In the
previous lesson, you came to know how the first fifteen Arabic letters are joined to other letters. You also learned that there are six letters that never join to letters that follow them. They are
ا,
د,
ذ,
ر,
ز, and
و. In this lesson you will see how the remaining fifteen letters are joined.
In the table above, except for
hazmah أ,
alif madd آ, which are both similar to the
alif ا in shape, and the
و, all the letters at the beginning of the word connect to subsequent letters.
We write the
hamzah ء on or under an
alif when it occurs at the beginning of the word. We put it on the
alif أ if the
alif has
fatHah over it; if it has
kasrah below it, we put the
hamzah under the
alif إ. The difference between the
hamzah and the
alif is that short vowels (i.e.
fatHah, DHammah, and
kasrah) accompany the
hamzah, while the
alif cannot be accompanied by any of them. In other words, the
alif is always
saakin, that is accompanied by a
sukuun ْ.
The
alif madd is basically a combination of two letters. When a
hamzah is followed by an
alif, they are combined and written as
alif madd آ, i.e.
ء + ا = آ.
In the middle the word, all the letters connect to preceding letters. The
Hamzah is written in three different ways: on a
yaa’-like shape
ـئـ, on an
alif ـأ, and on
waaw ـؤ. This is determined by the
Harakaat. As a rule, if it is accompanied by
fatHah, it is written on an
alif ـأ; if it is accompanied by
kasrah, it is written on dot-less
yaa’-like shape; if it is accompanied by
DHammah, it is written on
ـؤ; and if it accompanied by
fatHah and preceded by
alif, it is written by itself. There are few exceptions which you will learn about in future lessons.
At the end of the word, all the letters are connected to the preceding letter. If the preceding letter is one of the six semi-joining letters, all the letters are written in isolation. Word-finally, the
haa’ هـ is written like this
ـه if joined the preceding letter, if not, it is written like this
ه. As for the
hamzah, it is written on
alif, on
yaa’, on
waaw, or by itself. If the letter that precedes it is accompanied by
fatHah, it is written on an
alif; if the letter that precedes it is accompanied by
DHammah, it is written on a
waaw; if the letter that precedes it is accompanied by
kasrah, it is written on a regular
yaa’, i.e.
ئ or
ــئ; if the letter that precedes it is an
alif, it is written in by itself.
Here are some illustrative examples:
عَـ + ـفَـ + ا + ف = عَفَاف
نُـ + ـكْـ + ـرَ + ا + ن = نُكْرَان
وُ + جُـ + ـو + ه = وُجُوه
هُـ + ـمُـ + و + مُـ + ـهُ = هُمُوْمُهُ
يَـ + ـبْـ + ـد + أ = يَبْدَأ
مُـ + ـفَـ + ـا + جِـ + ـئ = مُفَاجِئ
مَـ + ـسَـ + ـا + ء = مَسَاء
In the
next lesson, you will learn how to transliterate Arabic letters/sounds into the corresponding English sounds.
