- In Arabic, there are 3 short vowel-marks. We shall learn the long vowel-marks in a later lesson In-Shā’-Allâh (God willing). The short vowel-marks enable the letter to make a sound in a similar way to the English language. In the same way a word cannot be made in the English language without one of the 5 vowels (a, e, i, o or u), in Arabic one cannot make a word without a vowel being used.
- We will cover the 3 vowel-marks in Arabic below In-Shā’-Allâh (God willing). The vowel-marks are the marks below or above the letter /Dāl/ in the examples below. The letter / Dāl/ has been used to give you an idea of where the vowel is placed.
Chapter 17: ARABIC SHORT VOWEL-MARKS OVERVIEW
Chapter 16: ARABIC ALPHABET- NAMES
- In this lesson we will learn the Arabic Alphabet In-Shā’-Allâh (God Willing). The lesson is designed to teach the names of all the alphabets. Click on the letters to hear how the letter names are pronounced.
- Please note that some of these letters are very similar to English letter sounds e.g.: /Bā’/ is very close to the letter 'B' in the English language, this is a useful way to remember the sounds of the letters. However many letters have no equivalent sounds in English e.g.: /ξayn/, and some letters have subtle but important differences in pronunciation, e.g.: /Hā’/ which is pronounced with a lot more emphasis in the throat than the letter 'H' in English.
Chapter 15: What's significant about the Arabic alphabet?
Where did the vowels go?
The Arabic alphabet, or الأبجدية [el abjadiyya], consists of 28 letters, 25 of which are consonants, and only 3 are vowels:
أ [alif], و [waw] and ي [ya’a] also known as long vowels.Arabic is a consonantic language which means vowels could theoretically be omitted when writing words. However, spoken Arabic obviously has vowel sounds. They are indicated by diacritical marks placed above or below the letters. These vowel signs or
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)