The Arabic alphabet: 28 letters, joining forms and short vowels

Arabic has 28 letters, written from right to left and joined together, even in print. That is what makes it look hard. In fact the system is regular: a letter keeps its core shape and changes only how it connects, six letters never connect forward, and dots tell apart letters that share a shape. This guide walks you through all of it, with words to practise on. When you are ready, try our free Arabic level test.

Updated November 11, 2026 · 6 min read

One script, many languages

Arabic is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, and its script reaches far beyond it. The Unicode Standard lists Persian, Urdu, Pashto, Sindhi and Uyghur among the languages written in extended forms of it, as well as many African languages; Urdu is often written in the ornate Nastaliq style. Turkish and Indonesian/Malay once used it and now use Latin letters. Learn the Arabic letters and you have a head start on Persian, Urdu, Pashto and Sorani Kurdish, which add a few letters of their own.

Three rules before the letters

• Right to left. Words and lines run from right to left.
• Joined, even in print. The Unicode Standard calls the script cursive, even in its printed form: the same letter may look different depending on how it joins its neighbours.
• Short vowels are usually not written. The vowel marks exist, but in normal writing they are omitted. Start with materials that print them; most of what you read later will not.

All 28 letters

Order and names follow Wiktionary's Arabic letter list; the Latin values are Wiktionary's transliteration. The sounds are our rough guide for English speakers. No in the last column marks the six letters that never join the letter after them, according to Unicode's joining data.

How joining works

Most letters are dual-joining: they connect on both sides, so each has a shape at the start, in the middle and at the end of a word, plus one standing alone. Unicode's joining data names the six exceptions: ا د ذ ر ز و join the letter before them but never the one after. After any of these six, the next letter starts fresh, as if at the beginning of a word.

Watch it in كتاب (kitāb, book). ك starts the word and joins forward; ت joins on both sides; ا joins the ت before it but not what follows, so the last letter, ب, stands on its own. That is why the word looks like two pieces: كتا and ب.

Dots make the difference

Several letters share one skeleton and differ only by their dots. The Unicode Standard gives the example of ب (one dot below), ت (two above) and ث (three above), which all belong to the same shape group. The same is true of ج ح خ, of د ذ, of ر ز, of س ش, and of the heavy pairs ص ض and ط ظ. Read the dots first, and many letters stop looking alike.

Short vowels and other marks

The marks are called tashkil. Wiktionary's transliteration reads them like this:

A long vowel is written with a letter: ا for ā, و for ū after a ḍamma, ي for ī after a kasra. The Unicode Standard also describes one obligatory ligature: when lām is followed by alif, most fonts merge them into one sign, لا. You see it in one of the first words you will learn, lā, no.

First words to read

Each word was checked on Wiktionary and is shown with its vowel marks. Read from the right.

Try spotting the rules: in بَاب the alif cuts the word in two; in شُكْرًا the sukūn says no vowel after the k, and the ending is a tanwin, -an. Arabic also has its own comma ، and question mark ؟, which the Unicode Standard lists as Arabic punctuation marks.

A two-week plan

Our suggestion, about 15 minutes a day. Days 1–4: the letters in their shape groups (ب ت ث, ج ح خ, د ذ, ر ز, س ش and so on), reading words with full vowel marks. Days 5–7: the six non-joining letters and the joining forms. Days 8–11: the marks, hamza and the lām-alif ligature, writing by hand. Days 12–14: the same words without vowel marks. Then build vocabulary: 16Word drills the commonest words with spaced repetition and a Blocks break between answers, and our plans start free.

Keep learning

• Free Arabic level test, or all 36 level tests
• Languages in the same script: Persian, Urdu, Pashto and Sorani Kurdish level tests
• The same script with more letters: the Persian alphabet and the Urdu alphabet
• The same script for Pashto and Kurdish: the Pashto alphabet and the Sorani Kurdish alphabet
• Another right-to-left script: the Hebrew alphabet and the Hebrew level test
• Arabic once wrote Turkish: the Turkish level test
• More scripts: the Russian alphabet, the Georgian alphabet, Serbian's two alphabets and Devanagari for Hindi
• All guides