In the Arabic script, harakat (حركة, literally meaning movements) are the diacritic marks used to represent vowel sounds. The most concrete meaning of harakat is "movements", e.g. in the context of the motion of machinery. In the same way, the Hebrew word tenua is used - meaning both "movement" and "vowel".
The Arabic script is an abjad rather than an alphabet, and the vowels are often left out; and the vowel sounds associated by default with each letter (each of which can function as a consonant, or as a consonant plus that default vowel) are the principal means of representing the vowels when letters are combined to represent words. For vowel sounds, the first letter ʼalif is used for the strong "A" sound as in "car".
List of harakat
- The Fatḥa is a small accent-shaped diacritic. When it's put above a letter, represents a short [a] sound. The word fatḥa itself (فتحة) means opening, and refers to the opening of the mouth when producing the [a] vowel. Example of fatḥa with dāl: دَ.
- The fatḥa may designate a long [a:] vowel if it is followed by a letter ا (alif).
- The same shape below a letter is called a kasra. It designates a short [i] vowel as in the English word "big". Example of kasra with dāl: دِ.
- The kasra may designate a long [i:] vowel (as in the English word "bead") if it is followed by the letter ﻱ (yāʼ).
- The damma is a small curl-like diacritic. It is placed above a letter to represent a short [u] vowel as in English word "sugar". Example of damma with dāl: دُ.
- The damma may designate a long [u:] vowel (as in the English word "soon"), if it is followed by the letter و (wāw).
- The tanwin Template:Ar include nunation.
- The sukūn is a circle-shaped diacritic put above a letter. It indicates that the letter (i. e., the corresponding consonant) does not have a vowel (necessary to write CVCC word patterns, which are common in Arabic). Example of sukūn with dāl: دْ.
- The shadda is a diacritic shaped like a small hand-written English letter "w". It is used to indicate gemination (consonant doubling), which is phonemic in Arabic. It is written above the consonant that is doubled. Example of shadda with dāl: Template:Ar.
- The letter ﻱ yāʼ at the end of the word, with a dotted-kasra beneath it produces a long ending vowel /iː/.
- The hamza diacritic (indicating the glottal stop) must accompany a vowel at the beginning of a word that "begins with a vowel" (this is said in the English sense of the word - because in Semitic languages, the glottal "initiation" of a vowel is considered a consonant and is designated by the letters alef and ayin). ʼAlif, which is frequently used to lengthen a fatḥa in the middle of a word, may "carry" any vowel sound at the beginning of a word.
- A madda on an Alif (ﺁ) designates a long vowel sound.
- In some African languages such as Hausa, a large dot below a letter represents the vowel /e/.
See also
- Arabic alphabet
- I`rab
- The Hebrew equivalent Niqqud