Reading · Lesson 1 · 6 min
How Arabic Writing Works
An abjad, right-to-left, no capitals — you know more than you think
Here is the best-kept secret about learning to read Arabic as a Hebrew speaker: you already know how it works. Arabic script is an abjad — an alphabet of consonants, with vowels as optional extras — exactly like Hebrew. It runs right-to-left, exactly like Hebrew. It has no capital letters, exactly like Hebrew. The word skeleton carries the meaning and the reader supplies the vowels, exactly like Hebrew. Only one idea will be genuinely new to you: in Arabic, the letters hold hands.
Letters hold hands
Arabic is always cursive — even in print, even on street signs. Letters within a word connect, and a letter changes shape depending on whether it stands alone, starts a word, sits in the middle, or ends it. That sounds like four alphabets to memorize. It is not: the core shape (the skeleton and its dots) stays constant, and what changes is mostly where the connecting stroke attaches.
| Position | b — ب | ʿayn — ع | h — ه |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | ب | ع | ه |
| Initial | بـ | عـ | هـ |
| Medial | ـبـ | ـعـ | ـهـ |
| Final | ـب | ـع | ـه |
Six letters refuse to connect forward: ا, د, ذ, ر, ز, و. They accept a connection from the letter before them but never reach out to the letter after — so they create little gaps inside words. The word دَار (dār, house) is one word with visible breaks in it, because both د and ا are non-connectors. Once you know the six rebels, the gaps stop looking like word boundaries.
Your first words
- بَيْتביתbayt
house
בַּיִת بَايِتbayit
Three connecting letters: ب + ي + ت join into بيت. It is the same Semitic word as בַּיִת — your first word of Arabic was never foreign.
- سَلَامסלאםsalām
peace; hello
שָׁלוֹם شَالُومshalom
Hebrew ש answering Arabic س — the most famous correspondence in the family, and the subject of Lesson 7.
- بَابבאבbāb
door, gate
Israelis know this one from the road to Jerusalem: באב אל-ואד, Bāb al-Wād — 'Gate of the Valley'.
Spot the gaps — non-connectors at work
- دَارדארdār
house, dwelling
د and ا both refuse to connect forward, so the word has gaps inside it. The root d-w-r 'to dwell' also gave Hebrew לָדוּר and — via Aramaic — דִּירָה.
- وَلَدולדwalad
boy, child
יֶלֶד يِلِدyeled
Arabic kept the ancient w- that Hebrew turned into י: walad is יֶלֶד. Legal and Mishnaic Hebrew still keep the older form — הַוָּלָד.
- كِتَابכתאבkitāb
book
The alif in the middle breaks the connection: كتا then a fresh ب. Root k-t-b — the same כ-ת-ב as Hebrew כָּתַב.
28 letters — where did the extra six come from?
Hebrew has 22 letters; Arabic has 28. Arabic did not invent new sounds — it kept old ones. Proto-Semitic, the shared ancestor, had a richer set of consonants. Hebrew merged many pairs into a single letter; Arabic preserved the distinctions. That is why one Hebrew letter often answers to two different Arabic letters, and it is why the mapping between the languages is so beautifully regular.
| One Hebrew letter | Arabic sibling #1 | Arabic sibling #2 |
|---|---|---|
| ש | س | ث |
| ז | ز | ذ |
| ח | ح | خ |
| ע | ع | غ |
| צ | ص | ض / ظ |
Small print: stretching and numbers
Because letters connect, Arabic can stretch the connector for typography: بـــاب is just بَاب with an elongated stroke, called tatweel (kashida). It has no sound — it exists to justify lines or add emphasis. Hebrew scribes did the very same thing: Torah scrolls and old siddurim stretch wide letters like ת and ם to justify the line. And numbers: the Levant and Egypt use the Eastern Arabic digits ٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩ (the Maghreb uses 0–9), but either way, numbers run left-to-right inside right-to-left text — ٢٠٢٦ is 2026 — which is precisely what you already do when you type 2026 into a Hebrew sentence.