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What is the Arabic alphabet?

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Arabic has its own alphabet, which is composed of 28 consonants. Most of the characters have four different forms, one for beginning a word, another for ending a word, still another for a medial position, and a fourth for a letter used by itself. Vowels are shown by symbols above or below the consonants, but they are optional and are often not written. The direction of writing is from right to left. The Arabic alphabet evolved from the Nabataean script, which is a descendant of the Aramaic writing (see Aramaic ).

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Get more facts and information about Arabic languages . Or, view the full encyclopedia entry from The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.

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