In Arabic, there are 28 letters, or consonant sounds. Other vowels in Arabic take the form of diacritical marks, and are located above and below the constant it follows. Let’s look at how Arabic letter and diacritics are combined together.

Unlike English, the Arabic language has no uppercase or lowercase, and words are written in one continuous stroke, like cursive. Because of this, letters in Arabic can exhibit up to four distinct forms corresponding to an initial, middle/medial, final, or isolated position. Let’s take the letter ه/h for example:

Notice: * ذ cannot connect to the following letter. Therefore, ه following it must be in the isolated form.