![]() The vowel sounds are usually expressed as dots, dashes and loops either above or below the consonant forms. ![]() Most modern abjads, however, do contain a few symbols for long or double vowels. Aleph beta, the first two letters of the Phoenician writing system, meant ‘ox house.’Īrabic script went in a different direction, and like Hebrew, used letterforms only for consonant sounds. ![]() A true abjad has no vowels.įor the ‘aleph beta’ writing system, the grandfather of the alphabet you’re reading in right now, ninth century Greeks adapted the Phoenician writing system to include symbols that represented different vowel sounds. The abjad isn’t an alphabet proper, as each letter denotes a consonant sound. The 28 letter cursive system, called an abjad, is used for writing not only Arabic, but Farsi, Urdu, Central Kurdish, and the Mandinka language of West Africa, to name only a few. Photo by Walters Art Museum Illuminated Manuscripts via FlickrĪrabic script, the writing system that brings visual form to the Arabic language, is special as well.
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