History of the Arabic alphabet
[1] Ahmed Sharaf Al-Din has argued that the relationship between the Arabic alphabet and the Nabataeans is only due to the influence of the latter after its emergence (from Ancient South Arabian script).
[2] Arabic has a one-to-one correspondence with ancient South Arabian script except for the letter 𐩯 (reconstructed Proto-Semitic s³).
While the modern Nabatean theory is that the Arabic alphabet can be traced back to the Nabataean script.
It is a trilingual dedication in Greek, Syriac and Arabic found at the village of Zabad in northwestern Syria.
And he has placed it under the protection of (the gods) Kahl and Lah and ʿAthtar al-Shariq from anyone strong or weak, and anyone who would attempt to sell or pledge it, for all time without any derogation, so long as the sky produces rain or the earth herbage."
(Said and al-Hadad) "([Th]is is the tomb which SHYMW … built … (2) … [for P]N, hisson, through (the help of) the god of their father … (3) … king Rabel, king of the Nabataeans …" (Butts and Hardy) "This is the memorial of Julianos, weighed down by long sleep, for whom his father Agathos built it while shedding a tear beside the boundary of the communal cemetery of the people of Christ, in order that a better people might always sing of him openly, being formerly the beloved faithful [son?]
In their southeast tower, which stands to a height of six stories, the names of the archangels—"Michael, Uriel, Gabriel and Raphael"—are inscribed.
(Healey and Smith) "This is the funerary monument of Imru' al-Qays, son of 'Amr, king of the Arabs, and (?)
And he subdued the Asadis and they were overwhelmed together with their kings, and he put to flight Madhhij thereafter, and came driving them to the gates of Najran, the city of Shammar, and he subdued Ma'add, and he dealt gently with the nobles of the tribes, and appointed them viceroys, and they became phylarchs for the Romans.
Important texts like the Qur'an were frequently memorized; this practice, which survives even today, probably arose partly to avoid the great ambiguity of the script, and partly due to the scarcity of books in times when printing was unheard-of in the area and every copy of every book had to be written by hand.
However, this was cumbersome and easily confusable with the letter-distinguishing dots, so about 100 years later, the modern system was adopted.
Here the Arabic letters are listed in the traditional Levantine order but are written in their current forms, for simplicity.
In the Arabic language, the g sound seems to have changed into j in fairly late pre-Islamic times, but this seems not to have happened in those tribes who invaded Egypt and settled there.
While a dotless ⟨ى⟩ ("ألف مقصورة alif maqṣūrah") is used for /aː/ in some words (instead of ⟨ا⟩), and a dotted ⟨ه⟩; ⟨ة⟩ ("تاء مربوطة tāʾ marbūṭah") indicates /h/ at the end of feminine nouns and adjectives as in رِسَالَة /ri.saː.lah/ "message" when standing alone but in the construct state it indicates /t/ as in رسالة الملكة /ri.saː.lat al.ma.li.kah/ "the queen's message" and some masculine nouns.
The Arabic grammarians of North Africa changed the new letters, which explains the differences between the alphabets of the East and the Maghreb.
Arabic script reached a climax in aesthetics and geographic spread under the Abbasid Caliphate.
"[17][18] When the Arabic alphabet spread to countries which used other languages, extra letters had to be invented to spell non-Arabic sounds.
Since the early 20th century, as the Ottoman Empire collapsed and European influence increased, many non-Arab Islamic areas began using the Cyrillic or Latin alphabet, and local adaptations of the Arabic alphabet were abandoned.
In many cases, the writing of a language in Arabic script has become restricted to classical texts and traditional purposes (as in the Turkic States of Central Asia, or Hausa and others in West Africa), while in others, the Arabic alphabet is used alongside the Latin one (as with Jawi in Brunei).
