The Arabic Alphabet, Alif to Kaf

Start with the single upright stroke that opens the script. Alif joins to the letter before it but never to the one after, so any word containing it breaks into separate connected groups, and it carries the abjad value one.

Ba is a shallow bowl with one dot beneath, and the same bowl with different pointing gives ta, tha, nun and ya. It is the clearest first lesson in the dotting system, and it holds the abjad value two.

Ta is the bowl with two dots above. Its abjad value is four hundred because it sits twenty-second in the older order, and the page also notes the bound variant ta marbuta, which closes most feminine nouns and is not counted among the twenty-eight.

Tha, the bowl with three dots above, is the first of the six letters Arabic added to the sequence it inherited. That is why it stands at the tail of the older abjad order with the value five hundred, and why its name is not a Northwest Semitic word.

Jim opens the hooked family of ha, kha and jim, told apart by a single dot inside the bowl. Its abjad value is three, and its pronunciation varies more by region than any other Arabic letter, from hard g to soft j.

Ha is the undotted member of the jim family, which makes the three letters the standard example of how Arabic separates one shape into three by pointing alone. Its sound is a pharyngeal fricative, and it is distinct from the plain ha that stands twenty-sixth.

Kha is the jim skeleton with one dot above the hook, and the second of the six added letters, which gives it the abjad value six hundred. Its sound is the ch of German Bach.

Dal is a small undotted hook that joins only to the right, one of the letters that force a new connected group. It is the direct cognate of Hebrew dalet, whose sense was door, and its abjad value is four.

Dhal is the dal hook with one dot above, added to the inherited sequence, and so it sits among the appended letters with the abjad value seven hundred. Its sound is the th of English this.

Ra is a short stroke curving below the line that joins only to the right. It is the cognate of Hebrew resh, whose sense was head, it carries the abjad value two hundred, and it opens several suras in disjoined form.

Zay is the ra stroke with one dot above, distinguished from ra by pointing alone, another instance of the pattern that runs through the script. Its abjad value is seven, and it descends from the Northwest Semitic zayin.

Sin is three short teeth running into a shallow bowl, which it loses at the start and middle of a word. It holds the abjad value sixty that Hebrew samekh holds, and the relation among the Semitic sibilant letters is not a simple one to one match.

Shin is the sin skeleton with three dots above, with the abjad value three hundred shared with Hebrew shin. It gives the sun letters their name, since the Arabic word for sun, al-shams, begins with it and is pronounced ash-shams.

Sad is a long flat loop running into a bowl, and the first emphatic consonant on this path, pronounced with the back of the tongue raised. Its abjad value is ninety, the value Hebrew tzadi holds, and it opens one sura in disjoined form.

Dad is the sad loop with one dot above and another of the six added letters, with the abjad value eight hundred. Arabic is traditionally called the language of dad because the sound is rare among the world languages.

The emphatic Ta is a flat closed loop with an upright stroke that keeps its shape in every position, which is unusual in this script. It is the emphatic counterpart of the plain ta, its abjad value is nine, and its name descends from teth.

Za is the emphatic ta with one dot above, one of the six added letters, with the abjad value nine hundred, second highest in the system. Holding it apart from neighbouring sounds is one of the distinctions that formal recitation preserves.

Ayn takes four visibly different shapes according to position, from a small hook to a deep looped bowl, so it is hard to recognise from its isolated form. Its sound is a pharyngeal fricative, its abjad value is seventy, and its name means eye.

Ghayn is the ayn skeleton with one dot above, and the last of the six added letters. Appended last, it takes the highest abjad value, one thousand, and its sound is close to the Parisian French r.

Fa is a small closed loop with a tail and one dot above, abjad value eighty, matching Hebrew pe. In the traditional hands of the Maghreb it is pointed with one dot below instead, a convention readers of North African manuscripts must know.

Qaf is a deeper loop dropping below the line with two dots above. It gives the moon letters their name, since the Arabic word for moon begins with it, and its abjad value is one hundred.

Kaf ends the path with a tall angular stroke holding a small hooked mark. Its sound is the k of English, separate from the further back qaf, and its abjad value of twenty is the value Hebrew kaf holds.