Entities Arabic Scripts
Arabic script is used for Arabic and several other languages across the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of Asia. Unicode provides characters for Arabic letters, marks, punctuation, and other symbols that can be displayed in modern HTML documents.
Arabic characters generally do not use named HTML character references. They can be entered directly in a UTF-8 document or represented with decimal or hexadecimal numeric character references.
Arabic Letters
The following table lists the basic Arabic letters with their Unicode decimal and hexadecimal character references. The appearance of many Arabic letters changes according to their position within a word.
| Character | Decimal | Hexadecimal | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| ا | ا | ا | Arabic letter Alef |
| ب | ب | ب | Arabic letter Beh |
| ة | ة | ة | Arabic letter Teh Marbuta |
| ت | ت | ت | Arabic letter Teh |
| ث | ث | ث | Arabic letter Theh |
| ج | ج | ج | Arabic letter Jeem |
| ح | ح | ح | Arabic letter Hah |
| خ | خ | خ | Arabic letter Khah |
| د | د | د | Arabic letter Dal |
| ذ | ذ | ذ | Arabic letter Thal |
| ر | ر | ر | Arabic letter Reh |
| ز | ز | ز | Arabic letter Zain |
| س | س | س | Arabic letter Seen |
| ش | ش | ش | Arabic letter Sheen |
| ص | ص | ص | Arabic letter Sad |
| ض | ض | ض | Arabic letter Dad |
| ط | ط | ط | Arabic letter Tah |
| ظ | ظ | ظ | Arabic letter Zah |
| ع | ع | ع | Arabic letter Ain |
| غ | غ | غ | Arabic letter Ghain |
| ف | ف | ف | Arabic letter Feh |
| ق | ق | ق | Arabic letter Qaf |
| ك | ك | ك | Arabic letter Kaf |
| ل | ل | ل | Arabic letter Lam |
| م | م | م | Arabic letter Meem |
| ن | ن | ن | Arabic letter Noon |
| ه | ه | ه | Arabic letter Heh |
| و | و | و | Arabic letter Waw |
| ى | ى | ى | Arabic letter Alef Maksura |
| ي | ي | ي | Arabic letter Yeh |
Arabic Marks
Arabic uses combining marks to represent short vowels and other pronunciation information. These marks are normally displayed with a preceding Arabic letter rather than by themselves.
| Character | Decimal | Hexadecimal | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| ـً | ً | ً | Fathatan |
| ـٌ | ٌ | ٌ | Dammatan |
| ـٍ | ٍ | ٍ | Kasratan |
| ـَ | َ | َ | Fatha |
| ـُ | ُ | ُ | Damma |
| ـِ | ِ | ِ | Kasra |
| ـّ | ّ | ّ | Shadda |
| ـْ | ْ | ْ | Sukun |
Arabic Punctuation
Unicode includes punctuation characters used with Arabic and other scripts written from right to left.
| Character | Decimal | Hexadecimal | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| ، | ، | ، | Arabic comma |
| ؛ | ؛ | ؛ | Arabic semicolon |
| ؟ | ؟ | ؟ | Arabic question mark |
Using Arabic Characters in HTML
Arabic text is written from right to left. The dir="rtl" attribute can be used when the direction of an HTML element needs to be explicitly identified. UTF-8 allows Arabic characters to be entered directly, while numeric character references provide another way to represent the same Unicode characters.
<p dir="rtl" lang="ar">مرحبا</p>
<p dir="rtl" lang="ar">العربية</p>مرحبا
العربية