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Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet is the Arabic script: 28 letters. 28 letters — an abjad: short vowels are not written, the line runs right to left, and the letters join into one word. The characters are grouped: long vowels: alif, waw, yaa, ب ت ث — one skeleton, dots count to three, ج ح خ — j and two h sounds. Below is a table with sound and a breakdown by groups.

Updated September 1, 2026 · Lingofly

All 28 letters in one list

ا, و, ي, ب, ت, ث, ج, ح, خ, د, ذ, ر, ز, س, ش, ص, ض, ط, ظ, ق, ع, غ, ف, ك, ل, م, ن, ه

The tables on this page also include ء, ة and ى: they are needed for reading but do not count as letters of the alphabet.

Long vowels: alif, waw, yaa

The script is an abjad: short vowels are not written in it at all. كتاب is "ktb", and it reads kataba — the vowels are restored from grammar. Only the long ones are written, with these three signs. Waw and yaa stay consonants ("w" and "y") whenever they have a vowel of their own next to them.

ب ت ث — one skeleton, dots count to three

The most legible family of the script: one skeleton, and the difference is the number of dots. One underneath, two on top, three on top. Learn it first — here you can see how the whole writing system works.

ج ح خ — j and two h sounds

The same trick again. The skeleton with a dot inside is "j". With no dot it is a breathy throat h, and with a dot on top a scraping kh. The three h sounds must not be confused: حوت is "whale", and خوت would be a different word.

د ذ and ر ز — pairs of "no dot / dot"

Four letters that join only from the right and therefore do not change shape inside a word. Each pair shares one skeleton — an angle and a stick with a tail. The second letter of the pair has a dot on top.

س ش — the three teeth

The most conspicuous letter in the script: three teeth in a row. With no dot it is "s", with a dot on top "sh". A pair on one skeleton, like the angles above — it simply has exactly two skeletons of its own.

ص ض ط ظ ق — the heavy consonants and the deep q

The emphatic consonants are "heavy" sounds with no soft partner: the tongue is pulled back and the whole syllable darkens. The pairs circle round: heavy s/d/t/z, told apart by skeleton and dots. Next to them the deep q, made down in the throat — it shares its sound with ف but not its depth.

ع غ — the throat: ayn and ghayn

The sounds English does not have at all, and which cannot be approximated without loss. Ayn is a squeezed throat with a vowel drawn through it. Ghayn is the same throat with voice — a gargled g. The transcription marks ayn with the sign ʿ.

ف ك ل م ن ه — the light consonants

Consonants with skeletons of their own that nothing can be confused with. This is also where the third h lives: ه is a plain breath of air, the quietest of the three. And two letters of the article: ال starts with lam, which stands in every second word of the course.

ء ة ى — the three special signs

Three signs that the table of 28 letters does not include. Hamza is not a letter but a vowel break, and it sits on other letters (أ، ؤ، ئ). Ta marbuta is the "tied t", the marker of feminine words; at the end it reads "a". Alif maqsura is written like a dotless ي and read as a long "aa" — hundreds of words end on it.

What to know about this script

There are 31 signs: 28 letters, plus hamza, ta marbuta and alif maqsura. The order of the table is not the alphabetical one — it goes by skeleton families instead. In the true alphabet the letters run from alif to yaa, and the dotted pairs sit side by side there too. Short vowels are written with harakat, small marks above and below the line, but living text does not carry them. Books, shop signs and newspapers are printed without them, and you read by the consonant skeletons. These countries also have their own numerals, the Eastern ones (٠١٢٣…), and they look different from the digits you are used to.

Where this script came from and why it looks the way it does

  • The word “abjad” itself is the first four letters of the Arabic alphabet in their old order: alif, ba, jim, dal. Lists and sections in Arabic books are still numbered by that order, and in the old tradition any letter could also mean a number: alif — “1”, ba — “2”, jim — “3”.

    Encyclopaedia Britannica, the article “abjad”

Test yourself

Five characters at random. No need to answer aloud — just pick; the answer appears at once.

  1. Which character reads as “long aa”?
  2. Which character reads as “b”?
  3. Which character reads as “j (as in jam)”?
  4. Which character reads as “d”?
  5. Which character reads as “z”?

How to learn letters so they stay

You cannot learn a table by staring at it. What works: see a character, try to recall its sound, get it wrong, see the right answer — and come back to that character in a day, not in an hour.

That is why the alphabet in the app is learned a few characters at a time, not all at once: nobody holds 28 signs in one sitting.

Frequently asked

How many letters in the Arabic alphabet?

28 letters — Arabic script: ا, و, ي, ب, ت, ث, ج, ح, خ, د, ذ, ر, ز, س, ش, ص, ض, ط, ظ, ق, ع, غ, ف, ك, ل, م, ن, ه. The tables on this page also include ء, ة and ى: they are needed for reading but do not count as letters of the alphabet. There are no capital and small forms: the character is written the same way everywhere.

Can I listen to how the Arabic letters sound?

Not yet: we have no recordings for this script. That is why there is no sound button either — it would be silent.

How long does it take to learn the Arabic alphabet?

A few characters a day — one to two weeks, if you come back to what you covered. The whole alphabet crammed in an evening is remembered for an evening: without reviews the next day and three days later, the characters are almost entirely gone.

Where to start: letters or words?

With the letters. A word in an unfamiliar script cannot be read at all, and a word card tells you no more than a picture.

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