In the Arabic Script , (حركات — the singular is حركة) are the Diacritic marks used to represent Vowel sounds. The literal meaning of '''' is "movements", e.g. in the context of moving air waves that we produce while pronouncing vowels.
The Arabic script is an Impure Abjad rather than an Alphabet , meaning that all the consonant sounds are represented by letters but short vowel sounds are often not represented in writing. The '''' are optional symbols that can be used to represent all the vowels that are not indicated in the ordinary spelling.
- The is a small diagonal line placed ''above'' a letter, and represents a short . The word '''' itself (<فتحة>) means ''opening'', and refers to the opening of the mouth when producing an . Example with Dāl (henceforth, the base consonant in the following examples): <دَ> .
- --- A plus a following letter <ا> ( Alif ), the indicate a long . Example: <دَا> .
- A similar diagonal line ''below'' a letter is called a and designates a short . Example: <دِ> .
- --- A plus a following letter <ﻱ> indicate a long (as in the English word "bead"). Example: <دِي> .
- The is a small curl-like diacritic placed above a letter to represent a short . Example: <دُ> .
- --- And the with a following letter <و> () designates a long (as in the English word "soon"). Example: <دُو> .
- If one of the three vowel diacritics is doubled, which can only appear at the end of a word, it indicates that vowel sound plus the consonant /n/, known as , or Nunation . Thus the signs ـً ـٍ ـٌ indicate, from left to right, /un, in, an/.
- The is a circle-shaped diacritic placed above a letter. It indicates that the consonant to which it is attached is not followed by a vowel; this is a necessary symbol for writing CVC syllables, which are very common in Arabic. Example: <دَدْ> .
- --- The may also be used to help represent a diphthong. A followed by the letter <ﻱ> with a sukūn over it indicates the diphthong /ay/ (IPA ). A followed by the letter <ﻭ> ( Wāw ) with a sukūn indicates .
- The is a diacritic shaped like a small written English "w". It is used to indicate gemination (consonant doubling or extra length), which is phonemic in Arabic. It is written above the consonant which is to be doubled. It is the only haraka that is sometimes used in ordinary spelling to avoid disambiguity. Example: <دّ> ; مدرسة /madrasa/ ''school'' vs. مدرّسة /mudarrisa/ ''teacher (f.)''
- The diacritic (which is not itself part of the system of but interacts with it) indicates a glottal stop. It may appear by itself or over an alif, wāw, or .
- --- Which letter is to be used to support the hamza depends on the quality of the adjacent vowels. If the syllable occurs at the beginning of the word, the glottal stop is always indicated by hamza on an for more details.
- The is a Tilde -like diacritic which can appear only on top of an Alif and indicates a glottal stop followed by long . The sequence should logically be spelled with a hamza on an alif (representing the ) followed by another alif (representing the ) but two consecutive alifs, including the combination ---<أَا>, is never written. The sequence must always be written with an ''alif madda''. Example: <ﺁ>.
- In some African Languages such as Hausa , a large below a letter represents the vowel .
The bulk of Arabic script is written without harakat. However, they are commonly used in some religious texts that demand strict adherence to pronunciation rules such as Qur'an . It is not uncommon to add harakat to Hadith as well. Another use, is in children's literature. Harakat are also used, in ordinary texts, when an ambiguity of pronunciation might arise.
The first to commission a system of harakat was Muawiyah I of the Ummayad dynasty, when he ordered Ziad Ibn Abih his Wāli in Basra to find someone to who would devise a method to transcribe correct reading. Ziad Ibn Abih, in turn, appointed Abu Al-Aswad Al-Du'ali for the task. Abu al-Aswad devised a system of dots to signal the three short vowels (along with their respective allophones) of Arabic. This system of dots predates the Dots Of I'jam (Dots used to distinguish between different letters).
Abu al-Aswad's system of Harakat was different from the system we know today. The system used red dots with each arrangement or position indicating a different short vowel.
This is the precursor to the system we know today. Al Farāhídi found that the task of writing using two different colours was tedious and impractical. Another complication was that dots of i'jam had been introduced by then, which means that the Arabic script was being written using two concurrent systems that use dots. Accordingly he changed the harakat into shapes resembling the letters used to transcribe the corresponding long vowels. His system evolved to the system we know today.
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