1. Arabic Script: An Introduction

1. Arabic Script: An Introduction

Reading Time: 6 minutes

READING AND WRITING ARABIC

While Arabic writing may initially seem like an intimidating task to master, it really isn’t if you put your mind to it. The following will be an attempt to simplify the process and make it the down to Earth task that it actually is. You will learn the alphabet in several increments, as you practice each letter and combination of letters multiple times before proceeding to the next letter or set of letters, during this you will learn to put these letters into phrases that are commonly found in Arab settings. In order to learn Arabic, you need to practice reading and writing, putting what you’ve learned into real time action.

The more you learn, the more linguistic tasks you will be able to achieve with complete fluency. Practice makes perfect. At the beginning, you will be able to read and understand signs and directions that are considered important in everyday living. You will also have some sort of idea as to what words to expect that are commonly found when exploring Arab settings. As it is important to grasp the basics, you will be able to understand when reading newspaper headlines as well as possess the capacity to write everything you have read.

THE ARABIC LANGUAGE

It is an undeniable fact of life that in the 21st century, Arabic is considered a world language. It is designated as an official language in 19 countries across Saharan Africa and the majority of the Middle East. In addition to this, Arabic is considered one of the official languages of the United Nations. Arab culture itself has gained a very distinguished and known reputation, and is often studied at many universities in Western countries.

Words in Arabic are typically built with a root of three or four consonants, which contain the basic idea underlying all words created from the root. One example that can help the reader visualize this is the root word made up of the three consonants K T B, which creates a linguistic conceptualization of the act of “writing”. This root of three consonants will allow us to create the following words:

  1. The verb “katab” means ‘to write’
  2. The noun “katib” means ‘writer’
  3. “maktub” can mean ‘written’ or ‘letter’
  4. “kitaba” means the action of ‘writing’ itself
  5. “maktab” means ‘office’, or ‘a place where one writes’
  6. “kitab” means ‘book’
  7. “maktaba” can mean ‘library’ or ‘book shop’

You get the idea.

The words themselves may contain extra pieces that are added onto them when the word is constructed, or they may change in their internal composition, but you will still find all three root consonants in the words, all there and always in the same order, across all derivatives of words that are constructed from those three root consonants.

The huge advantage of this structure is that if you possessed knowledge of the root of one word, it would make it easier to guess the meaning of an otherwise unknown word that has a similar root. This eases the process for those learning Arabic that are not speakers in any related linguistic groups. Spoken Arabic is slightly different from written Arabic in the sense as there is no standardized way of spelling it, it is not used for formal or official purposes, it is not typically written down the way it is spoken and the dialects of this spoken Arabic vary from location to location.

Written Arabic, on the other hand, is standardized across the entire Arab world, from Morocco to Iraq. The Cairo based newspaper Al-Ahram, which translates to “The Pyramids”, can easily be understood and read by readers in Casablanca, which is at the other end of North Africa, thousands of kilometers away. This is the same Arabic that is used for signs, posts, advertisements and other forms of written communication, and this type of Arabic has a standardized pronunciation attached to it. This standardized Arabic is what is typically taught in Arabic language learning material.

THE ARABIC ALPHABET

To start, there are some quintessential elements of Arabic that we will use as our base, that one should remember and use as a point of reference in case one is lost.

  • The writing starts on the right side and continues towards the left side, where English, for example, starts on the left side and continues towards the right side.
  • There are no capital letters in Arabic.
  • Short vowels, such as “a” in the English word “man”, “i” as in the English word “pin”, “u” as in the English word “put”, are typically not written down, so we have to add or imply them through the context of what we are trying to say.
  • Printed Arabic is typically an imitation of handwritten Arabic. Much of the “joined letters” connect other letters in the same word. There are certain letters, the “disjoined” letters, that are never typically part of the word that they spell out.

This might seem slightly confusing, but take comfort in the fact that this information will clear and rationalize itself as we learn to read and write Arabic.

HOW TO IMPLEMENT THESE SERIES OF ARTICLES

These series of articles are meant to be participative. You are required to do quite a bit of reading and writing. The best way to learn the material in these articles is by actually doing the exercises prescribed. At the beginning, you might want to open up your Notepad or get an actual physical notebook with some lined paper. Your writing should be conducted in this dedicated exercise book. Your vocabulary therefore should be written somewhere where it can be stored permanently. Writing is an excellent way to help you remember things.

THE ARABIC ALPHABET (STAGES 1-6)

Do as the text tells you to do, and practice writing each new letter or group of letters that is illustrated in the specific article. It’s particularly crucial to take note of the anecdotes related to handwriting, as there are some decisive differences between handwriting and print. In the “Read and write” instructional suggestions, you will find both. You should try and imitate the handwriting, and you can also try printing, but it looks sort of unnatural, and takes longer to write. Read back to yourself what you just wrote. Read and re-write what you wrote and read several times in order to get the hang of what you just read and wrote.

The letters are taught to you in an order that expedites your inventory of letters and words that you can readily write and put to use. Any potential pitfalls you might want to avoid falling into will be pointed out as you learn this material. Once you learn the letters, it is recommended you proceed to the portion of these series of articles that teach you words. You can monitor your progress with the exercises we’ve devised for you that are available for each stage of this material. This is followed by tests, which are of higher difficulty than the exercises as they throw you to the wolves, offering little in the way of help, and are presented in a more formalized format.

Do not proceed with forward mobility to a new stage unless you are absolutely certain that you have mastered the most recent one, and this includes near perfection in the tests, whose answers are provided to you at the end of these series of articles. When you are studying these stages, do not force yourself to learn words and memorize them by heart. Some words will end up sticking in your mind regardless of what you do, so forcing to remember words that you can’t is pointless this early on in your learning journey. What’s important now is your ability to put letters correctly in the right order that is required to construct words, and be able to decipher the written combinations of letters that you see here. Eventually we will also teach you how to read and write Arabic numerals.

WORDS AND STRUCTURES (STAGES 7-13)

In these stages you will learn to identify various types of words, how to manipulate these words, and how to create combinations of them that are useful, meaningful and gramatically correct. You will be interpret the meaning of the words in signs, notices and newspaper headlines. These stages will also include vocabulary deemed essential, that was not previously introduced. This essential vocabulary is crucial and basic to learn, and together with vocabulary used for reference, which is used for exercies and tests, that is not necessary to learn and remember at this point, can be examined and then referred to later on when in need of it’s services. Retention of this reference vocabulary will be acquired through practice. In these stages you will also learn a feature of Arabic where certain word-patters can be used to make sense of things. These stages also contain exercises and tests.

STAGE 14

This stage includes with it a map of the Arab world, together with some important geographical vocabulary commonly used there.

STAGE 15

Tread carefully when going through the reading test in this stage, then look back at the answer key that we’ll provide for you and use this to assess your progress.

ANSWER KEY FOR THE TESTS

You can guess what this is.

VOCABULARIES

The opening statement will guide you on how these can be used.

INDEX

The index will go over all the topics mentioned, such as nouns, constructs, principles, and in which article they can be located. As a matter of fact, we will provide you with the link.

POCKET CARD

You will find this goody at the end, and how you can use this for your magician’s sleeve is elaborated on in detail.