Adapting The Arabic Alphabet For Other Languages
| IPA | Persian | Urdu | Malay | Arwi | Egypt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| p | پ | ڤ | ڣ | پ | |
| t͡ʃ | چ | تش | |||
| ɡ | گ | ݢ | ك with a dot below | ج | |
| ʒ | ژ | چ | |||
| d͡ʒ | ج | ||||
| ŋ | ڠ | ع with three dots below | |||
| ɲ | ڽ | ||||
| v | و | ۏ | ڤ | ||
| retroflex | small ط above | ||||
When the Arabic alphabet spread to countries which used other languages, extra letters had to be invented to spell non-Arabic sounds. Usually the alteration was three dots above or below:-
- Persian and Urdu: /p/: پ
- Persian and Urdu: /t͡ʃ/: چ
- Persian and Urdu: /ɡ/: گ
- Persian and Urdu: /ʒ/: ژ
- in Egypt: /ɡ/: ج. That is because Egyptian Arabic (and other dialects) have /ɡ/ where other Arabic dialects have /ʒ/~/d͡ʒ/
- in Egypt: /ʒ/: چ, same as Persian and Urdu چ
- in Egypt: /tʃ/: written as ت+ش and realized as +
- Urdu: retroflex sounds: as the corresponding dentals but with a small letter ط above. (This problem in adapting a Semitic alphabet to write Indian languages also arose long before this: see Brahmi)
- In South-East Asia: /ŋ/ as in "sing": ڠ or څ
- ^ Some letters are often used in transcriptions of names and loanwords, in Egypt and other Arabic speaking countries
- This book shows an example of ch (Polish cz) being written as ڛ in an Arabic-Polish bilingual Quran for Muslim Tatars living in Poland
Read more about this topic: History Of The Arabic Alphabet
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