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The Arabic script has numerous , which include consonant pointing known as ' (إِعْجَام, ), and supplementary diacritics known as ' (تَشْكِيل, ). The latter include the vowel marks termed '' (حَرَكَات, ; حَرَكَة, , ).
The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where all letters are consonants, leaving it up to the reader to fill in the vowel sounds. Short consonants and long vowels are represented by letters, but short vowels and consonant length are not generally indicated in writing. is optional to represent missing vowels and consonant length. Modern Arabic is always written with the i‘jām—consonant pointing—but only religious texts, children's books and works for learners are written with the full tashkīl—vowel guides and consonant length. It is, however, not uncommon for authors to add diacritics to a word or letter when the grammatical case or the meaning is deemed otherwise ambiguous. In addition, classical works and historical documents rendered to the general public are often rendered with the full tashkīl, to compensate for the gap in understanding resulting from stylistic changes over the centuries.
Moreover, tashkīl can change the meaning of the entire word, for example, the words: (دِين), meaning (religion), and (دَين), meaning (debt). Even though they have the same letters, their meanings are different because of the tashkīl. In sentences without tashkīl, readers understand the meaning of the word by simply using context.
The bulk of Arabic script is written without (or short vowels). However, they are commonly used in texts that demand strict adherence to exact pronunciation. This is true, primarily, of the Qur'an () and . It is also quite common to add to (; plural: ) and the . Another use is in children's literature. Moreover, are used in ordinary texts in individual words when an ambiguity of pronunciation cannot easily be resolved from context alone. Arabic dictionaries with vowel marks provide information about the correct pronunciation to both native and foreign Arabic speakers. In art and calligraphy, might be used simply because their writing is considered aesthetics pleasing.
An example of a fully vocalised ( vowelised or vowelled) Arabic from the Basmala:
Some Arabic textbooks for foreigners now use as a phonetic guide to make learning reading Arabic easier. The other method used in textbooks is phonetic romanisation of unvocalised texts. Fully vocalised Arabic texts (i.e. Arabic texts with /diacritics) are sought after by learners of Arabic. Some online bilingual dictionaries also provide as a phonetic guide similarly to English dictionaries providing transcription.
When a is placed before a plain letter ( Aleph) (i.e. one having no hamza or vowel of its own), it represents a long (close to the sound of "a" in the English word "dad", with an open front vowel /æː/, not back /ɑː/ as in "father"). For example: . The ' is not usually written in such cases. When a fathah is placed before the letter ⟨ﻱ⟩ (yā’), it creates an (as in "lie "); and when placed before the letter ⟨و⟩ (wāw), it creates an (as in "cow'''").
Although paired with a plain letter creates an open front vowel (/a/), often realized as near-open (/æ/), the standard also allows for variations, especially under certain surrounding conditions. Usually, in order to have the more central (/ä/) or back (/ɑ/) pronunciation, the word features a nearby back consonant, such as the emphatics, as well as qāf, or rā’. A similar "back" quality is undergone by other vowels as well in the presence of such consonants, however not as drastically realized as in the case of .Karin C. Ryding, "A Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic", Cambridge University Press, 2005, pgs. 25-34, specifically “Chapter 2, Section 4: Vowels”Anatole Lyovin, Brett Kessler, William Ronald Leben, "An Introduction to the Languages of the World", "5.6 Sketch of Modern Standard Arabic", Oxford University Press, 2017, pg. 255, Edition 2, specifically “5.6.2.2 Vowels”Amine Bouchentouf, Arabic For Dummies®, John Wiley & Sons, 2018, 3rd Edition, specifically section "All About Vowels"
s are encoded , , , or .
When a is placed before a plain letter (), it represents a long (as in the English word "steed"). For example: . The is usually not written in such cases, but if is pronounced as a diphthong , should be written on the preceding letter to avoid mispronunciation. The word means 'breaking'.
s are encoded , , , or .
When a is placed before a plain letter (), it represents a long (like the 'oo' sound in the English word "swoop"). For example: . The is usually not written in such cases, but if is pronounced as a diphthong , '' should be written on the preceding consonant to avoid mispronunciation.
The word ḍammah (ضَمَّة) in this context means rounding, since it is the only rounded vowel in the vowel inventory of Arabic.
s are encoded , , , or .
The dagger occurs in only a few words, but they include some common ones; it is seldom written, however, even in fully vocalised texts. Most keyboards do not have dagger . The word Allah ()(God) is usually produced automatically by entering . The word consists of + ligature of doubled with a and a dagger above , followed by ha'.
In theory, the same sequence could also be represented by two s, as in *, where a hamza above the first represents the while the second represents the . However, consecutive s are never used in the Arabic orthography. Instead, this sequence must always be written as a single with a above it, the combination known as an . For example: .
In Quranic writings, a maddah is placed on any other letter to denote the name of the letter, though some letters may take on a dagger alif. For example: ( lām- mīm- ṣād) or ( yāʼ-sīn)
It occurs only in the beginning of words, but it can occur after prepositions and the definite article. It is commonly found in imperative verbs, the perfective aspect of verb stems VII to X and their verbal nouns ( ). The alif of the definite article is considered a .
It occurs in phrases and sentences (connected speech, not isolated/dictionary forms):
Like the superscript alif, it is not written in fully vocalized scripts, except for sacred texts, like the Quran and Arabized Bible.
It is a necessary symbol for writing consonant-vowel-consonant syllables, which are very common in Arabic. For example: ( ).
The may also be used to help represent a diphthong. A followed by the letter (yodh'') with a over it (ـَيْ) indicates the diphthong (IPA ). A , followed by the letter ( ) with a , (ـَوْ) indicates .
s are encoded , , or .
The may have also an alternative form of the small high head of (), particularly in some Qurans. Other shapes may exist as well (for example, like a small comma above ⟨ʼ⟩ or like a circumflex ⟨ˆ⟩ in '').
These endings are used as non-pausal grammatical indefinite case endings in Literary Arabic or classical Arabic (triptotes only). In a vocalised text, they may be written even if they are not pronounced (see pausa). See for more details. In many spoken Arabic dialects, the endings are absent. Many Arabic textbooks introduce standard Arabic without these endings. The grammatical endings may not be written in some vocalized Arabic texts, as knowledge of varies from country to country, and there is a trend towards simplifying Arabic grammar.
The sign is most commonly written in combination with aleph , , , or stand-alone . should always be written (except for words ending in or diptotes) even if is not. Grammatical cases and endings in indefinite triptote forms:
It is used to indicate gemination (consonant doubling or extra length), which is phonemic in Arabic. It is written above the consonant which is to be doubled. It is the only that is commonly used in ordinary spelling to avoid ambiguity. For example: ; ('school') vs. ('teacher', female). Note that when the doubled letter bears a vowel, it is the shaddah that the vowel is attached to, not the letter itself: , .
s are encoded , , or .
Early manuscripts of the Quran did not use diacritics either for vowels or to distinguish the different values of the . Vowel pointing was introduced first, as a red dot placed above, below, or beside the , and later consonant pointing was introduced, as thin, short black single or multiple dashes placed above or below the rasm. These i‘jām became black dots about the same time as the became small black letters or strokes.
Typically, Egyptians do not use dots under final (ي), which looks exactly like (ى) in handwriting and in print. This practice is also used in copies of the (Qurʾān) scribed by Uthman Taha. The same unification of and has happened in Persian language, resulting in what the Unicode Standard calls "Arabic Letter Farsi Yeh", that looks exactly the same as in initial and medial forms, but exactly the same as in final and isolated forms.
At the time when the i‘jām was optional, unpointed letters were ambiguous. To clarify that a letter would lack i‘jām in pointed text, the letter could be marked with a small v- or seagull-shaped diacritic above, also a superscript semicircle (crescent), a subscript dot (except in the case of ; three dots were used with ), or a subscript miniature of the letter itself. A superscript stroke known as jarrah, resembling a long fatħah, was used for a contracted (assimilated) sin. Thus were all used to indicate that the letter in question was truly and not . These signs, collectively known as ‘alāmātu-l-ihmāl, are still occasionally used in modern Arabic calligraphy, either for their original purpose (i.e. marking letters without i‘jām), or often as purely decorative space-fillers. The small ک above the kāf in its final and isolated forms was originally an ‘alāmatu-l-ihmāl that became a permanent part of the letter. Previously this sign could also appear above the medial form of kāf, when that letter was written without the stroke on its ascender. When kaf was written without that stroke, it could be mistaken for lam, thus kaf was distinguished with a superscript kaf or a small superscript hamza ( nabrah), and lam with a superscript l-a-m ( lam-alif-mim).
Which letter is to be used to support the depends on the quality of the adjacent vowels and its location in the word;
Consider the following words: ("brother"), ("Ismael"), ("mother"). All three of above words "begin" with a vowel opening the syllable, and in each case, is used to designate the initial glottal stop (the actual beginning). But if we consider middle syllables "beginning" with a vowel: ("origin"), ("hearts"—notice the syllable; singular ), ("heads", singular ), the situation is different, as noted above. See the comprehensive article on hamzah for more details.
| diagonal bar above | گ | Arabic (Iraq), Balti language, Burushaski, Kashmiri, Kazakh language, Khowar language, Kurdish language, Kyrgyz language, Persian alphabet, Sindhi language, Urdu language, Uyghur language |
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| horizontal bar above | Pashto alphabet |
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| vertical line above | ئۈ | Uyghur |
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| 2 dots (vertical) | ||||
| 4 dots | ٿ ڐ ڙ | Sindhi, Shina language, Khariboli | ||
| dot below | ٜ بٜ | African languages | ||
| wavy hamza | ٲ اٟ | Kashmiri | ||
| curly dammah above | Rohingya |
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| Rohingya |
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| double dammah above | Rohingya |
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| inverted and regular curly dammahs above | Rohingya |
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| diagonal tilde shape above | Rohingya |
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| diagonal tilde shape below | Rohingya |
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| miniature Arabic letter hah (initial form) ﺣ above | Rohingya |
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| miniature Arabic letter tah ط above | Urdu | |||
| Eastern Arabic numerals | ||||
| Eastern Arabic numeral 2: ٢ above | U+0775, U+0778, U+077A | Burushaski |
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| Eastern Arabic numeral 3: ٣ above | U+0776, U+0779, U+077B | Burushaski |
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| Urdu number 4: ۴ above or below | U+0777, U+077C, U+077D | Burushaski |
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| Nūn ġuṇnā, "u" shape above | ن٘ | Urdu |
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| "v" shape above | ۆ ێ ئۆ | Azerbaijani, Turkmen language, Kurdish, Kazakh language, Uyghur، Bosnian language |
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| inverted "v" shape above | یٛ | Azerbaijani, Turkmen language, Bosnian (Arebica) |
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| dotted fatha | Wolof language | Latin à | ||
| circle with fatha | Wolof | Latin ë | ||
| less than sign - below | Wolof | Latin e | ||
| greater than sign - below | Wolof | Latin é | ||
| less than sign - above | Wolof | Latin o | ||
| greater than sign - above | Wolof | Latin ó | ||
| ring | ګ | Pashto |
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| "fish" shape above | دࣤ࣬ دࣥ࣬ دࣦ࣯ | Rohingya | Ṭāna, e.g. written above or below other diacritics to mark a long rising tone (). | |
| Various | Urdu | |||
Tone markers act as "modifiers" of vowel diacritics. In simpler words, they are "diacritics for the diacritics". They are written "outside" of the word, meaning that they are written above the vowel diacritic if the diacritic is written above the word, and they are written below the diacritic if the diacritic is written below the word. They are only ever written where there are vowel diacritics. This is important to note, as without the diacritic present, there is no way to distinguish between tone markers and I‘jām i.e. dots that are used for purpose of phonetic distinctions of consonants.
Hārbāy
The Hārbāy as it is called in Rohingya, is a single dot that's placed on top of Fatḥah and Ḍammah, or curly Fatḥah and curly Ḍammah (vowel diacritics unique to Rohinghya), or their respective Fatḥatan and Ḍammatan versions, and it's placed underneath Kasrah or curly Kasrah, or their respective Kasratan version. (e.g. ) This tone marker indicates a short high tone ().
Ṭelā
The Ṭelā as it is called in Rohingya, is two dots that are placed on top of Fatḥah and Ḍammah, or curly Fatḥah and curly Ḍammah, or their respective Fatḥatan and Ḍammatan versions, and it's placed underneath Kasrah or curly Kasrah, or their respective Kasratan version. (e.g. ) This tone marker indicates a long falling tone ().
Ṭāna
The Ṭāna as it is called in Rohingya, is a fish-like looping line that is placed on top of Fatḥah and Ḍammah, or curly Fatḥah and curly Ḍammah, or their respective Fatḥatan and Ḍammatan versions, and it's placed underneath Kasrah or curly Kasrah, or their respective Kasratan version. (e.g. ) This tone marker indicates a long rising tone ().
(1) Early 9th century, script with no dots or diacritic marks (see image of early Basmala Kufic);
(2) and (3) 9th–10th century under Abbasid dynasty, Abu al-Aswad's system established red dots with each arrangement or position indicating a different short vowel; later, a second black-dot system was used to differentiate between letters like and ;
(4) 11th century, in al-Farāhídi's system (system we know today) dots were changed into shapes resembling the letters to transcribe the corresponding long vowels. ]]
According to tradition, the first to commission a system of ḥarakāt was Ali who appointed Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali for the task. Abu al-Aswad devised a system of dots to signal the three short vowels (along with their respective allophones) of Arabic. This system of dots predates the , dots used to distinguish between different consonants.
A dot above a letter indicated the vowel , a dot below indicated the vowel , a dot on the side of a letter stood for the vowel , and two dots stood for the tanwin.
However, the early manuscripts of the Qur'an did not use the vowel signs for every letter requiring them, but only for letters where they were necessary for a correct reading.
Accordingly, he replaced the with small superscript letters: small alif, yā’, and wāw for the short vowels corresponding to the long vowels written with those letters, a small s(h)īn for shaddah (geminate), a small khā’ for khafīf (short consonant; no longer used). His system is essentially the one we know today.
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