Most of these writings, including the earliest versions of the Qur’an, were usually written in a plain script known as rasm. This form of writing contains no diacritics, or tiny symbols added to the shape of similar-looking letters to distinguish one from the other. There are few examples of pre-Islamic Arabic scripts still in existence, however, the oldest is from the early 6th century CE. The Nabataeans, an Arab tribal nation who settled in modern-day Jordan, modified this alphabet to suit their language in the 6th-5th century BCE, which eventually became the basis for modern Arabic script. The Arabic script, like Greek, Hebrew, and other Mediterranean languages, derives its basic forms from the Phoenician writing system created between the 13th and 12th centuries BCE. This allows for an extremely diverse range of handwriting styles that have developed over the centuries. Unlike most European languages, which have upper and lowercase letters, as well as block and cursive letters, the Arabic language is only written in cursive. Arabic script is also unique from other world languages in that it is written from right to left. Many of the letters share similar shapes and appearances, so diacritic dots and lines are placed either above or below the letters to distinguish them from one another. The Arabic alphabet ( abjad) consists of 28 letters, each of which takes three different shapes depending on its placement in a word (front, middle, and end). This article outlines some of the basic techniques needed to decipher handwritten Arabic texts and presents a few case studies of handwriting projects our team has completed. Our translation agency has an experienced and qualified team of translators and reviewers to get the job done fast and to a high standard.
Let Industry Arabic’s expert team handle your translation project involving handwritten Arabic documents. Arabic handwriting translation can pose a challenge to your organization, but it doesn’t have to be a drain on your team’s time. As with any language, the quality of penmanship can vary greatly from person to person and the reproduction (scan quality, photocopying, image resolution, etc) can also make a huge difference in a document’s legibility.
Even in today’s digital age, translating handwritten Arabic documents – from doctor’s notes to calligraphy to legal documents like affidavits or police reports – remains a challenge.
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