Arabic alphabet

The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters, writes right-to-left, and is used by over 420 million people across 22 countries. Beyond Arabic, it's the script for Persian (Farsi), Urdu, Pashto, Uyghur, Kurdish, and other languages—making it one of the world's most widely-used writing systems. It functions as an abjad: consonants get letters, but short vowels (a, i, u) are typically omitted in writing.

Arabic letter shapes change based on position in a word—initial, medial, final, or isolated. This cursive-style connecting makes reading continuous Arabic text flow naturally from right to left. The five core letters (ا, د, ر, ز, و) don't connect forward, but all 28 letters connect backward.

Arabic evolved from Nabataean Aramaic and shares ancestry with Hebrew, both descending from the Paleo-Canaanite script used 3,000 years ago. The Quran's compilation in the 7th century CE standardized Arabic letterforms, preserving exactly 28 letters that remain unchanged for 1,400 years.

Unlike Latin, which traveled Europe by Roman conquest, Arabic spread through Islam—religions and trade across Asia and Africa adopted the script. Persian, Urdu, Pashto, and others adapted Arabic to their sounds, adding letters where needed. This is why Arabic letters appear across such diverse languages.