Arabic (alifba in Arabic) consonant (that is, only consonants are written) alphabetic spelling used for Arabic and some others is one of the most complex writing systems at the moment. Modern Arabic writing is a multi-vector phenomenon. However, Arabic hieroglyphs are being actively pushed out of the area of communication, where there is another official language.
The Essence of Arabic Writing
Characteristic features of the Arabic script:
- Left-handed - writing traditionally goes from right to left.
- A lot of superscript and also subscript dots - diacritics that were created to recognize poorly distinguishable letters and to create new characters.
- Italic type of writing, lack of "provisions" and capital letters. Moreover, the italic (confluence) of Arabic writing is not consistent: some Arabic hieroglyphs are connected to the rest either exclusively on the left or exclusively on the right.
- Allography - changing the appearance of letters. It depends on their position in the word - at the end, middle, beginning or separately.
The modern Arabic alphabet consists of twenty-eight consonants and semivowels, as well as diacritics in the formsuperscript or subscript dots, circles, dashes, built into the alphabet system after the adoption of Islam, either to recognize certain consonant letters and sounds, or to indicate vowels in order to more accurately convey the text of the Holy Quran.
History of Arabic writing
In science, it is believed that the Arabic script arose on the basis of the Nabataean script (fourth century BC - first century AD), but the ancient tradition of Syriac writing should not be discounted, as well as stylistic proximity of letters from the holy book "Avesta".
Thus, the Arabic alphabet arose even before the emergence of such a world religion as Islam. In the Soviet Union, writing based on the Arabic script was banned in 1928 by a decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, and the authors of the modernized Arabic alphabet were repressed. An interesting fact is that nowhere, with the exception of the Tatar SSR, the replacement of the Arabic graphics (alifba) with Latin letters (yanalif) did not cause much resistance. According to statistics, about seven percent of the world's population uses Arabic characters.
Arabic language: its global significance
Arabic (Arabic اللغة العربية, read as "al-luġa al-ʿarabiya") is the language of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. The number of speakers of this language and its dialects is approximately three hundred million (as a first language), and another fifty million people use Arabic as a second language for communication. ClassicalArabic - the language of the Holy Quran - is constantly used in religious processions and prayers by adherents of Islam around the world (the total number of Muslims is about one and a half billion). Since ancient times, it has been distinguished by its significant dialect branching and diversity.
Dialects of Arabic
Modern colloquial Arabic is divided into five dialectal subgroups, which are essentially separate languages from a philological point of view:
- Maghrebi variants of dialects.
- Sudanese-Egyptian dialects.
- Iraqi-Mesopotamian dialects.
- Arabian dialect group.
- Central Asian dialect groups.
The Maghreb dialect belongs to the western group, others belong to the eastern group of Arabic dialects. Arabic dialects are state dialects in twenty-two eastern countries, which have given it official status and are used in administrative institutions and courts.
The Quran as the basis of the Arabic script
In Arabic myths, the great Allah created the letters and gave them to Adam, hiding from the angels. The creator of the Arabic script is sometimes considered to be the prophet Muhammad, who cannot write and read, or his personal assistant.
According to the Arabic linguistic tradition, the Arabic script itself is formed in the city of Hira, the main city of the Dahmid state, and acquires further development in the middle of the seventh century, during the primary recording of the Koran (651d.).
The Quran (translated from Arabic as قُرْآن - to read) can also be published under the titles of the Holy Book or the Blessed Word. It has one hundred and fourteen unrelated chapters (suras in Arabic). Surahs, in turn, are composed of verses (verses) and are arranged in descending order of the number of verses.
In 631 AD the military-religious state of the Arab Caliphate was founded, and Arabic writing acquires world significance, and at the moment it dominates the Middle East. The capital of Arabic linguistics was Iraq (the cities of Basra and Kufa).
In the seventh century, a resident of Basra, Abul-Aswad-ad-Duali, introduced additional characters into Arabic hieroglyphs to write short vowels. Around the same time period, Nasr ibn-Asym and Yahya ibn-Yamara invented a system of diacritics to distinguish a number of graphemes similar in writing.
In the eighth century, a resident of the city of Basra, Al-Khalil ibn-Ahmed, improved the spelling of short vowels. His system has come down to the present and is mainly used when writing the texts of the Koran, lyrical and educational texts.
Arabic characters and their meanings
The most famous examples of Arabic are the following words:
- الحب - love;
- راحة - comfort;
- السعادة - happiness;
- الازدهار - well-being;
- فرح - joy (positive mood);
- الأسرة - family.
Arabic hieroglyphs with translation into Russian are easy to find in academic professional dictionaries. There are a lot of original handwritings in Arabic (from Arabic خط hatṭ "line"), the most important of which are:
- naskh (نسخ "copy"), considered classical Arabic spelling and used in typography;
- nastaliq is especially respected in Iran, where Shiite Islam exists;
- Maghrebi (countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia);
- kufi (arab. كوفي, from the geographic name of the town of Kufa) - scientists consider it the oldest handwriting, its features are modest and refined.
Arabic characters with translation
Let's look at some examples of Arabic words. Arabic characters and their meaning in Russian are always given with transcription for correct pronunciation.
| English | Inglis | ﺇﻨﺟﻟﺯ |
| English | Inglizi | ﺇﻨﺟﻟﺯﻯ |
| English | Inglisey | ﺇﻨﺟﻟﺯﻴﺔ |
| England | Inglithera | ﺇﻨﺟﻟﺘﺮ |
| Anise | Ensun | ﻴﻨﺴﻮﻦ |
| Oranges | Burtukali | ﺒﺭﺘﻗﺎﻝ |
| Oranges (second value) | Burtukan | ﺒﺭﺘﻗﺎﻦ |
| Pharmacy | Seidelia | ﺼﯿﺪﻠﯿﺔ |
| Arabic classic | Fosha | ﻓﺼﺤﻰ |
Variety of Arabic handwriting
For many centuries, the stereotype of Arabic writing has taken root - the direction of the letters to line up in a line, on both parts of which dots are disproportionately written. It is believed that the Arabic script influenced the emergence of modern written systems of shorthand and coding.
Many handwritings of the Arabic language can also be explained by its specific features and dialect diversity. In the circumference of the Maghreb writing, some scholars have found a Berber-Libyan influence, in the diagonal "nastaliq" - a legacy of the Avestan writing.
The Arabic writing gets very pronounced square outlines mainly in Central Asia, where, perhaps, they were introduced to the Chinese square handwriting Shanfan-daczhuan, as well as the Tibetan writing system Pakba. Many writing systems have influenced Arabic characters. Photos of Arabica can be found both in the article and in special literature.
