Arebica () is a variant of the

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and th ...

used to write the

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...

language. It was used mainly between the 15th and 19th centuries and is frequently categorized as part of

Aljamiado ''Aljamiado'' (; ; ar, عَجَمِيَة trans. ''ʿajamiyah'' ) or ''Aljamía'' texts are manuscripts that use the Arabic script for transcribing European languages, especially Romance languages such as Mozarabic, Aragonese, Portuguese, S ...

literature. Before

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

there were unsuccessful efforts by Bosnian Muslims of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia to adopt Arebica as the third official alphabet for Yugoslavian alongside

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

and

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...

. Apart from literature, Arebica was used in religious schools and administration, though in much less use than other scripts.

Origin

Arebica was based on the

Perso-Arabic script The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran ( Western Persian) and Afghanistan ( Dari Persian) since the 7th ce ...

of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...

, with added letters for , and , which are not found in

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

, Persian or Turkish. Full letters were eventually introduced for all vowels (as with Kurdish Arabic script), making Arebica a true

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syllab ...

, unlike its Perso-Arabic base. The final version of Arebica was devised by Mehmed Džemaludin Čaušević at the end of the 19th century. His version is called ''Matufovica'', ''Matufovača'' or ''Mektebica''.

Contemporary use

The first literary work to be published in Arebica since 1941 was the comic book "Hadži Šefko i hadži Mefko" in 2005, by authors Amir Al-Zubi and Meliha Čičak-Al-Zubi. The authors made slight modifications to Arebica. The first book in Arebica with an ISBN was "Epohe fonetske misli kod Arapa i arebica" ("The Age of Phonetic Thought of Arabs and Arebica") in April 2013 in Belgrade by Aldin Mustafić, MSc. This book represents the completion of the standardization of Mehmed Džemaludin Čaušević's version, and is also a textbook for higher education.

Alphabet

The final version of Arebica alphabet was devised at the end of the 19th century by Mehmed Džemaludin Čaušević. Notes * The diacritic beneath the appears on the letter preceding the . * Mustafić uses and instead of Hah_with_inverted_v_below

and

for Ć ć/Ћ ћ and Nj nj/Њ њ . * Mustafić uses and Al-Zubi and Čičak-Al-Zubi use for Đ đ/Ђ ђ.

Ligatures

Like the standard Arabic alphabet, when connects to either or a special ligature is used instead. Prior to standardization, the most widespread Arebica conventions were based on Ottoman Turkish conventions, and similar to contemporary ''aljamiado'' conventions adopted for Albanian and Greek. Vowels are often written using ''matres lectionis'', with the exception of /e/, which is only represented word-finally, as <ە>. /o/ and /u/ are not distinguished. /ɲ/, /ʎ/ and /ts/ were not distinguished from /n/, /l/ and /tʃ/, respectively spelt as <ن>, <ل> and <چ>. Palatal affricates /tɕ/ and /dʑ/ are both typically spelt as <ك>, due to the Persian letter <گ> not having been widely adopted yet, while velar stops /k/ and /g/ are represented with <ق> and <غ>.

Text examples

Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt ...
, Article 1

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

External links

Ottoman Turkish / Arabic keyboard (including Bosnian characters)

UDHR in Arebica (Bosnian)
* Adnan Tufekčić
Arebica in Bosnia – Short Notes and One Review: From the Treasury of Bosnian Authentic Syncretism
''Spirit of Bosnia'' No 15 (04), 2020

References

* ''Enciklopedija leksikografskog zavoda'', entry: ''Arabica''. Jugoslavenski leksikografski zavod, Zagreb, 1966 {{Arabic alphabets Bosnian language Croatian language Serbian language Arabic alphabets