A HOME FOR ANYONE ADDICTED TO ARABIC. 
JOIN ARABIC FOR NERDS➕

Support this site with a membership: For only $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year, you can have a true AD-FREE experience. You also get a 15% discount in my shop and a monthly premium newsletter. Find out more here.

SUPPORT THIS SITE

Passion doesn't need money. Unfortunately, my web provider does. Your contribution ensures that this site will grow and grow.

Buy Me A Coffee

PayPal Donate
amazon wishlist button
Free monthly newsletter

Subscribe to my FREE newsletter and get 10% off in my store!

cropped dots 1

Arabic letters without dots – Does it work?

Arabic used to be written without dots in ancient times. At least it did, a long time ago. Could you read such sentences?

Last updated: 1 year ago

At least it did, a long time ago. Let us focus a bit on the history of the Arabic language. Arabic, at a very early stage, was not only written without vowel-signs above or below letters.

Furthermore, letters were written without which makes reading pretty difficult – as the letters and for example might look the same in certain positions.

There are 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?

letters_without_dots_arabic
(c) Gerald Drißner

This sentence can mean a lot depending where and how you add the dots, e.g. the first word can mean:

killedقَتَلَbeforeقَبْلَelephantفِيل

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 from modern day Oman invented a writing system which we basically use in stand­ard Arabic till today.

His name was أَبُو عَبْد الرَّحْمٰن الْخَلِيل ابن أَحْمَد الْفَراهِيدي – com­monly known as al-Farahidi or . It is said that he started using a small س for the الشَّدّة (): ّ

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.


Read more about Arabic and Islamic history:

Picture credit: Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Previous Article
negation

Does the negation with ما or لم convey the same meaning?

Next Article
cropped mosque

الصَّلاةُ خَيْرٌ مِن الْنَّوْمِ: Why is the prayer better than sleep?

Related Posts

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter

Don't miss any updates and get your regular dose of Arabic.