Judeo-Arabic script

Origin

The Judeo-Arabic script is a version of the Hebrew script used to write the Judeo-Arabic language - a version of Arabic with influences from Hebrew and Aramaic. Judeo-Arabic is used by Jews in Arabic-speaking regions and began to develop after the 7th century AD, when Islam was spreading to the Middle East and North Africa. Most Judeo-Arabic literature is written by Jews for Jews and concerns Jewish topics.

Notable Features

Written from right to left in horizontal lines.
Some letters have a final form which is used when they appear at the end of a word. In the chart below, the final form is the one of the left where letters appear in pairs.
There are no separate numerals in Hebrew. Instead, each letter has a numeric value.
Long vowels are marked with alef (the first letter), waw or yod (the last two letters). The same letters are used for short vowels, though they are not usually marked at all.