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Instead of writing the letter twice, Arabic places a W-shaped sign called shaddah, above it. Note that if a vowel occurs between the two consonants the letter will simply be written twice. The diacritic only appears where the consonant at the end of one syllable is identical to the initial consonant of the following syllable.
Vowel chart representing the pronunciation of diphthongs by a Palestinian speaker educated in Beirut. From Thelwall (1990:38) Modern Standard Arabic has six vowel phonemes forming three pairs of corresponding short and long vowels (/a, aː, i, iː, u, uː/). Many spoken varieties also include /oː/ and /eː/.
However, most modern abjads, such as Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Pahlavi, are "impure" abjads – that is, they also contain symbols for some of the vowel phonemes, although the said non-diacritic vowel letters are also used to write certain consonants, particularly approximants that sound similar to long vowels.
Early written Arabic used only rasm (in black). Later, i‘jām (in red) were added so that letters such as ṣād (ص) and ḍād (ض) could be distinguished. Ḥarakāt (in blue)—which is used in the Qur'an but not in most written Arabic—indicate short vowels, long consonants, and some other vocalizations.
When a letter was at the end of a word, it often developed an end loop, and as a result most Arabic letters have two or more shapes, so for example n ن and y ي have different shapes at the end of the words ( ـي , ـن ) but they have the same linked initial and medial shapes ( يـ , نـ ) as b, t, and ṯ ( بـ , تـ and ثـ ), the ...
Classical Arabic has 28 consonantal phonemes, including two semi-vowels, which constitute the Arabic alphabet. It also has six vowel phonemes (three short vowels and three long vowels). These appear as various allophones, depending on the preceding consonant. Short vowels are not usually represented in the written language, although they may be ...
Berber languages have often been written in an adaptation of the Arabic alphabet. The use of the Arabic alphabet, as well as the competing Latin and Tifinagh scripts, has political connotations; Tuareg language, (sometimes called Tamasheq) which is also a Berber language; Coptic language of Egyptians as Coptic text written in Arabic letters [25]
"Arabic" = Letters used in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, and most regional dialects. "Farsi" = Letters used in modern Persian. FW = Foreign words: the letter is sometimes used to spell foreign words. SV = Stylistic variant: the letter is used interchangeably with at least one other letter depending on the calligraphic style. AW ...