
Arabic alphabet
Alphabets for Arabic and other languages / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Arabic alphabet (Arabic: الْأَبْجَدِيَّة الْعَرَبِيَّة, al-abjadīyah al-ʿarabīyah [al.ʔab.d͡ʒa.dijːa‿l.ʕa.ra.bijːa] or الْحُرُوف الْعَرَبِيَّة, al-ḥurūf l-ʿarabīyah), or 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, of which most have contextual letterforms. The Arabic alphabet is considered an abjad, with only consonants required to be written; due to its optional use of diacritics to notate vowels, it is considered an impure abjad.[2]
Arabic alphabet | |
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Script type | |
Time period | 4th century CE – present[1] |
Direction | right-to-left script ![]() |
Languages | Arabic |
Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
ISO 15924 | |
ISO 15924 | Arab (160), Arabic |
Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Arabic |
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This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. |
Arabic alphabet |
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Arabic script |
Egyptian hieroglyphs 32nd c. BCE
Hangul 1443 CE Thaana c. 18 CE (derived from Eastern Arabic numerals and Brahmi numerals) |

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