The Belarusian Arabic alphabet ( be, Беларускі арабскі алфавіт, ''Biełaruski arabski ałfavit'') or Arabitsa (, ''Arabica'') was based on 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 the ...

and was developed in the 16th century (possibly 15th). It consisted of twenty-eight

grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called ''graphemics' ...

s, including several additions to represent

Belarusian Belarusian may refer to: * Something of, or related to Belarus * Belarusians, people from Belarus, or of Belarusian descent * A citizen of Belarus, see Demographics of Belarus * Belarusian language * Belarusian culture * Belarusian cuisine * Byelor ...

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...

s not found in the

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; Walte ...

language. The Belarusian Arabic alphabet was used by the

Lipka Tatars The Lipka Tatars (Lipka – refers to ''Lithuania'', also known as Lithuanian Tatars; later also – Polish Tatars, Polish-Lithuanian Tatars, ''Lipkowie'', ''Lipcani'', ''Muślimi'', ''Lietuvos totoriai'') are a Turkic ethnic group who origina ...

, who had been invited to settle in Belarusian territory, at the time part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. During the 14th–16th centuries they gradually stopped using their own language and started using the

Old Belarusian language Ruthenian (Belarusian: руская мова; Ukrainian: руська мова; Ruthenian: руска(ѧ) мова; also see other names) is an exonymic linguonym for a closely-related group of East Slavic linguistic varieties, particularly ...

rendered in the Belarusian Arabic alphabet. Books of that literary tradition are known in Belarusian as Kitab ( be, "Кітаб"), which is Arabic for ''book''. Some Polish texts were also written in the Arabic script in the 17th century or later.Ilya Yevlampiev, Karl Pentzlin and Nurlan Joomagueldinov, N4072 ''Revised Proposal to encode Arabic characters used for Bashkir, Belarusian, Crimean Tatar, and Tatar languages'', ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2, 20 May 2011.
/ref>

Additional graphemes

* For the sounds ( ж), ( ч) and ( п), which are absent from the

language, the following

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

graphemes were used: ::

‎ ‎

* For denoting the soft (дзь) and ( ц) sounds, the following newly constructed graphemes were used: ::

‎ (

)

:These graphemes were used during the 16th–20th centuries to write Belarusian and Polish. * The sounds ( ў) and ( в) were both represented by the same symbol: ::

Equivalence chart

Vowels

File:00-Fatha.png, Vowels A and E (initial ) File:00-Kasra.png, Vowels I and Y (initial ) File:00-Damma.png, Vowels U and O (initial ) File:00-Sukun.png, No vowel File:00-Taschdid.png, Consonant

gemination In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

/a/ is consistently written long (that is, with a mater lectionis), while /e/ is consistently written short. /o/ is most commonly written long.

Consonants

Ligature

References

External links

*
Kitabs, the unique highlight of the Belarusian language
at pravapis.org {{Arabic alphabets Arabic alphabets Arabic alphabet Lipka Tatars Tatar language