HARAKAT

In the Arabic script, '' (حركات — the singular is حركة) are the diacritic marks used to represent vowel sounds. The literal meaning of '' is "movements", e.g. in the context of moving air waves that we produce while pronouncing vowels.
The Arabic script is an Impure abjad rather than an alphabet, meaning that all the consonant sounds are represented by letters but short vowel sounds are often not represented in writing. The '' are optional symbols that can be used to represent all the vowels that are not indicated in the ordinary spelling.

Contents

List of harakat

Use

History

Abu al-Aswad's system

Al Farāhídi's system

See also

External links

List of harakat

★ The '' is a small diagonal line placed ''above'' a letter, and represents a short . The word '' itself (<فتحة>) means ''opening'', and refers to the opening of the mouth when producing an . Example with dāl (henceforth, the base consonant in the following examples): <دَ> .

★
★ A '' plus a following letter <ا> (alif), the indicate a long . Example: <دَا> .

★ A similar diagonal line ''below'' a letter is called a 'kasra' and designates a short . Example: <دِ> .

★
★ A 'kasra' plus a following letter <ﻱ> indicate a long (as in the English word "bead"). Example: <دِي> .

★ The '' is a small curl-like diacritic placed above a letter to represent a short . Example: <دُ> .

★
★ And the '' with a following letter <و> () designates a long (as in the English word "soon"). Example: <دُو> .

★ If one of the three vowel diacritics is doubled, which can only appear at the end of a word, it indicates that vowel sound plus the consonant /n/, known as 'tanwin', or nunation. Thus the signs ـً ـٍ ـٌ indicate, from left to right, /un, in, an/.

★ The 'sukūn' is a circle-shaped diacritic placed above a letter. It indicates that the consonant to which it is attached is not followed by a vowel; this is a necessary symbol for writing CVC syllables, which are very common in Arabic. Example: <دَدْ> .

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★ The 'sukūn' may also be used to help represent a diphthong. A followed by the letter <ﻱ> with a sukūn over it indicates the diphthong /ay/ (IPA ). A followed by the letter <ﻭ> (wāw) with a sukūn indicates .

★ The 'shadda' is a diacritic shaped like a small written English "w". It is used to indicate gemination (consonant doubling or extra length), which is phonemic in Arabic. It is written above the consonant which is to be doubled. It is the only haraka that is sometimes used in ordinary spelling to avoid disambiguity. Example: <دّ> ; مدرسة /madrasa/ ''school'' vs. مدرّسة /mudarrisa/ ''teacher (f.)''

★ The 'hamza' diacritic (which is not itself part of the system of but interacts with it) indicates a glottal stop. It may appear by itself or over an alif, wāw, or .

★
★ Which letter is to be used to support the hamza depends on the quality of the adjacent vowels. If the syllable occurs at the beginning of the word, the glottal stop is always indicated by hamza on an alif. But if the syllable occurs in the middle of the word, alif is used ''only'' if it is not preceded or followed by or . If is before or after the glottal stop, a with a hamza is used (the two dots which are usually beneath the disappear in this case - <ئ>). If is there, a wāw sukūn with a hamza is used. Consider the following words: <أَخ> (, ''brother''), <ِإِسْرَائِيل> (, ''Israel''), <أُمْ> (, ''mother''). All three of above words "begin" with a vowel opening the syllable, and in each case, alif is used to designate the initial glottal stop (the ''actual'' beginning). But if we consider ''middle'' syllables "beginning" with a vowel: <نَشْأة> (, 'origin'), <ِإِسْرَائِيل> (, 'Israel' - notice the syllable), <ِرَؤُوف> ( 'lenient'), the situation is different, as noted above. See the comprehensive article on hamza for more details.

★ The 'madda' is a tilde-like diacritic which can appear only on top of an alif and indicates a glottal stop followed by long . The sequence should logically be spelled with a hamza on an alif (representing the ) followed by another alif (representing the ) but two consecutive alifs, including the combination
★ <أَا>, is never written. The sequence must always be written with an ''alif madda''. Example: <ﺁ>.

★ In some African languages such as Hausa, a large 'dot' below a letter represents the vowel .

Use

The bulk of Arabic script is written without harakat. However, they are commonly used in some religious texts that demand strict adherence to pronunciation rules such as Qur'an. It is not uncommon to add harakat to Hadith as well. Another use, is in children's literature. Harakat are also used, in ordinary texts, when an ambiguity of pronunciation might arise.

History

The first to commission a system of harakat was Muawiyah I of the Ummayad dynasty, when he ordered Ziad Ibn Abih his wāli in Basra to find someone to who would devise a method to transcribe correct reading. Ziad Ibn Abih, in turn, appointed Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali for the task. Abu al-Aswad devised a system of dots to signal the three short vowels (along with their respective allophones) of Arabic. This system of dots predates the dots of i'jam (Dots used to distinguish between different letters).

Abu al-Aswad's system

Abu al-Aswad's system of Harakat was different from the system we know today. The system used red dots with each arrangement or position indicating a different short vowel.

Al Farāhídi's system

This is the precursor to the system we know today. Al Farāhídi found that the task of writing using two different colours was tedious and impractical. Another complication was that dots of i'jam had been introduced by then, which means that the Arabic script was being written using two concurrent systems that use dots. Accordingly he changed the harakat into shapes resembling the letters used to transcribe the corresponding long vowels. His system evolved to the system we know today.

See also

★ Arabic alphabet

★ I`rab

★ The Hebrew equivalent Niqqud

External links

★ Classical Arabic Blog