Alif
Alif (, pronounced ) is the first letter of the
Arabic alphabet. Together with Hebrew
Aleph, Greek
Alpha and Latin
A, it is descended from
Phoenician , from
Proto-Canaanite "ox".Historically, the Arabic letter was used to render either a long , or a
glottal stop . This led to
orthographical confusion, and to introduction of the additional letter
hamzatu l-qat` . Hamza is not considered a full harf in Arabic orthography: in most cases it appears on a carrier, either a waw, a dotless yā', or an alif. The choice of carrier depends on complicated orthographic rules. Alif is generally the carrier where the only adjacent vowel is fatha. It is the only possible carrier where hamza is the first phoneme of a word. Where alif acts as a carrier for hamza, hamza is added above the alif, or, for initial alif kasra, below it, indicating that the letter so modified does indeed signify a glottal stop, and not a long vowel.
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Alif
Aleph (lettre)
Alif (Arabischer Buchstabe)
Alif
Alef
Arabiska alfabetet