How did the Arabic alphabet develop?
The Arabic alphabet is written from right to left. It is composed of twenty-eight consonantal phonemes. The language has six vowels, three short and three long. The Arabic alphabet developed out of a form of the Aramaic alphabet, which had twenty-two letters. Arabic writers were faced with a dilemma of having to write their language with twenty-two consonants. They had to write without the dots on top or under the letters. The earliest Arabic papyrus so far discovered, which is dated Jumada 1, 22 (April 643) contains few pointed letters. The point system developed later. Early manuscripts of the Qur’an did not have diacritics, or vowel signs /a/aa/i/ii/u/uu/ (asma’u al isharat)…For more on this, please refer to my book, chapter one, pages 72-79.
