What is the Arabic alphabet made easy?
1. Arabic is written from right to left. Not only whole sentences, but also the words themselves are written from right to left. 2. The Arabic script is a cursive script. That means that it is a lot like our handwriting, where we connect all the letters in a word to the adjoining letters. Even in our own handwriting we have to mkae some adjustments to be able to connect say the “r” with the “t” in the handwritten word “start”. Likewise, in Arabic the letters change their shapes depending on whether they are: a) isolated (i.e. on their own) b) final (i.e. only connected from the right) c) medial (i.e. connected from both the right and to the left) d) initial (i.e. only connected to the left) At first, this can be confusing, as some letter shapes seem to be totally different depending on their position in a word. Just try to understand it logically. For example, the letter “meem” (م) has a very long tail. It would be impracticable to connect the bottom of this tail to the next letter on
