Arabic diacritics

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The Arabic script has numerous diacritics, which include consonant pointing known as iʻjām (إِعْجَام, IPA: [ʔiʕdʒæːm]), and supplementary diacritics known as tashkīl (تَشْكِيل, IPA: [t̪æʃkiːl]). The latter include the vowel marks termed ḥarakāt (حَرَكَات, IPA: [ħæɾækæːt̪]; sg. حَرَكَة, ḥarakah, IPA: [ħæɾækæ]).

The Arabic script is a modified abjad, where all letters are consonants, leaving it up to the reader to fill in the vowel sounds. Short consonants and long vowels are represented by letters, but short vowels and consonant length are not generally indicated in writing. Tashkīl is optional to represent missing vowels and consonant length. Modern Arabic is always written with the i‘jām—consonant pointing—but only religious texts, children's books and works for learners are written with the full tashkīl—vowel guides and consonant length. It is, however, not uncommon for authors to add diacritics to a word or letter when the grammatical case or the meaning is deemed otherwise ambiguous. In addition, classical works and historical documents rendered to the general public are often rendered with the full tashkīl, to compensate for the gap in understanding resulting from stylistic changes over the centuries.

Moreover, tashkīl can change the meaning of the entire word, for example, the words: (دِين), meaning (religion), and (دَين), meaning (debt). Even though they have the same letters, their meanings are different because of the tashkīl. In sentences without tashkīl, readers understand the meaning of the word by simply using context.