View source for Abjad

{{short description|Writing system where each symbol stands for a consonant}}
{{For|the traditional ordering of the letters of the Arabic alphabet|Abjad numerals}}
{{more citations needed|date=September 2022|reason=the article relies in large part on Omniglot, an unreliable source}}

An '''abjad''' ({{IPAc-en|'|æ|b|dʒ|æ|d|audio=LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-Abjad.wav}}<ref>{{OED|abjad}}</ref> or '''abgad'''<ref>{{cite book |last1=Boyes |first1=Philip J. |last2=Steele |first2=Philippa M. |title=Understanding Relations Between Scripts II |date=10 October 2019 |isbn=978-1-78925-092-3 |page=24 |publisher=Oxbow Books |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gF3JDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA24}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Lehmann |first=Reinhard G. |editor1-last=de Voogt |editor1-first=Alex |editor2-last=Quack |editor2-first=Joachim Friedrich |date=2012 |title=The Idea of Writing: Writing Across Borders |publisher=Brill |location=Leiden, Boston |isbn=9789004215450 |page=35 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KTA6MsEjkPIC&pg=PA46}}</ref>) is a [[writing system]] in which only [[consonant]]s are represented, leaving the [[vowel]] sounds to be inferred by the reader. This contrasts with [[alphabets]], which provide [[grapheme]]s for both consonants and vowels. The term was introduced in 1990 by [[Peter T. Daniels]].<ref>Daniels, P. (1990). "[https://www.jstor.org/stable/602899 Fundamentals of Grammatology]". ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'', 110(4), 727-731. {{doi|10.2307/602899}}. "We must recognize that the West Semitic scripts constitute a third fundamental type of script, the kind that denotes individual consonants only. It cannot be subsumed under either of the other terms. A suitable name for this type would be alephbeth, in honor of its Levantine origin, but this term seems too similar to alphabet to be practical; so I propose to call this type an "abjad," ''[Footnote:  I.e., the alif-ba-jim order familiar from earlier Semitic alphabets, from which the modern order alif-ba-ta-tha is derived by placing together the letters with similar shapes and differing numbers of dots. The abjad is the order in which numerical values are assigned to the letters (as in Hebrew).]'' from the Arabic word for the traditional order6 of its script, which (unvocalized) of course falls in this category... There is yet a fourth fundamental type of script, a type recognized over forty years ago by James- Germain Fevrier, called by him the "neosyllabary" (1948, 330), and again by Fred Householder thirty years ago, who called it "pseudo-alphabet" (1959, 382). These are the scripts of Ethiopia and "greater India" that use a basic form for the specific syllable consonant + a particular vowel (in practice always the unmarked a) and modify it to denote the syllables with other vowels or with no vowel. Were it not for this existing term, I would propose maintaining the pattern by calling this type an "abugida," from the Ethiopian word for the auxiliary order of consonants in the signary."</ref> Other terms for the same concept include '''partial phonemic script''', '''segmentally linear defective phonographic script''', '''consonantary''', '''consonant writing''', and '''consonantal alphabet'''.<ref>Amalia E. Gnanadesikan (2017), "Towards a typology of phonemic scripts", ''Writing Systems Research'', 9:1, 14-35, {{doi|10.1080/17586801.2017.1308239}}. "Daniels (1990, 1996a) proposes the name abjad for these scripts, and this term has gained considerable popularity. Other terms include partial phonemic script (Hill, 1967), segmentally linear defective phonographic script (Faber, 1992), consonantary (Trigger, 2004), consonant writing (Coulmas, 1989) and consonantal alphabet (Gnanadesikan, 2009; Healey, 1990). "</ref>

'''Impure abjads''' represent vowels with either optional [[diacritic]]s, a limited number of distinct vowel glyphs, or both.

==Etymology==
The name ''abjad'' is based on the [[Arabic alphabet]]'s first (in its [[Arabic alphabet#Alphabetical order|original order]]) four {{nowrap|letters{{hsp}}{{mdash}}{{hsp}}}}corresponding to ''a'', ''b'', ''j'', and {{nowrap|''d''{{hsp}}{{mdash}}{{hsp}}}}to replace the more common terms "consonantary" and "consonantal alphabet" in describing the family of scripts classified as "[[West Semitic languages|West Semitic]]". It is similar to other Semitic languages such as [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]], [[Hebrew alphabet|Hebrew]] and [[Semitic alphabet|Semitic]] proto-alphabets: specifically, [[aleph]], [[Bet (letter)|bet]], [[gimel]], [[dalet]].

==Terminology==
According to the formulations of [[Peter T. Daniels]],{{sfn|Daniels|Bright|1996}} abjads differ from [[alphabet]]s in that only consonants, not vowels, are represented among the basic [[grapheme]]s. Abjads differ from [[abugida]]s, another category defined by Daniels, in that in abjads, the vowel sound is ''implied'' by [[phonology]], and where [[Diacritic|vowel marks]] exist for the system, such as [[niqqud|nikkud]] for [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] and [[harakat|ḥarakāt]] for [[Arabic]], their use is optional and not the dominant (or literate) form. Abugidas mark all vowels (other than the [[Inherent vowel|"inherent" vowel]]) with a [[diacritic]], a minor attachment to the letter, a standalone [[glyph]], or (in [[Canadian Aboriginal syllabics]]) by rotation of the letter. Some abugidas use a special symbol to ''suppress'' the inherent vowel so that the consonant alone can be properly represented. In a [[syllabary]], a grapheme denotes a complete syllable, that is, either a lone vowel sound or a combination of a vowel sound with one or more consonant sounds.

The contrast of abjad versus alphabet has been rejected by other scholars because ''abjad'' is also used as a term for the Arabic numeral system. Also, it may be taken as suggesting that consonantal alphabets, in contrast to e.g. the [[Greek alphabet]], were not yet true alphabets.{{sfn|Lehmann|2011}} [[Florian Coulmas]], a critic of Daniels and of the abjad terminology, argues that this terminology can confuse alphabets with "transcription systems", and that there is no reason to relegate the Hebrew, Aramaic or Phoenician alphabets to second-class status as an "incomplete alphabet".<ref>{{cite book|last=Coulmas|first=Florian|title=Writing Systems|year=2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=113|isbn=978-0-521-78737-6}}</ref>
However, Daniels's terminology has found acceptance in the linguistic community.<ref name="omniglot">
  [http://omniglot.com/writing/alphabetic.htm "Abjads / Consonant alphabets"],
  Omniglot.com, 2009, quote: "Abjads, or consonant alphabets, represent consonants only, or consonants plus some vowels. Full vowel indication (vocalisation) can be added, usually by means of diacritics, but this is not usually done." Accessed 22 May 2009.
</ref><ref>
Rogers, Henry (2005): ''Writing systems: a linguistic approach''. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-23464-0, ISBN 978-0-631-23464-7. See esp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=vu3lRLVUta8C&dq=abjad&pg=PA115 Chap. 7, pp. 115ff].
</ref><ref>
[http://www.isca-speech.org/archive/interspeech_2006/i06_1412.html Schone, Patrick (2006)]: "Low-resource autodiacritization of abjads for speech keyword search", In INTERSPEECH-2006, paper 1412-Mon3FoP.13.
</ref>

==Origins==
[[Image:Ba`alat.jpg|thumb|upright=1.10|A specimen of [[Proto-Sinaitic]] script containing a phrase which may mean 'to [[Baalat]]'. The line running from the upper left to lower right reads ''mt l b<sup>c</sup>lt''.]]

{{See also|History of the alphabet#Descendants of the Aramaic abjad}}

The first abjad to gain widespread usage was the [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician abjad]]. Unlike other contemporary scripts, such as [[Cuneiform script|cuneiform]] and [[Egyptian hieroglyphs]], the Phoenician script consisted of only a few dozen symbols. This made the script easy to learn, and seafaring Phoenician merchants took the script throughout the then-known world.

The Phoenician abjad was a radical simplification of phonetic writing, since hieroglyphics required the writer to pick a hieroglyph starting with the same sound that the writer wanted to write in order to write phonetically, much as ''[[man'yōgana]]'' ([[kanji]] used solely for phonetic use) was used to represent [[Japanese language|Japanese]] phonetically before the invention of [[kana]].

Phoenician gave rise to a number of new writing systems, including the widely used [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic]] abjad and the [[Greek alphabet]]. The Greek alphabet evolved into the modern western alphabets, such as [[Latin alphabet|Latin]] and [[Cyrillic]], while Aramaic became the ancestor of many modern abjads and abugidas of Asia.

Other sister scripts to Phoenician, that branched from [[Proto-Sinaitic script]] are the [[South Semitic scripts]] with its two main branches; the [[Ancient North Arabian]] scripts that were used in north and central Arabia, until it was displaced by the [[Arabic alphabet]].<ref>Ibn Durayd, ''Ta‘līq min amāli ibn durayd,'' ed. al-Sanūsī, Muṣṭafā, Kuwait 1984, p. 227 (Arabic). The author purports that a poet from the Kinda tribe in Yemen who settled in Dūmat al-Ǧandal during the advent of Islam told of how another member of the Yemenite Kinda tribe who lived in that town taught the Arabic script to the Banū Qurayš in Mecca and that their use of the Arabic script for writing eventually took the place of ''musnad'', or what was then the Sabaean script of the kingdom of Ḥimyar: "You have exchanged the ''musnad'' of the sons of Ḥimyar / which the kings of Ḥimyar were wont to write down in books."</ref> and [[Ancient South Arabian script|Ancient South Arabian]], which evolved later into the [[Geʽez script]], still being used in Eritrea and Ethiopia.

==Impure abjads==
[[File:Arabic_Language.svg|thumb|''Al-ʻArabiyya'', meaning "Arabic": an example of the Arabic script, which is an impure abjad]]

Impure abjads have characters for some vowels, optional vowel diacritics, or both. The term pure abjad refers to scripts entirely lacking in vowel indicators.{{sfn|Daniels|2013}} However, most modern abjads, such as [[Arabic alphabet|Arabic]], [[Hebrew alphabet|Hebrew]], [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic]], and [[Pahlavi alphabet|Pahlavi]], are "impure" abjads{{snd}}that is, they also contain symbols for some of the vowel phonemes, although the said non-diacritic vowel letters are also used to write certain consonants, particularly [[Approximant consonant|approximants]] that sound similar to long vowels. A "pure" abjad is exemplified (perhaps) by very early forms of ancient [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]], though at some point (at least by the 9th century BC) it and most of the contemporary Semitic abjads had begun to overload a few of the consonant symbols with a secondary function as vowel markers, called ''[[mater lectionis|matres lectionis]]''.{{sfn|Lipiński|1994}} This practice was at first rare and limited in scope but became increasingly common and more developed in later times.

===Addition of vowels===
{{Main|Greek alphabet}}

In the 9th century BC the Greeks adapted the Phoenician script for use in their own language. The phonetic structure of the Greek language created too many ambiguities when vowels went unrepresented, so the script was modified. They did not need letters for the [[guttural consonant|guttural]] sounds represented by ''[[aleph]]'', ''[[he (letter)|he]]'', ''[[Heth (letter)|heth]]'' or ''[[ayin]]'', so these symbols were assigned vocalic values. The letters ''[[Waw (letter)|waw]]'' and ''[[Yodh|yod]]'' were also adapted into vowel signs; along with ''he'', these were already used as ''[[Mater lectionis|matres lectionis]]'' in Phoenician. The major innovation of Greek was to dedicate these symbols exclusively and unambiguously to vowel sounds that could be combined arbitrarily with consonants (as opposed to syllabaries such as [[Linear B]] which usually have vowel symbols but cannot combine them with consonants to form arbitrary syllables).

[[Abugida]]s developed along a slightly different route. The basic consonantal symbol was considered to have an inherent "a" vowel sound. Hooks or short lines attached to various parts of the basic letter modify the vowel. In this way, the [[South Arabian script|South Arabian abjad]] evolved into the [[Geʽez script]] of Ethiopia between the 5th century BC and the 5th century AD. Similarly, the [[Brāhmī script|Brāhmī abugida]] of the Indian subcontinent developed around the 3rd century BC (from the [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic abjad]], it has been hypothesized).

=={{anchor|Semitic abjad|Semitic abjads}}Abjads and the structure of Semitic languages==
{{unreferenced section|date=March 2024}}

The abjad form of writing is well-adapted to the [[morphology (linguistics)|morphological]] structure of the Semitic languages it was developed to write. This is because words in Semitic languages are formed from [[triliteral|a root consisting of (usually) three consonants]], the vowels being used to indicate inflectional or derived forms. For instance, according to [[Classical Arabic]] and [[Modern Standard Arabic]], from the Arabic root {{lang|ar|ك&zwnj;ت&zwnj;ب}} ''K-T-B'' (to write) can be derived the forms {{lang|ar|كَتَبَ}} ''{{Transliteration|ar|kataba}}'' (he wrote), {{lang|ar|كَتَبْتَ}} ''{{Transliteration|ar|katabta}}'' (you (masculine singular) wrote), {{lang|ar|يَكْتُبُ⁩}} ''{{Transliteration|ar|yaktubu}}'' (he writes), and {{lang|ar|مَكْتَبَة⁩}} ''{{Transliteration|ar|maktabah}}'' (library). In most cases, the absence of full glyphs for vowels makes the common root clearer, allowing readers to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from familiar roots (especially in conjunction with [[context (language use)|context]] clues) and improving word recognition{{citation needed|date=August 2011}}{{dubious|date=August 2011}} while reading for practiced readers.<!--extremely exaggerated, there are dozens of Arabic words of different roots which are only distinguished by vowels-->

== Adaptation for use as true alphabets ==
The Arabic abjad have been adapted to perform as [[alphabet|true alphabets]] when used to write several languages, including [[Kurdish language|Kurdish]], [[Swahili Ajami|Swahili]], [[Jawi script|Malay]], and [[Uyghur alphabets|Uyghur]] and historically [[Arebica|Bosnian]], [[Andalusi Romance|Mozarabic]], [[Aragonese language|Aragonese]], [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], [[Spanish language|Spanish]] and [[Arabic Afrikaans|Afrikaans]], with some letters or letter combinations being repurposed to represent vowels. The Hebrew abjad has also been adapted to write Jewish languages like Ladino and Yiddish.

==Comparative chart of abjads, extinct and extant==

{|class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! scope="col" style="font-size:smaller;" | Name
! scope="col" style="font-size:smaller;" | In use
! scope="col" style="font-size:smaller;" | Cursive
! scope="col" style="font-size:smaller;" | Direction
! scope="col" style="font-size:smaller;" | # of letters
! scope="col" style="font-size:smaller;" | [[Matres lectionis]]
! scope="col" style="font-size:smaller;" | Area of origin
! scope="col" style="font-size:smaller;" | Used by
! scope="col" style="font-size:smaller;" | Languages
! scope="col" style="font-size:smaller;" data-sort-type=number | Time period (age)
! scope="col" style="font-size:smaller;" |Influenced by
! scope="col" style="font-size:smaller;" | Writing systems influenced
|-
| [[Arabic script|Arabic]]|| yes || yes || right-left || 28 || 3 || Middle East || Over 400 million people || [[Arabic language|Arabic]], [[Kashmiri language|Kashmiri]], [[Persian language|Persian]], [[Pashto language|Pashto]], [[Uyghur language|Uyghur]], [[Kurdish language|Kurdish]], [[Urdu language|Urdu]], [[Arabic script#Languages written with the Arabic script|many others]]{{sfn|Ager|2015}}|| 512 CE{{sfn|Ekhtiar|2011|p=21}}{{sfn|Ager|2015}} || Nabataean Aramaic|| [[Thaana]]
|-
| [[Syriac abjad|Syriac]] || yes || yes || right-left || 22 consonants || 3 || Middle East || [[Syriac Christianity]], [[Assyrian people|Assyrians]]||[[Aramaic]]: [[Syriac language|Syriac]], [[Suret language|Assyrian Neo-Aramaic]], [[Turoyo language|Turoyo]], [[Mlaḥsô language|Mlahso]]|| data-sort-value="-0100" | {{circa| 100}} BCE{{sfn|Ager|2015}}|| Aramaic || Nabatean, Palmyran, Mandaic, Parthian, Pahlavi, Sogdian, Avestan and Manichean{{sfn|Ager|2015}}
|-
| [[Hebrew abjad|Hebrew]] ||  yes || yes || right-left || 22 consonants + 5 final letters || 4 ||Middle East || [[Israelis]], [[Jewish diaspora]] communities, [[Second Temple period|Second Temple Judea]]  ||Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Aramaic, Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Italian, [[Yiddish]], [[Judaeo-Spanish|Ladino]], [[Jewish languages#Classification|many others]]|| data-sort-value="-0200" | 2nd century BCE || [[Paleo-Hebrew alphabet|Paleo-Hebrew]], Early Aramaic || 
|-
| [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic (Imperial)]] || no || no || right-left || 22 || 3 || Middle East || Achaemenid, Persian, Babylonian, and Assyrian empires || Imperial Aramaic, Hebrew || data-sort-value="-0500" | {{circa|500}} BCE{{sfn|Ager|2015}} || Phoenician || Late Hebrew, Nabataean, Syriac
|-
| [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic (Early)]] || no || no || right-left || 22 || none || Middle East || Various Semitic Peoples ||  || data-sort-value="-1000" | {{circa|1000|900}} BCE<br>{{Citation needed|date=October 2018}} || Phoenician || Hebrew, Imperial Aramaic.{{sfn|Ager|2015}}
|-
| [[Nabataean alphabet|Nabataean]] || no || no || right-left || 22 || none || Middle East || Nabataean Kingdom{{sfn|Lo|2012}} ||Nabataean || data-sort-value="-0200" | 200 BCE{{sfn|Lo|2012}}|| Aramaic || Arabic
|-
| [[Phoenician alphabet|Phoenician]] || no || no || right-left, [[boustrophedon]] || 22 || none || Byblos{{sfn|Ager|2015}} || Canaanites || Phoenician, Punic, [[Paleo-Hebrew alphabet|Hebrew]] || data-sort-value="-1500" | {{circa|1500|1000}} BCE{{sfn|Ager|2015}}|| Proto-Canaanite Alphabet{{sfn|Ager|2015}} || Punic (variant), Greek, Etruscan, Latin, Arabic and Hebrew
|-
| [[Punic language|Punic]] || no || no || right-left || 22 || none || Carthage (Tunisia), North Africa, Mediterranean{{sfn|Ager|2015}} || Punic Culture || Punic, Neo-Punic || || Phoenician<br>{{Citation needed|date=December 2011}} ||
|-
|[[Ancient North Arabian]]
|no
|no
|right-left
|29
|yes
|Arabian Peninsula
|Northern Arabians
|[[Old Arabic]],[[Ancient North Arabian languages]]
|8th century BCE - 4th century CE
|Proto-Sinaitic
|
|-
| [[Ancient South Arabian script|Ancient South Arabian]] || no || yes ([[South Arabian alphabet#Zabūr script|Zabūr]] - cursive form of the South Arabian script) || right-left, [[boustrophedon]] || 29 || yes || South-Arabia (Yemen) || D'mt Kingdom || Amharic, Tigrinya, Tigre, Semitic, Cushitic, Nilo-Saharan<br>{{Citation needed|date=December 2011}} || data-sort-value="-0900" | 900 BCE<br>{{Citation needed|date=December 2011}} || Proto-Sinaitic || Geʽez (Ethiopia and Eritrea)
|-
| [[Ancient South Arabian script|Sabaean]] || no || no || right-left, [[boustrophedon]] || 29 || none || Southern Arabia (Sheba) || Southern Arabians || Sabaean|| data-sort-value="-0500" | {{circa| 500}} BCE{{sfn|Ager|2015}}|| Byblos{{sfn|Ager|2015}} || Ethiopic (Eritrea & Ethiopia){{sfn|Ager|2015}}
|-
| [[Inscriptional Parthian|Parthian]] || no || no || right-left || 22 || yes || Parthia (modern-day equivalent of Northeastern Iran, Southern Turkmenistan and Northwest Afghanistan){{sfn|Ager|2015}}|| Parthian & Sassanian periods of Persian Empire{{sfn|Ager|2015}} || Parthian || data-sort-value="-0200" | {{circa|200}} BCE{{sfn|Ager|2015}}|| Aramaic ||
|-
| [[Ugaritic alphabet|Ugaritic]] || no || yes || left-right || 30 || none, 3 characters for [[Glottal stop|gs]]+vowel || Ugarit (modern-day Northern Syria) ||Ugarites || Ugaritic, Hurrian || data-sort-value="-1400" | {{circa| 1400}} BCE{{sfn|Ager|2015}} || Proto-Sinaitic ||
|-
| [[Proto-Sinaitic script|Proto-Sinaitic, Proto-Canaanite]] || no || no || left-right || 24 || none || Egypt, Sinai, Canaan || Canaanites || Canaanite || data-sort-value="-1900" | {{circa|1900|1700}} BCE|| In conjunction with Egyptian Hieroglyphs<br>{{Citation needed|date=December 2011}} || Phoenician, Hebrew
|-
| [[Samaritan alphabet|Samaritan]] || yes (700 people) || no || right-left || 22 || none || Levant || Samaritans (Nablus and Holon) || Samaritan Aramaic, Samaritan Hebrew|| data-sort-value="-0100" | {{circa|100 BCE|1 CE}}|| Paleo-Hebrew Alphabet ||
|-
| colspan="12" |
|-
| [[Tifinagh]] || yes || no || bottom-top, right-left, left-right,|| 31 || yes || North Africa || [[Berbers]] || [[Berber languages]] || data-sort-value="-2000" | 2nd millennium BCE<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-zBwBwAAQBAJ&pg=PT127|title=Rock Art Studies - News of the World Volume 3|last1=Franklin|first1=Natalie R.|last2=Strecker|first2=Matthias|date=2008-08-05|publisher=Oxbow Books|isbn=9781782975885|pages=127|language=en}}</ref> || Phoenician, Arabic || Neo-Tifinagh
|-
| [[Pahlavi scripts|Middle Persian, (Pahlavi)]] || no || no || right-left || 22 || 3 || Middle East || [[Sassanian Empire]] || Pahlavi, Middle Persian || data-sort-value="-0200" | {{circa|200 BCE | 700 CE}} || Aramaic || Psalter, Avestan{{sfn|Ager|2015}}
|-
| [[Psalter Pahlavi]] || no || yes || right-left || 21 || yes || Northwestern China{{sfn|Ager|2015}} || Persian Script for Paper Writing{{sfn|Ager|2015}} || || {{circa|400|sortable=yes}} CE<ref name="Encyclopædia Iranica">{{cite web|url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/pahlavi-psalter|title=PAHLAVI PSALTER – Encyclopaedia Iranica|website=iranicaonline.org}}</ref>|| Syriac<br>{{Citation needed|date=December 2011}} || 
|-
| [[Sogdian alphabet|Sogdian]] || no || no (yes in later versions)|| right-left, left-right (vertical) || 20 || 3 || parts of China (Xinjiang), Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan || Buddhists, Manichaens || Sogdian || {{circa| 400|sortable=yes}} CE|| Syriac || [[Old Uyghur alphabet]]{{sfn|Ager|2015}}
|}

==See also==
* [[Abjad numerals]] (Arabic alphanumeric code)
* [[Abugida]]
* [[Disemvoweling]]
* [[Gematria]] (Hebrew & English system of alphanumeric code)
* [[Numerology]]
* [[Shorthand]] (constructed writing systems that are structurally abjads)

==References==
{{Reflist|40em}}

==Sources==
{{refbegin|40em}}

* {{cite encyclopedia
| title         = Abjads / Consonant alphabets
| encyclopedia  = Omniglot
| url           = http://www.omniglot.com/writing/alphabetic.htm
| first1        = Simon
| last1         = Ager
| date          = 2015
}}

* {{cite book|last1=Daniels|first1=Peter T.|editor1-last=Owens|editor1-first=Jonathan|title=The Oxford Handbook of Arabic Linguistics|date=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|page=415|chapter=The Arabic Writing system}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |editor1-first   = Peter T.
 |editor1-last    = Daniels
 |editor-link1    = Peter T. Daniels
 |editor2-first   = William
 |editor2-last    = Bright
 |title   = The World's Writing Systems
 |publisher       = OUP
 |date            = 1996
 |page            = [https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195079937/page/4 4]
 |isbn            = 978-0195079937
 |name-list-style = amp
 |url-access      = registration
 |url             = https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195079937/page/4
}}

* {{Cite book| isbn = 9781588394347| last = Ekhtiar| first = Maryam| title = Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|location=New York |page=21 |date = 2011 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vO761l9dgZwC&pg=PA21 }}
* {{cite encyclopedia
| first1        = Reinhard G.
| last1         = Lehmann
| title         = '''Ch 2''' 27-30-22-26. How Many Letters Needs an Alphabet? The Case of Semitic
| encyclopedia  = The idea of writing: Writing across borders
| editor1-first = Alex
| editor1-last  = de Voogt
| editor2-first = Joachim Friedrich
| editor2-last  = Quack
| location      = Leiden
| publisher     = Brill
| date          = 2011
| pages         = 11–52
| isbn          = 978-9004215450
| name-list-style = amp
}}

* {{cite book|last1=Lipiński|first1=Edward|title=Studies in Aramaic Inscriptions and Onomastics II|date=1994|publisher=Peeters Publishers|location=Leuven, Belgium|isbn=9068316109|pages=29–30}}
* {{cite web
 |title        = Berber
 |url          = http://www.ancientscripts.com/berber.html
 |first1       = Lawrence
 |last1        = Lo
 |date         = 2012
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20170826045645/http://www.ancientscripts.com/berber.html
 |archive-date = 26 August 2017
 |url-status     = dead
 |df           = dmy-all
}}

* {{Cite book
| last1         = Wright
| first1        = W.
| title         = A Grammar of the Arabic Language
| trans-title   = transl. from the German of Caspari
| edition       = 3rd
| publisher     = CUP
| year          = 1967
| isbn          = 978-0521094559
| volume        = 1
| page          = 28
}}

{{refend}}

==External links==
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4wKD0uN0NQ The Science of Arabic Letters, Abjad and Geometry, by Jorge Lupin is dead]

{{Writing systems |expanded=Abjads}}
{{list of writing systems}}

[[Category:Abjad writing systems| ]]
[[Category:Arabic orthography]]
[[Category:1990s neologisms]]