Arabic characters and their meaning

Arabic (alifba in Arabic) consonant (that is, only consonants are written) letter spelling, used for the Arabic language and some others, is one of the most difficult writing systems at the moment. Modern Arabic writing is a multi-vector phenomenon. However, Arabic characters are very actively being squeezed out of the area of ​​communication, where there is another official language.

The essence of Arabic writing

Characteristics of Arabic writing:

1. Left-side orientation - the letter traditionally goes from right to left.
2. A lot of superscripts and also subscripts are diacritics, which was created to recognize weakly distinguishable letters and to create new characters.
3. Italic type of writing, lack of "provisions" and capital letters. Moreover, the italics (cohesion) of the Arabic script is not consistent: some Arabic characters connect with the others either exclusively on the left or exclusively on the right.
4. Allography - a change in 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 half-vowels, as well as diacritics in the form of superscripts or subscripts, circles, dashes, built into the alphabetical system after the adoption of Islam, or to recognize some consonants and sounds, or to designate vowels for the purpose of more accurate transmission of the text of the holy Quran.

History of Arabic writing.

In science, it is believed that Arabic writing originated on the basis of the Nabataean script (fourth century BC - first century CE), however, one does not need to discount the ancient tradition of Syriac writing, as well as the stylistic proximity of letters from the sacred Avesta books.

Thus, Arabica arose even before the emergence of such a world religion as Islam. In the Soviet Union, writing based on Arabic letters was banned in 1928 by decree of the CEC and the Council of People's Commissars, and the authors of the modernized Arabica were repressed. An interesting fact is that nowhere except for 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: its global significance

Arabic (Arabic version of اللغة العربية, read as "al-luġa al-ʿarabiya") is the language of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asian language family. The number of speakers of this language and its dialects is approximately three hundred million (as the first language), and another fifty million people use Arabic as a second language for communication. Classical Arabic - 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 stood out for its significant dialect branching and diversity.

Arabic dialects

Modern spoken Arabic is divided into five dialectal subgroups, which are essentially separate languages ​​from a philological point of view:

• Maghreb dialects.
• Sudanese-Egyptian dialects.
• Iraqi-Mesopotamian dialects.
• Arabian dialect group.
• Central Asian dialect groups.

The Maghreb dialect belongs to the western group, others 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.

Quran as the basis of Arabica

In Arab myths, the great Allah created the letters and handed them to Adam, withholding them from the angels. The creator of Arabic writing is sometimes considered not able to write and read the prophet Muhammad, or his personal assistant.

According to the Arabic linguistic tradition, the actual Arabic script 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, when the Koran was first recorded (651).

The Qur'an (translated from Arabic as قُرْآن - read) can also be published under the names Holy Book or Good Word. It contains one hundred and fourteen unrelated chapters (Suras in Arabic). Suras, in turn, are composed of verses (verses) and are arranged in descending order of the number of verses.

In 631 A.D. The military-religious state of the Arab Caliphate was founded, and the Arabic script is gaining 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-Asuad al-Douali, introduced additional characters in the Arabic characters for writing short vowels. Around the same time period, Nasr ibn-Asym and Yahya ibn-Yamara invented a system of diacritics to distinguish between a number of letter-like graphemes.

In the eighth century, a resident of the city of Basrah Al-Khalil ibn Ahmed improved the writing of short vowels. His system has reached the present and is mainly used in writing the texts of the Koran, lyric and educational texts.

Arabic characters and their meaning

The most famous examples of Arabica are the following words:

• الحب - love;
• راحة - comfort;
• السعادة - happiness;
• الازدهار - well-being;
• فرح - joy (positive mood);
• الأسرة - family.

Arabic characters translated into Russian are easy to find in academic professional dictionaries. In the Arabic language there are a lot of original handwritings (from the Arabic language خط hatṭ “line”), the most important of which are:

• naskh (نسخ "copying"), is considered a classic Arabic spelling and is used in a typographic set;
• Nastalik is especially respected in Iran, where Shiite Islam exists;
• Maghribi (such countries as Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia);
• kufi (Arabic. كوفي, from the geographic name of the town of Kufa) - scientists consider it to be the most ancient style, its features are modest and refined.
  

Arabic characters with translation

Consider some examples of Arabic words. Arabic characters and their meaning in Russian are always given with transcription for correct pronunciation.

Variety of arabic handwriting

For many centuries, the stereotype of Arabic writing has taken root - the direction of letters is to form a line, on both parts of which dots are disproportionately written. It is believed that Arabic writing influenced the emergence of modern written systems for shorthand and coding.

The many handwritings of the Arabic language can also be explained by its specific features and dialectal diversity. In the circle of the Maghreb spelling, some scholars found a Berber-Libyan influence, in the diagonal “nastalik” - a legacy of Avestan writing.

Arabic letters get very pronounced square shapes mainly in Central Asia, where they may have been introduced to the Chinese square handwriting of shanfang-dazhuan, as well as the Tibetan writing system of Pakba. Many writing systems have influenced Arabic characters. Photos of Arabica can be found both in the article and in the specialized literature.