Harakat
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| Arabic alphabet | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ﺍ ﺏ ﺕ ﺙ ﺝ ﺡ | |||||
| ﺥ ﺩ ﺫ ﺭ ﺯ | |||||
| ﺵ ﺹ ﺽ ﻁ ﻅ ﻉ | |||||
| ﻍ ﻑ ﻕ ﻙ ﻝ | |||||
| ﻡ ﻥ هـ ﻭ ﻱ | |||||
| History · Transliteration Diacritics · Hamza ء Numerals · Numeration |
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In the Arabic script, ḥarakāt (حركات — the singular is ḥaraka حركة) are the diacritic marks used to represent vowel sounds. The literal meaning of ḥarakāt is "movements", e.g. in the context of moving air waves that we produce while pronouncing vowels.
The Arabic script is an abjad rather than an alphabet, meaning that all the consonant sounds are represented by letters but vowel sounds are often not represented in writing. The ḥarakāt are optional symbols that can be used to represent all the vowels that are not indicated in the ordinary spelling.
[edit] List of harakat
- The fatḥa is a small diagonal line placed above a letter, and represents a short /a/. The word fatḥa itself (<فتحة>) means opening, and refers to the opening of the mouth when producing an /a/. Example with dāl (henceforth, the base consonant in the following examples): <دَ> /da/.
- A fatḥa plus a following letter <ا> (alif), the indicate a long /aː/. Example: <دَا> [dā].
- A similar diagonal line below a letter is called a kasra and designates a short /i/. Example: <دِ> /di/.
- A kasra plus a following letter <ﻱ> (yāʼ) indicate a long /iː/ (as in the English word "bead"). Example: <دِي> /diː/.
- The ḍamma is a small curl-like diacritic placed above a letter to represent a short /u/. Example: <دُ> /du/.
- And the ḍamma with a following letter <و> (wāw) designates a long /uː/ (as in the English word "soon"). Example: <دُو> /duː/.
- If one of the three vowel diacritics is doubled, which can only appear at the end of a word, it indicates that vowel sound plus the consonant /n/, known as tanwin, or nunation. Thus the signs ـً ـٍ ـٌ indicate, from left to right, /un, in, an/.
- The sukūn is a circle-shaped diacritic placed above a letter. It indicates that the consonant to which it is attached is not followed by a vowel; this is a necessary symbol for writing CVC syllables, which are very common in Arabic. Example: <دَدْ> /dad/.
- The shadda is a diacritic shaped like a small written English "w". It is used to indicate gemination (consonant doubling or extra length), which is phonemic in Arabic. It is written above the consonant which is to be doubled. Example: <دّ> /dd/.
- The hamza diacritic (which is not itself part of the system of ḥarakāt but interacts with it) indicates a glottal stop. It may appear by itself or over an alif, wāw, or yāʼ.
- Which letter is to be used to support the hamza depends on the quality of the adjacent vowels. If the syllable occurs at the beginning of the word, the glottal stop is always indicated by hamza on an alif. But if the syllable occurs in the middle of the word, alif is used only if it is not preceded or followed by /i/ or /u/. If /i(ː)/ is before or after the glottal stop, a yāʼ with a hamza is used (the two dots which are usually beneath the yāʼ disappear in this case - <ئ>). If [u(ː)] is there, a wāw sukūn with a hamza is used. Consider the following words: <أَخ> (/ʔax/, brother), <ِإِسْرَائِيل> (/ʔisraːʔiːl/, Israel), <أُمْ> (/ʔumm/, mother). All three of above words "begin" with a vowel opening the syllable, and in each case, alif is used to designate the initial glottal stop (the actual beginning). But if we consider middle syllables "beginning" with a vowel: <نَشْأة> (/našʔa/, 'origin'), <ِإِسْرَائِيل> (/ʔisraːʔiːl/, 'Israel' - notice the /ʔiːl/ syllable), <ِرَؤُوف> (/raʔuːf/ 'lenient'), the situation is different, as noted above. See the comprehensive article on hamza for more details.
- The madda is a tilde-like diacritic which can appear only on top of an alif and indicates a glottal stop followed by long /aː/. The sequence /ʔaː/ should logically be spelled with a hamza on an alif (representing the /ʔ/) followed by another alif (representing the /aː/) but two consecutive alifs, including the combination *<أَا>, is never written. The sequence /ʔaː/ must always be written with an alif madda. Example: <ﺁ>.
- In some African languages such as Hausa, a large dot below a letter represents the vowel /e/.
[edit] See also
- Arabic alphabet
- I`rab
- The Hebrew equivalent Niqqud
