The Arabic alphabet, transliteration and Arabic numbering

Just as with the Arabian oryx on the glossary page, these petroglyphs, photographed at Jabal Fuwairat in the nineteen seventies, are placed here as I have yet to write anything about them on the other pages. They, like the oryx, are an important part of the history of the peninsula. They are believed to be representative of ships and board games and some are thought to have been carved in the rocks up to six centuries ago. Note the pronunciation of the word ‘jabal’ immediately below.

Transliteration

Arabic is transliterated by a number of different methods, but the various systems all seem to produce arbitrary pronunciations. This is particularly true when looking at pronunciation within the Arabian Gulf. Where I have used transliterated Arabic words I have aimed for an approximation in English of the way in which I have heard it spoken by Gulf Arabs.

For instance, Egyptians pronounce the letter ’jim’ or ’jeem’ – ’j’ – hard as in the word for hill, ’gebel’, whereas Gulf Arabs pronounce it softly as in ‘jabal’, or even ‘jebel’. Bear in mind that it is written in Arabic, ’jabal’.

Some of the words have been given me by Arabs from other areas and it is likely that there may be a number of irregularities because of this. In one area there is a particular difficulty which looks illogical on paper: this is the manner in which the indefinite pronoun 'the' is written and pronounced.

Although the two transliterated letters which make up the Arabic form of ‘the’ are always written in the same way – ‘al’ – their pronunciation differs according to the first letter of the following noun. These initial letters are sometimes called ‘sun and moon’ letters; the ‘sun’ letters causing the ‘l’ of ‘al’ to be dropped and the pronoun elided with the noun. Hence ‘al shams’ is actually pronounced ‘ash-shams’ with no effective break between the two words. This rule applies to the following Arabic letters:

Arabic letter		Arabic	English
d	as in	ad-doha	bay
l		al-liwan	covered terrace
r		ar-raml	sand or dust
s		as-seqf	ceiling
sh		ash-shams	sun
t		at-tabiq	storey
th		ath-thulaja	refrigerator
z		az-zulij	mosaics

Words are normally written or printed in their consonantal form only. The diacritics – the signs which give the vowelling – are omitted, and it is up to the reader to assume the correct understanding within the given context. This can cause difficulties. For instance a man and a foot are represented by the same three consonants: ’r’,’j’,’l’, – but are pronounced respectively, rajuland rijl. The three vowels are the equivalent of the English ‘a’, ‘i’ and ‘u’. There is also a written device – the shedda– which doubles consonants.

In Arabic there are neither of the English vowels, ’e’ or ’o’, nevertheless you will see that I have transliterated a number of words as having those vowels, as that appears to be how I have heard them spoken.

To complicate matters the form of the letters of the Arabic alphabet have rules governing their appearance when connected to letters on each side of them – remember to read from right to left:

some letters can be attached to the letter that precedes them but not to the ones in front of them, such as –

and some can be attached both to the letters in front and the letters behind – assuming this is not disallowed by the above rules:

Because of the difficulties of representing Arabic in English I have elected to simplify where possible, assuming that a person using the glossary will have heard the word in Arabic and will be looking for its meaning without knowledge of the letters of the Arabic alphabet, or the structure of its language.

Finally it should be noted that the printed and written forms of Arabic are different as they are, in fact, in English.

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Arabic alphabet

The letters of the Arabic alphabet, but with no reference to a base line, are:

Arabic letter			Comment	English
alif				a or aa
ba				b
ta				t (soft)
tha				th
jeem				j
ha			voiceless pharyngeal fricative	h (hard)
kha			voiceless uvular fricative	kh
sin				s (soft)
shin				sh
dal				d
dhal				dh
ain			glottal stop	a’ or ’
ghain			voiced uvular fricative	gh
ta				t (hard)
dha			voiced alveolar fricative	dh
fa				f
qaf			voiceless uvular stop	q
rim				r
zad				z
sad				s (hard)
dhad			voiced alveolar stop	dh
kaf				k
lam				l
mim				m
nun				n
wow				w
ya				y

In addition there is the silent Arabic ‘t’ which is the equivalent of the ‘h’ and features as a feminine singular suffix, as does a form of ‘y’ pronounced in the same way as the vowel ‘a’.

Verbs

The Arabic language has a tri-consonantal form and its basic root is the third person singular of the past tense. For instance kataba– he wrote – forms the basis of the vocabulary related to writing. From this are developed kitab, – a book, kuwtub– books, maktoub– a letter, kaatib– a scribe, and ektoub– the imperative, write!

Definite and indefinite pronouns

The indefinite pronoun ‘a’ or ‘an’ is not translated by Arabic into a specific word, but is assumed within the noun it describes. Thus ‘a book’ in Arabic would be kitab. However, the definite pronoun ‘the’ is translated in Arabic by ‘al’, as in ‘the book’ - al kitab.

Noun plurals

Two of a kind are described in Arabic by the addition of the suffix ‘ain’ to the single noun. Hence ‘kitab’– a book, but ‘kitabain’– two books.

A separate form exists for any number from three to ten of a kind but, above that, the noun form returns to the singular. Three books would be ‘thalatha kuwtub’and ten books would be ‘ashra kuwtub’, but eleven would be described as ‘hedashra kitab’, and a thousand books, ‘elf kitab’.

Comparative adjectives

Comparative adjectives are generally described in two forms with the prefix ‘the’ added to the median form to produce the superlative form. Hence big, bigger, biggest is translated as ‘kabir’, ‘akbar’, ‘al akbar’.

There are a number of different standards for the transliteration of Arabic into English. Here I have put the system I have used together with the definition of all the words used in these essays.

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Arabic numbers

By which I mean ‘numbers’ not ‘numerals’. I am referring to the numbers that the Arabs use. ‘Arabic numerals’ are what we in the West use in our numbering system; Arabs use what they call ‘Indian numbers’. We use the term ‘Arabic numerals’ as the numbers were brought to the West by the Arabs, via Persia, from India. I hope that’s clear…

So, here are the principal Arabic numbers. Bear in mind that the writing of Arabic numbers is grammatically quite complicated. What I have put down here is a simplified way in which I have heard it used in the Gulf:

Arabic	English
waahid	one
ithnayn	two
thalatha	three
arba’a	four
khamsa	five
sita	six
saba’a	seven
thamaanya	eight
tisa’a	nine
ashra	ten

Two of anything is formed by taking the single form and adding ‘ain’ to the end, hence one man is waahid rajul (although the ‘waahid’ is superfluous), but rajulain for two men, then from three to ten, rajul will take the plural form, rijaal– three rijaal, four rijaal and so on.

ihad’ashra	eleven
ithna’ashra	twelve
thalathat’ashra	thirteen
arba’at’ashra	fourteen
khamsat’ashra	fifteen
sita’ashra	sixteen
saba’at’ashra	seventeen
thamaanyat’ashra	eighteen
tisa’at’ashra	nineteen

From 11 to 99 any noun related to a number takes the accusative singular and not the plural form. Hence, eleven rajul, eighty-seven rajul, etc.

ishreen	twenty
ahidowishreen	twenty-one
thalatheen	thirty
arba’aeen	forty
khamseen	fifty
siteen	sixty
saba’aeen	seventy
thamanteen	eighty
tisa’ateen	ninety

From a hundred upwards, numbers can be simply constructed from the foregoing.

maya’	one hundred
maya’tain	two hundred
thaltha maya	three hundred
	etc.
alf	one thousand
alfain	two thousand
thalatha alaaf	three thousand
	etc.
alf alf or milyoon	one million

For anything else, and to sort out any problems I have given you, I strongly advise you look at an Arabic grammar and a dictionary relevant to the geographical area you are dealing with.