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That is the letter ت, pronounced same as t

Yalla, let's learn some Arabic

 

There are 2 other letters that look exactly the same except for the dots, here is how to tell the three apart:

 

The ‫(b sound) ب‬ has the dot below its shell

The word “below” starts with the sound b.

Transliterated as b

 

The ‫ (t sound) ت‬ has two dots above its shell

The word “two” starts with the sound t.

Transliterated as t

 

The ث (th sound) has three dots above its shell

The word “three” starts with the sound th.

Transliterated as th

 

mnemonicpronunciationletter
dot belowbب
two dotstت
three dotsth in threeث

:read-theory:

Remember: these three letters have the exact same shape, only the dots are different. The only reason dots exist in Arabic is so we can easily tell letters like these apart.

Since they have the same shape, they behave the same way when we write them in cursive, which is the only way to write in Arabic. You'll see what this means when we talk more about the script.

   

Pronunciation examples:

ب (b sound) :

باب   door       baab

 

ت (t sound) :

توت   mulberry       tuut

 

ث (th sound, as in three) :

In this example the ث is ثـ

ثَوب   garment       thawb


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29 comments
  • In case someone doesn’t know, transliteration means converting text from one script to another (Arabic to Latin in our case) while maintaining the pronunciation.

      • No they are connected and written from RTL, it's just that the middle letter in each of these words happens to be a one-way connector i.e. it connects to the letter preceding but not the one following, e.g.:

        ث + و + ب = ثوب

        This is all a bit advanced for now.

        • I realised the problem when I enlarged the text enough to see the dots properly. I'd been expecting to see ث in the final example and misread ب as that. Then the little gap went against my expectation of cursive and I got confused. All the not-Arabic posting had me primed for tech problems, but it's just that I'm not wearing glasses, and the first two examples hadn't forced my left-to-right brain to pay more attention. Sorry to bother you with my idiocy.

          So, now that I can actually see, I notice an extra slanted line on top in ثَوب (example) but not in ثوب (reply). What does that do?

          P.S., I like the common-shape approach with mnemonics for disambiguation you've used here. I think it's a good way to build familiarity with new writing systems.

          • I realised the problem when I enlarged the text enough to see the dots properly.

            Yeah this is a real problem with Arabic and computers, see this comment.

            Sorry to bother you with my idiocy.

            No it's a good question, keep the questions coming, whether you think they are good or not :D

            So, now that I can actually see, I notice an extra slanted line on top in ثَوب (example) but not in ثوب (reply). What does that do?

            That symbol ( َ ) is a short vowel, similar to the a in cat, and it's transliterated as a.

            • Thank you! Can I suggest adding a note along the lines of "ث becomes ث‍ in the example"?

              I had to do some unicode trickery for that. Do Arabic keyboards have a zero-width joiner key or some other method for forcing particular forms?

              And please add me to your ping list.

              • Can I suggest adding a note along the lines of "ث becomes ث‍ in the example"?

                That is a good idea, will do.

                Do Arabic keyboards have a zero-width joiner key or some other method for forcing particular forms?

                Not zero-width no but we have this connecting line ـ

29 comments