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ARAMAIC BRANCH
275 Modern Arabic Alphabet Arabic, like other Semitic scripts, is written from right to left. The alphabet consists of twenty-eight letters, the twenty-two of the ancient Semitic alphabet, and six new consonants placed at the end of the alphabet in its "numerical order." Grammatically and graphically, however, the Arabic alphaber is arranged differently, according to the external form of the signs and the likeness of sounds.
The Arabs tried to distinguish in writing the finer shades of South Semitic sounds, and such distinction required no less than the aforementioned six additional letters; (a) tha, the weak glottal dhal, and the emphatic şa, were lisping modifications of ta, dal, and the hard glottal ta; (b) the hard glottal dad was the modification of the glottal sad; (c) the guttural kha (pronounced like the Scotch ch) and the ghain (a kind of soft g) were harder forms of ha and 'ayin.
The ordinary sequence of the letters in the Arabic alphabet, called the grammatical order of the letters, is generally employed in the modern grammars and vocabularies. The following is its order: alif ('), ba (b), ta (t), tha (th), jim (), ha (h), kha (kh), dal (d), dhal (dl), ra(V), ca (3), sin (s), shin (sh), sad (s), dad (d), ta (?), za (:), 'ayin ().ghain (ghi), fa (f), gaf (9), kaf (k), lam (1), mim (171), nun (v), ha (h), wat (x), ya(y). The letters ļa, kha, dhal, dad, zu and ghain are the specific additions of the Arabic alphabet.
All the letters represent consonants, though three of them (alif, roat and ya) are also used as vowels. To the twenty-eight letters may be added the hamsa (), or glottal stop; it is a click produced by a quick compression of the upper part of the throat.
The majority of the letters have different forms in accordance with their position in a word, whether at the beginning, middle or end, and whether they stand alone or joined to others. When single or at the end of a word, the letters, for the most part, terminate in a bold stroke; when joined to the following letter this stroke is replaced by a small upward curve. On the whole, with the exception of six letters, which can only be joined to preceding not to following letters, the initial and medial forms are much abbreviated, whereas the final form consists of the initial form and a "flourish." However, the essential part of the letters remains unchanged.
Another of the difficulties a beginner meets in the Arabic script is that in manuscripts, and elegantly printed books, many of the letters are interwoven with one another, and form beautiful, but not always easily readable ligatures of two or three letters,
In the vocalized Arabic texts the consonants are provided with a vowel sign (see below), or with a sign (called sukur), indicating the absence of a vowel. The vowel marks are three in number, and are written above or below the consonant which precedes the vowel. They are used also as terminations of infection in nouns and the moods of
