Classical Arabic
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Classical Arabic is the form of the Arabic language used in the Qur'an as well as in numerous literary texts from the same period. Modern Standard Arabic is a direct descendant from it, differing minimally in morphology and only to a small degree in its syntax and lexicon.
Classical Arabic was also the parent language of all the spoken varieties of Arabic.
Facts:
1. The Arabic Alphabet has 28 letters. The shape of these letters changes depending on their position in the word, whether isolated; in the beginning of the word (initial); in the middle (medial); or at the end (final).
2. Several letters in the Arabic alphabet share the same shape, and are differentiated only by the number and placement of dots on the letters. Of the basic 18 shapes, 2 are used for three letters, 6 are used for two letters, and the remaining 10 are used for one letter each.
3. Words are written in horizontal lines from right to left, numerals are written from left to right.
4. Most letters change form depending on whether they appear at the beginning, middle or end of a word, or on their own.
5. Letters that can be joined are always joined in both hand-written and printed Arabic.
6. The long vowels /a:/, /i:/ and /u:/ are represented by the letters 'alif, yā' and wāw respectively.
7. Vowel diacritics, which are used to mark short vowels, and other special symbols apppear only in the Qur'an (Koran).