 1.1
U+0635   ص   Arabic letter sad Lo AL 1.1
U+0636   ض   Arabic letter dad Lo AL 1.1
U+0637   ط   Arabic letter tah Lo AL 1.1
U+0638   ظ   Arabic letter zah Lo AL 1.1
U+0639   ع   Arabic letter ain Lo AL 1.1
ref U+01B9   ƹ   Latin small letter ezh reversed (Latin Extended B)
ref U+02BF   ʿ   modifier letter left half ring (Spacing Modifier Letters)
U+063A   غ   Arabic letter ghain Lo AL 1.1

     Additions for early Persian and Azerbaijani

U+063B   ػ   Arabic letter keheh with two dots above Lo AL 5.1
U+063C   ؼ   Arabic letter keheh with three dots below Lo AL 5.1
U+063D   ؽ   Arabic letter farsi yeh with inverted v Lo AL 5.1
* Azerbaijani
U+063E   ؾ   Arabic letter farsi yeh with two dots above Lo AL 5.1
U+063F   ؿ   Arabic letter farsi yeh with three dots above Lo AL 5.1

     Based on ISO 8859-6

U+0640   ـ   Arabic tatweel Lm AL 1.1
aka kashida
* inserted to stretch characters
* also used with Syriac
U+0641   ف   Arabic letter feh Lo AL 1.1
U+0642   ق   Arabic letter qaf Lo AL 1.1
U+0643   ك   Arabic letter kaf Lo AL 1.1
U+0644   ل   Arabic letter lam Lo AL 1.1
U+0645   م   Arabic letter meem Lo AL 1.1
U+0646   ن   Arabic letter noon Lo AL 1.1
U+0647   ه   Arabic letter heh Lo AL 1.1
U+0648   و   Arabic letter waw Lo AL 1.1
U+0649   ى   Arabic letter alef maksura Lo AL 1.1
* represents YEH-shaped letter with no dots in any positional form
U+064A   ي   Arabic letter yeh Lo AL 1.1

     Points from ISO 8859-6

U+064B   ً   Arabic fathatan Mn NSM 1.1
U+064C   ٌ   Arabic dammatan Mn NSM 1.1
U+064D   ٍ   Arabic kasratan Mn NSM 1.1
U+064E   َ   Arabic fatha Mn NSM 1.1
U+064F   ُ   Arabic damma Mn NSM 1.1
U+0650   ِ   Arabic kasra Mn NSM 1.1
U+0651   ّ   Arabic shadda Mn NSM 1.1
U+0652   ْ   Arabic sukun Mn NSM 1.1
* marks absence of a vowel after the base consonant
* used in some Korans to mark a long vowel as ignored
* can have a variety of shapes, including a circular one and a shape that looks like '06E1'
ref U+06E1   ۡ   Arabic small high dotless head of khah (Arabic)

     Combining maddah and hamza

U+0653   ٓ   Arabic maddah above Mn NSM 3.0
U+0654   ٔ   Arabic hamza above Mn NSM 3.0
U+0655   ٕ   Arabic hamza below Mn NSM 3.0

     Other combining marks

U+0656   ٖ   Arabic subscript alef Mn NSM 4.0
U+0657   ٗ   Arabic inverted damma Mn NSM 4.0
aka ulta pesh
* Kashmiri, Urdu
U+0658   ٘   Arabic mark noon ghunna Mn NSM 4.0
* Kashmiri and Baluchi
* indicates nasalization in Urdu
U+0659   ٙ   Arabic zwarakay Mn NSM 4.1
* Pashto
U+065A   ٚ   Arabic vowel sign small v above Mn NSM 4.1
* African languages
U+065B   ٛ   Arabic vowel sign inverted small v above Mn NSM 4.1
* African languages
U+065C   ٜ   Arabic vowel sign dot below Mn NSM 4.1
* African languages
U+065D   ٝ   Arabic reversed damma Mn NSM 4.1
* Ormuri, African languages
U+065E   ٞ   Arabic fatha with two dots Mn NSM 4.1
* Kalami

     Arabic-Indic digits
These digits are used with Arabic proper; for languages of Iran, Pakistan, and India, see the Eastern Arabic-Indic digits at 06F0..06F9.

U+0660   ٠   Arabic indic digit zero Nd AN 1.1
U+0661   ١   Arabic indic digit one Nd AN 1.1
U+0662   ٢   Arabic indic digit two Nd AN 1.1
U+0663   ٣   Arabic indic digit three Nd AN 1.1
U+0664   ٤   Arabic indic digit four Nd AN 1.1
U+0665   ٥   Arabic indic digit five Nd AN 1.1
U+0666   ٦   Arabic indic digit six Nd AN 1.1
U+0667   ٧   Arabic indic digit seven Nd AN 1.1
U+0668   ٨   Arabic indic digit eight Nd AN 1.1
U+0669   ٩   Arabic indic digit nine Nd AN 1.1

     Punctuation

U+066A   ٪   Arabic percent sign Po ET 1.1
ref U+0025   %   percent sign (Basic Latin)
U+066B   ٫   Arabic decimal separator Po AN 1.1
U+066C   ٬   Arabic thousands separator Po AN 1.1
ref U+0027   '   apostrophe (Basic Latin)
ref U+2019   ’   right single quotation mark (General Punctuation)
U+066D   ٭   Arabic five pointed star Po AL 1.1
* appearance rather variable
ref U+002A   *   asterisk (Basic Latin)

     Archaic letters

U+066E   ٮ   Arabic letter dotless beh Lo AL 3.2
U+066F   ٯ   Arabic letter dotless qaf Lo AL 3.2

     Point

U+0670   ٰ   Arabic letter superscript alef Mn NSM 1.1
* actually a vowel sign, despite the name

     Extended Arabic letters

U+0671   ٱ   Arabic letter alef wasla Lo AL 1.1
* Koranic Arabic
U+0672   ٲ   Arabic letter alef with wavy hamza above Lo AL 1.1
* Baluchi, Kashmiri
U+0673   ٳ   Arabic letter alef with wavy hamza below Lo AL 1.1
* Baluchi, Kashmiri
U+0674   ٴ   Arabic letter high hamza Lo AL 1.1
* Kazakh
* forms digraphs
U+0675   ٵ   Arabic letter high hamza alef Lo AL 1.1
* Kazakh
U+0676   ٶ   Arabic letter high hamza waw Lo AL 1.1
* Kazakh
U+0677   ٷ   Arabic letter U with hamza above Lo AL 1.1
* Kazakh
U+0678   ٸ   Arabic letter high hamza yeh Lo AL 1.1
* Kazakh
U+0679   ٹ   Arabic letter tteh Lo AL 1.1
* Urdu
U+067A   ٺ   Arabic letter tteheh Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+067B   ٻ   Arabic letter beeh Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+067C   ټ   Arabic letter teh with ring Lo AL 1.1
* Pashto
U+067D   ٽ   Arabic letter teh with three dots above downwards Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+067E   پ   Arabic letter peh Lo AL 1.1
* Persian, Urdu, ...
U+067F   ٿ   Arabic letter teheh Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+0680   ڀ   Arabic letter beheh Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+0681   ځ   Arabic letter hah with hamza above Lo AL 1.1
* Pashto letter "dze"
U+0682   ڂ   Arabic letter hah with two dots vertical above Lo AL 1.1
* not used in modern Pashto
U+0683   ڃ   Arabic letter nyeh Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+0684   ڄ   Arabic letter dyeh Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+0685   څ   Arabic letter hah with three dots above Lo AL 1.1
* Pashto, Khwarazmian
U+0686   چ   Arabic letter tcheh Lo AL 1.1
* Persian, Urdu, ...
U+0687   ڇ   Arabic letter tcheheh Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+0688   ڈ   Arabic letter ddal Lo AL 1.1
* Urdu
U+0689   ډ   Arabic letter dal with ring Lo AL 1.1
* Pashto
U+068A   ڊ   Arabic letter dal with dot below Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi, early Persian
U+068B   ڋ   Arabic letter dal with dot below and small tah Lo AL 1.1
* Lahnda
U+068C   ڌ   Arabic letter dahal Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+068D   ڍ   Arabic letter ddahal Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+068E   ڎ   Arabic letter dul Lo AL 1.1
* older shape for DUL, now obsolete in Sindhi
* Burushaski
U+068F   ڏ   Arabic letter dal with three dots above downwards Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
* current shape used for DUL
U+0690   ڐ   Arabic letter dal with four dots above Lo AL 1.1
* old Urdu, not in current use
U+0691   ڑ   Arabic letter rreh Lo AL 1.1
* Urdu
U+0692   ڒ   Arabic letter reh with small v Lo AL 1.1
* Kurdish
U+0693   ړ   Arabic letter reh with ring Lo AL 1.1
* Pashto
U+0694   ڔ   Arabic letter reh with dot below Lo AL 1.1
* Kurdish, early Persian
U+0695   ڕ   Arabic letter reh with small v below Lo AL 1.1
* Kurdish
U+0696   ږ   Arabic letter reh with dot below and dot above Lo AL 1.1
* Pashto
U+0697   ڗ   Arabic letter reh with two dots above Lo AL 1.1
* Dargwa
U+0698   ژ   Arabic letter jeh Lo AL 1.1
* Persian, Urdu, ...
U+0699   ڙ   Arabic letter reh with four dots above Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+069A   ښ   Arabic letter seen with dot below and dot above Lo AL 1.1
* Pashto
U+069B   ڛ   Arabic letter seen with three dots below Lo AL 1.1
* early Persian
U+069C   ڜ   Arabic letter seen with three dots below and three dots above Lo AL 1.1
* Moroccan Arabic
U+069D   ڝ   Arabic letter sad with two dots below Lo AL 1.1
* Turkic
U+069E   ڞ   Arabic letter sad with three dots above Lo AL 1.1
* Berber, Burushaski
U+069F   ڟ   Arabic letter tah with three dots above Lo AL 1.1
* old Hausa
U+06A0   ڠ   Arabic letter ain with three dots above Lo AL 1.1
* old Malay
U+06A1   ڡ   Arabic letter dotless feh Lo AL 1.1
* Adighe
U+06A2   ڢ   Arabic letter feh with dot moved below Lo AL 1.1
* Maghrib Arabic
U+06A3   ڣ   Arabic letter feh with dot below Lo AL 1.1
* Ingush
U+06A4   ڤ   Arabic letter veh Lo AL 1.1
* Middle Eastern Arabic for foreign words
* Kurdish, Khwarazmian, early Persian
U+06A5   ڥ   Arabic letter feh with three dots below Lo AL 1.1
* North African Arabic for foreign words
U+06A6   ڦ   Arabic letter peheh Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+06A7   ڧ   Arabic letter qaf with dot above Lo AL 1.1
* Maghrib Arabic
U+06A8   ڨ   Arabic letter qaf with three dots above Lo AL 1.1
* Tunisian Arabic
U+06A9   ک   Arabic letter keheh Lo AL 1.1
* Persian, Urdu, ...
U+06AA   ڪ   Arabic letter swash kaf Lo AL 1.1
U+06AB   ګ   Arabic letter kaf with ring Lo AL 1.1
* Pashto
* may appear like an Arabic KAF (0643) with a ring below the base
U+06AC   ڬ   Arabic letter kaf with dot above Lo AL 1.1
* old Malay
U+06AD   ڭ   Arabic letter ng Lo AL 1.1
* Uighur, Kazakh, old Malay, early Persian, ...
U+06AE   ڮ   Arabic letter kaf with three dots below Lo AL 1.1
* Berber, early Persian
U+06AF   گ   Arabic letter gaf Lo AL 1.1
* Persian, Urdu, ...
U+06B0   ڰ   Arabic letter gaf with ring Lo AL 1.1
* Lahnda
U+06B1   ڱ   Arabic letter ngoeh Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+06B2   ڲ   Arabic letter gaf with two dots below Lo AL 1.1
* not used in Sindhi
U+06B3   ڳ   Arabic letter gueh Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+06B4   ڴ   Arabic letter gaf with three dots above Lo AL 1.1
* not used in Sindhi
U+06B5   ڵ   Arabic letter lam with small v Lo AL 1.1
* Kurdish
U+06B6   ڶ   Arabic letter lam with dot above Lo AL 1.1
* Kurdish
U+06B7   ڷ   Arabic letter lam with three dots above Lo AL 1.1
* Kurdish
U+06B8   ڸ   Arabic letter lam with three dots below Lo AL 3.0
U+06B9   ڹ   Arabic letter noon with dot below Lo AL 3.0
U+06BA   ں   Arabic letter noon ghunna Lo AL 1.1
* Urdu
U+06BB   ڻ   Arabic letter rnoon Lo AL 1.1
* Sindhi
U+06BC   ڼ   Arabic letter noon with ring Lo AL 1.1
* Pashto
U+06BD   ڽ   Arabic letter noon with three dots above Lo AL 1.1
* old Malay
U+06BE   ھ   Arabic letter heh doachashmee Lo AL 1.1
* Urdu
* forms aspirate digraphs
U+06BF   ڿ   Arabic letter tcheh with dot above Lo AL 3.0
U+06C0   ۀ   Arabic letter heh with yeh above Lo AL 1.1
aka Arabic letter hamzah on ha (1.0)
aka izafet
* Urdu
* actually a ligature, not an independent letter
U+06C1   ہ   Arabic letter heh goal Lo AL 1.1
* Urdu
U+06C2   ۂ   Arabic letter heh goal with hamza above Lo AL 1.1
* Urdu
* actually a ligature, not an independent letter
U+06C3   ۃ   Arabic letter teh marbuta goal Lo AL 1.1
* Urdu
U+06C4   ۄ   Arabic letter waw with ring Lo AL 1.1
* Kashmiri
U+06C5   ۅ   Arabic letter kirghiz oe Lo AL 1.1
* Kirghiz
U+06C6   ۆ   Arabic letter oe Lo AL 1.1
* Uighur, Kurdish, Kazakh. Azerbaijani
U+06C7   ۇ   Arabic letter U Lo AL 1.1
* Kirghiz, Azerbaijani
U+06C8   ۈ   Arabic letter yu Lo AL 1.1
* Uighur
U+06C9   ۉ   Arabic letter kirghiz yu Lo AL 1.1
* Kazakh, Kirghiz
U+06CA   ۊ   Arabic letter waw with two dots above Lo AL 1.1
* Kurdish
U+06CB   ۋ   Arabic letter ve Lo AL 1.1
* Uighur, Kazakh
U+06CC   ی   Arabic letter farsi yeh Lo AL 1.1
* Arabic, Persian, Urdu, ...
* initial and medial forms of this letter have dots
ref U+0649   ى   Arabic letter alef maksura (Arabic)
ref U+064A   ي   Arabic letter yeh (Arabic)
U+06CD   ۍ   Arabic letter yeh with tail Lo AL 1.1
* Pashto, Sindhi
U+06CE   ێ   Arabic letter yeh with small v Lo AL 1.1
* Kurdish
U+06CF   ۏ   Arabic letter waw with dot above Lo AL 3.0
U+06D0   ې   Arabic letter E Lo AL 1.1
* Pashto, Uighur
* used as the letter bbeh in Sindhi
U+06D1   ۑ   Arabic letter yeh with three dots below Lo AL 1.1
* old Malay
U+06D2   ے   Arabic letter yeh barree Lo AL 1.1
* Urdu
U+06D3   ۓ   Arabic letter yeh barree with hamza above Lo AL 1.1
* Urdu
* actually a ligature, not an independent letter

     Punctuation

U+06D4   ۔   Arabic full stop Po AL 1.1
* Urdu

     Extended Arabic letter

U+06D5   ە   Arabic letter ae Lo AL 1.1
* Uighur, Kazakh, Kirghiz

     Koranic annotation signs

U+06D6   ۖ   Arabic small high ligature sad with lam with alef maksura Mn NSM 1.1
U+06D7   ۗ   Arabic small high ligature qaf with lam with alef maksura Mn NSM 1.1
U+06D8   ۘ   Arabic small high meem initial form Mn NSM 1.1
U+06D9   ۙ   Arabic small high lam alef Mn NSM 1.1
U+06DA   ۚ   Arabic small high jeem Mn NSM 1.1
U+06DB   ۛ   Arabic small high three dots Mn NSM 1.1
U+06DC   ۜ   Arabic small high seen Mn NSM 1.1
U+06DD   ۝   Arabic end of ayah Cf AN 1.1
U+06DE   ۞   Arabic start of rub el hizb Me NSM 1.1
U+06DF   ۟   Arabic small high rounded zero Mn NSM 1.1
* smaller than the typical circular shape used for 0652
U+06E0   ۠   Arabic small high upright rectangular zero Mn NSM 1.1
U+06E1   ۡ   Arabic small high dotless head of khah Mn NSM 1.1
aka Arabic jazm
* presentation form of 0652, using font technology to select the variant is preferred
* used in some Korans to mark absence of a vowel
ref U+0652   ْ   Arabic sukun (Arabic)
U+06E2   ۢ   Arabic small high meem isolated form Mn NSM 1.1
U+06E3   ۣ   Arabic small low seen Mn NSM 1.1
U+06E4   ۤ   Arabic small high madda Mn NSM 1.1
U+06E5   ۥ   Arabic small waw Lm AL 1.1
U+06E6   ۦ   Arabic small yeh Lm AL 1.1
U+06E7   ۧ   Arabic small high yeh Mn NSM 1.1
U+06E8   ۨ   Arabic small high noon Mn NSM 1.1
U+06E9   ۩   Arabic place of sajdah So ON 1.1
* there is a range of acceptable glyphs for this character
U+06EA   ۪   Arabic empty centre low stop Mn NSM 1.1
U+06EB   ۫   Arabic empty centre high stop Mn NSM 1.1
U+06EC   ۬   Arabic rounded high stop with filled centre Mn NSM 1.1
U+06ED   ۭ   Arabic small low meem Mn NSM 1.1

     Extended Arabic letters for Parkari

U+06EE   ۮ   Arabic letter dal with inverted v Lo AL 4.0
U+06EF   ۯ   Arabic letter reh with inverted v Lo AL 4.0
* also used in early Persian

     Eastern Arabic-Indic digits
These digits are used with Arabic-script languages of Iran, Pakistan, and India (Persian, Sindhi, Urdu, etc.). For details of variations in preferred glyphs, see the block description for the Arabic script.

U+06F0   ۰   extended Arabic indic digit zero Nd EN 1.1
U+06F1   ۱   extended Arabic indic digit one Nd EN 1.1
U+06F2   ۲   extended Arabic indic digit two Nd EN 1.1
U+06F3   ۳   extended Arabic indic digit three Nd EN 1.1
U+06F4   ۴   extended Arabic indic digit four Nd EN 1.1
* Persian has a different glyph than Sindhi and Urdu
U+06F5   ۵   extended Arabic indic digit five Nd EN 1.1
* Persian, Sindhi, and Urdu share glyph different from Arabic
U+06F6   ۶   extended Arabic indic digit six Nd EN 1.1
* Persian, Sindhi, and Urdu have glyphs different from Arabic
U+06F7   ۷   extended Arabic indic digit seven Nd EN 1.1
* Urdu and Sindhi have glyphs different from Arabic
U+06F8   ۸   extended Arabic indic digit eight Nd EN 1.1
U+06F9   ۹   extended Arabic indic digit nine Nd EN 1.1

     Extended Arabic letters

U+06FA   ۺ   Arabic letter sheen with dot below Lo AL 3.0
U+06FB   ۻ   Arabic letter dad with dot below Lo AL 3.0
U+06FC   ۼ   Arabic letter ghain with dot below Lo AL 3.0

     Signs for Sindhi

U+06FD   ۽   Arabic sign sindhi ampersand So AL 3.0
U+06FE   ۾   Arabic sign sindhi postposition men So AL 3.0

     Extended Arabic letter for Parkari

U+06FF   ۿ   Arabic letter heh with inverted v Lo AL 4.0

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Ar"a*bic (#), a. [L. Arabicus, fr. Arabia.]

Of or pertaining to Arabia or the Arabians.

Arabic numerals or figures, the nine digits, 1, 2, 3, etc., and the cipher 0. -- Gum arabic. See under Gum.

 

© Webster 1913.


Ar"a*bic, n.

The language of the Arabians.

⇒ The Arabic is a Semitic language, allied to the Hebrew. It is very widely diffused, being the language in which all Mohammedans must read the Koran, and is spoken as a vernacular tongue in Arabia, Syria, and Northern Africa.

 

© Webster 1913.

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