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Can You Read Arabic without Dots?
Historically, Arabic was written without vowel signs or dots, a “skeleton script” that makes reading challenging. This article demonstrates how five distinct Arabic letters become identical without dots, and credits al-Farahidi for developing the modern system with diacritics.
The Arabic language, at a very early stage in its history, was not only written without vowel signs but also without dots, making reading incredibly challenging.
This article goes back in time to the beginning of the historical Arabic skeleton script, demonstrating how five distinct Arabic letters look identical when their dots are omitted, and highlighting the difficulties faced by early readers and the subsequent development of the modern Arabic writing system.
So, what are these five distinct letters look which look the same when you omit the dots? This is also known as Arabic skeleton script.
Let’s try it. Can you read the following sentence without dots?
This sentence can mean a lot depending on where and how you add the dots, e.g. the first word can mean:
| killed | قَتَلَ | before | قَبْلَ | elephant | فِيل |
This is how you could read the sentence:
| It was said that the elephant killed an elephant in front of the river. | قيل إن فيل قتل فيل قبل النهر |
| This is the sentence with all the vowels. | قِيلَ إِنَّ فِيلاً قَتَلَ فِيلاً قَبْلَ النَّهْرِ |
Remark: In the 8th century, a grammarian from modern-day Oman invented a writing system which we basically use in standard Arabic until today.
His name was أَبُو عَبْد الرَّحْمٰن الْخَلِيل ابن أَحْمَد الْفَراهِيدي – commonly known as al-Farahidi or al-Khalil. It is said that he started using a small س for the الشَّدّة (Shadda): ّ
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