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Arabic Connecting Letters

1. What is a word segment?
2. Arabic non-connecting letters
3. Joining Arabic letters chart
4. Writing practice
5. Exercise 1
6. Exercise 2

Please note that in this lesson, we are not learning the pronunciation of Arabic words. This lesson is about the understanding of Arabic connecting or joining letters. i.e. How Arabic letters are connected with one another?
The above explanation becomes necessory because this lesson contains some complete Arabic words. These are just to show letter's connectivity and not to learn the pronunciation.

Most of the characters in the Arabic Alphabet connect to their neighboring letters. So, an Arabic letter can be at the beginning of a word or word segment, in the middle, or at the end of a word or word segment. With the change in the position of a letter in a word or a word segment, the appearance of a letter also changes.

Learning the connecting pattern of Arabic or other languages written in the Arabic script is the most difficult task for an English speaker. We have tried to simplify it here.

Without recognition of these joining shapes, it is impossible to read Arabic. In the next lesson, we will learn how to read Arabic words, even without knowing their meanings. Jumping onto the next lesson without knowledge of Arabic connecting patterns is of no use. So, take your time in learning these patterns. This task may take up to a weak for absolute beginners.

Since the goal at the beginning stage is to read the Arabic words, it is important to recognize the letter,s shapes at the initial, middle, and final positions in a word or word segment.

What is a word segment?

Please note that word segmentation has nothing to do with syllables. syllables are discussed under a completely different topic.

To understand the concept of word segment, we take an example word that is pronounced almost similarly in Arabic and English.

Take the example word Washington, in Arabic, it is written as:
(Read Arabic letters from right to left.)

➜ واشنطن

The Arabic spellings of the word Washington are

و ا ش ن ط ن

but we see three segments in this word.

1. Letters و and ا are in their solo forms.
2. Then we have a combination of four letters i.e. شنطن

So, we have 3 segments in the word واشنطن.

Segment 3	Segment 2	Segment 1
شنطن	ا	و

Some Arabic words are divided into segments and some are not (single segment words). The division of a word into segments depends upon the non-connecting letters. As discussed at the beginning of the current lesson, most of the letters in the Arabic language connect to their neighboring letters, but some letters can't be connected, thus causing the division of a word into two or more segments.

Arabic non-connecting letters

A simple rule to keep in mind while making words from Arabic letters is:

In the formation of a word from alphabetic letters, all Arabic letters join to preceding letters (letters before them), and the majority of letters also join the proceeding letters (letters after them), but there are six letters in the Arabic alphabet that can’t be joined to the proceeding letters (letters after them).

Explanation of Arabic connecting letters via examples

To understand more about Arabic connecting letters, we take the word واشنطن (Washington) and analyze it, why it contains three segments. The spellings are و ا ش ن ط ن.

From the above-explained rule, we know that the letters و and ا can’t be connected to the letter after them. That’s why we see a break after the letter و and then after the letter ا. These two breaks are responsible for the division of the word واشنطن into three segments/sections.

We have the letter ن two times in the word واشنطن . The first occurrence is in the middle of the 3rd segment, and the second time ن is at the end of the 3rd segment. We see that the shape of the letter "noon" is different when it is in the middle of a word or word segment from its isolated form.

But the letter ن can be at the first position in a word or word segment, like in the word دنیا which means world, where ن is at the first position of 2nd segment of the word.

Or in the word نخلة (Palm tree), where ن is the first letter in the word. The word, نخلة (Palm tree) is not divided into segments/sections because all letters are connecting letters of the Arabic alphabet and there no occurrence of letters ا , د, ذ, ر, ز و , Which are responsible for the division of a word into segments.

A letter can be in the isolated position in a word. This means, the letter is not connected to the letter before it or after it, like, the letter ن is in the isolated position in the word باكستان (Pakistan). The word باكستان is divided into 3 segments. This division of the word is because of two occurrences of the letter ا . Which belongs to the six Arabic letters that don’t connect to the letter after them. However, ن can connect to the letter after it but here in باكستان it is the last letter and must be written in the isolated form. Similarly, و (waw) and ا (alif) are in isolated forms in the word واشنطن (Washington) for the same reason.

So, there can be four positions of a letter in a word or word section/segment.

1. A letter can be at the beginning
2. in the middle,
3. at the end of a word, or
4. in the isolated form.

All four positions of the Arabic letters are discussed below with examples.

Joining Arabic letters chart

In the following table, below the connecting character shapes are example words that show the use of the particular character shape in a word or word segment. These example words are not real meaningful Arabic words. They are just to represent the connecting letters.
The green color in the example words shows the shape that is described above it.

Please read the table from right to left. ➜

Writing Practice

A letter tracing practice for connecting letters is included in the workbook for all the alphabetic letters. Please see the following preview pages from the workbook.

Exercise 1

Break the following words into individual characters.
You can use an Arabic keyboard, online Arabic keyboard to fill in individual letters.
There is also a pdf form of this practice available, you can download, print, and practice with a pen, which is an even better option for long-term memory.

Once you have completed the task and want to see results, the buttons are at the end of the exercise.

Please also note whenever the special Arabic letter ء (hamza) comes over or below a letter, that particular letter is written with ء in the isolated form.

Exercise 2

Just like we have extracted letters from words, now we are going to construct words from letters. This practice helps in learning writing. This exercise is a bit difficult than the previous one but is important in the direction of learning Arabic script. In case you can't construct words from letters, please re-read the above-explained rules, which letters connect to their left-coming letters and which don't.

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