الأَبْجَدِيَّة العَرَبِيَّة (al-abjadiyya al-ʿarabiyya)
The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters, all consonants or long vowels, written from right to left. Most letters join the next one and change shape with their position, and short vowels are usually left out.
Tap a letter to hear it; the small ▶ plays the example word. Practice mode hides names and sounds until you tap a card.
Shapes are shown as isolated, final, medial and initial. Six letters (ا د ذ ر ز و) never join the letter after them.
These are not counted among the 28 letters but appear in almost every text.
Small marks above or below a letter, shown here on bāʾ (ب). They are written in the Qur’an, children’s books and dictionaries, but usually left out.
| Mark | Name | Sound | Example | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| بَ | fatḥa (فَتْحَة) | short a | كَتَبَ · kataba, he wrote | |
| بِ | kasra (كَسْرَة) | short i | بِنْت · bint, girl | |
| بُ | ḍamma (ضَمَّة) | short u | كُتُب · kutub, books | |
| بْ | sukūn (سُكُون) | no vowel after the letter | بَحْر · baḥr, sea | |
| بّ | shadda (شَدَّة) | the consonant is doubled | قِطَّة · qiṭṭa, cat | |
| بً | tanwīn fatḥ | -an | شُكْرًا · shukran, thank you | |
| بٍ | tanwīn kasr | -in | كِتَابٍ · kitābin, (of) a book | |
| بٌ | tanwīn ḍamm | -un | كِتَابٌ · kitābun, a book | |
| هٰ | dagger alif (أَلِف خَنْجَرِيَّة) | long a, in a few words | هٰذَا · hādhā, this |
Hamza (the glottal stop) is written alone or on a “seat” letter chosen by the vowels around it.
| Form | Name | Used | Example | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ء | hamza on the line | mostly after a long vowel at the end of a word | سَمَاء · samāʾ, sky | |
| أ | hamza on alif | with a or u, often at the start of a word | أَب · ʾab, father | |
| إ | hamza under alif | with i at the start of a word | إِصْبَع · ʾiṣbaʿ, finger | |
| ؤ | hamza on wāw | usually next to u | سُؤَال · suʾāl, question | |
| ئ | hamza on a dotless yāʾ | usually next to i | رَئِيس · raʾīs, president | |
| آ | alif madda (أَلِف مَدَّة) | hamza + long a: ʾā | آخِر · ʾākhir, last |
Arabic is written and read from right to left, and there are no capital letters. Within a word most letters join the next one and change shape slightly: ب alone, بـ at the start, ـبـ in the middle, ـب at the end. Numbers are still written from left to right.
Only long ā, ī, ū are written with letters (ا ي و). Short a, i, u are small optional marks, left out in newspapers, books and signs. Readers know the word, so كتب can be read as kataba (he wrote) or kutub (books) depending on context.
The word for “the” is al- (ال). Before the 14 “sun letters” (ت ث د ذ ر ز س ش ص ض ط ظ ل ن) the l is not pronounced and the next consonant is doubled: الشَّمْس ash-shams (the sun). Before the other 14, the “moon letters”, the l is heard: القَمَر al-qamar (the moon).
ص ض ط ظ are “emphatic”: heavy versions of s, d, t and th, said with the back of the tongue raised; they darken the vowels around them. ح ع خ غ ق are made deep in the throat and have no English equivalent, so it pays to listen to them early.
Many letters share one basic shape and differ only in the number and position of dots: ب ت ث, ج ح خ, د ذ, ر ز, س ش, ص ض, ط ظ, ع غ. A dot in the wrong place makes a different word.
This page describes Modern Standard Arabic, used in writing, news and formal speech. Everyday speech varies by country: ج is g in Egypt, and ق is often a glottal stop in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus.
Audio is synthetic speech generated with Google Cloud Text-to-Speech (Chirp 3: HD voices). Letter inventory checked against Unicode CLDR.