Varieties of the Arabic Script

[Under Construction: Page may be slow to load]

[Note: Anything blue and underlined is a link.]

Arabic Letters & Special Conjuncts and their Sound Equivalents in English or other Western languages
Letters (Independent Forms Only)	Arabic Names	Standard Arabic	Persian	Pashto	Urdu	Uighur	Hindi Equivalents to Urdu
	'alif (word-medial or- final)	long A, close to A in father				see below
	'alif (word-initial)	glottal stop + short A, U or I	dummy alef
	alif-madda	glottal stop + long A	long A, close to A in father
	'al-	definite article
	baa'	B
	taa'	dental T
	thaa'	soft Th in think	S
	jiim	French J (S in pleasure)	English J (the dj sound in jam)
	Haa'	emphatic H	H	H	H
Letters (Independent Forms Only)	Arabic Names	Standard Arabic	Persian	Pashto	Urdu	Uighur	Hindi Equivalents to Urdu
	khaa'	close to Ch in German doch or X in Russian or J in Spanish (hear it pronounced - Real Audio required)
	daal	dental D
	dhaal	hard Th in those	Z
	raa'	dental R
	zaay	Z
	siin	S
	shiin	Sh
	Saad	emphatic S	S
	Daad	emphatic D	Z
Letters (Independent Forms Only)	Arabic Names	Standard Arabic	Persian	Pashto	Urdu	Uighur	Hindi Equivalents to Urdu
	Taa'	emphatic T	dental T
	Dhaa'	emphatic hard Th	Z
	cayn	no equivalent (hear it pronounced - Real Audio required)	glottal stop	glottal stop	(word-initial) long A, close to the A in father
				or lengthens preceding vowel	[elsewhere] silent note
				or silent
	ghayn	"gurgled" G
	faa'	F		P	F
				or F in educated register
	qaaf	"gulping" K	same as ghayn	K		"gulping" K
				or "gulping" K educated register
or	kaaf	K
	laam	dental L
	miim	M
	nuun	dental N
Letters (Independent Forms Only)	Arabic Names	Standard Arabic	Persian	Pashto	Urdu	Uighur	Hindi Equivalents to Urdu
	haa'	H	H	H	H (note)	H
			(word-fina l in some but not all words) E as in café	(word-final) short A or schwa	(word-final) long A
	taa' marbuuTa (word-final)	(the word in isolation) H
		(when the word is part of a phrase) T
	waaw (consonant)	W as in wash	V as in vase	W as in wash	sound between V & W	see below
	waaw (vowel)	long U sound in Italian luce
		or diphthong in doubt	or long O in German Tod
			or diphthong in doubt		or the vowel sound in off
(Arabic) or (the others)	yaa' (consonant)	Y as in Yugoslavia
			ezafe
	yaa' (vowel)	long I in French vite				see below
		diphthong in eight	diphthong in eight	or diphthong in light	diphthong in eight
			or diphthong in light	or E between bed & café (Peshawar)	or E as in hen
	yaa' (alif maqSuura; word-final only)	short A, as in soda
	hamza	glottal stop
	laam-alif	Laa
Persian Supplements to the Arabic Alphabet The Persian variant of the Arabic alphabet is the foundation on which all other variants of the Arabic scripts were built. Since the Persians were the first non-Semitic people to be converted to Islam, it was they who introduced the first and most widely adopted changes to the Arabic alphabet. Therefore, it is technically more correct to say that Pashto, Urdu and others use not the Arabic script but the Perso-Arabic script.
Letters (Independent Forms Only)	Persian Names	Standard Arabic	Persian	Pashto	Urdu	Uighur	Hindi Equivalents to Urdu
	pé	in foreign words	P
	chiim		Ch as in church
	zhé		French J (or S in pleasure)	Z (Kabul)	French J (or S in pleasure)
				French J or S in pleasure (Kandahar)
				Dj or J in jam (Peshawar)
	gaaf	in foreign words	hard G as in go
Uniquely Pashto Letters
Uniquely Urdu Letters
Uniquely Uighur Letters

Last Updated on 25 April 2000

Also see

Hindi and Urdu FAQ