ا (alif) is the first of the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet. Its sound is long a, as in father. It never joins to the letter after it, so it has two shapes: ا ا. It is a moon letter, and its abjad value is 1.
Hear its name, ألف (alif):
Why alif has two shapes, not four
Alif is one of the six letters that never join to the letter after them: ا د ذ ر ز و. It joins only from the right, so its initial form is its isolated shape, ا, and its medial form is its final shape, ا. A word breaks into a new piece after it: in أنا (anā, I), the letter after alif starts again.
| Position | Shape | Code point | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | ا | U+FE8D | written alone, or after a letter that does not join forward |
| Initial | ا | U+FE8D (same as isolated) | at the start of a word: the isolated shape, since nothing joins it on the left |
| Medial | ا | U+FE8E (same as final) | inside a word: the final shape, and the next letter starts a new piece |
| Final | ا | U+FE8E | at the end of a word, joined from the letter before |
Typed text stores both shapes as one character, U+0627 (ARABIC LETTER ALEF); U+FE8D and U+FE8E are presentation forms that the Unicode Arabic FAQ does not recommend for regular text.
Alif is number 1 of the 28 letters by frequency, 19% of all letters, in the 50,000 most common word forms of Arabic film and TV subtitles (hermitdave/FrequencyWords, OpenSubtitles 2018), each form counted as often as it occurs; it is final in 45% and alone in 55% of its occurrences.
How to pronounce alif
The sound of alif is long a, as in father, written a / ā in the transliteration of our Arabic alphabet chart. Alif itself has one sound, the long ā; the glottal stop at the start of أنا (anā) belongs to hamza, a separate sign that alif carries.
Arabic words with alif
These 5 everyday words show alif in real writing: it is final in أنا, باب and نار; alone in أنا, أحمر and أخت. The first three are the practice words printed on its worksheet; the others come from our list of colors in Arabic and our list of Arabic family words, and more words by topic are in our Arabic vocabulary lists.
| Word | Transliteration | Meaning | Alif here | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| أنا | anā | I | alone, final | |
| باب | bāb | door | final | |
| نار | nār | fire | final | |
| أحمر | aḥmar | red | alone | |
| أخت | ukht | sister | alone |
Alif with al-, and its number
Alif is a moon letter, so the l of al- (the) is pronounced before it: الأخت is al-ukht, the sister (test any word in our sun and moon letters checker).
Its abjad value is 1 in both the Mashriqi and the Maghribi order; our abjad calculator adds up whole words.
How to tell alif apart
Alif is one of the letters with no dotted twin, so its shape alone identifies it. Alif is also the seat that hamza, the glottal stop, sits on at the start of a word: three of the words above begin with أ, an alif carrying a hamza. At the end of a word alif has a look-alike, alif maqṣūra ى, written with the body of a yāʾ and sounding like a long a. And when lām is followed by alif, the two fuse into one shape, لا, which no font writes apart.
Practise writing alif
Trace it on the free alif tracing worksheet (PDF, one page, 64 KB), which prints its two shapes beside أنا (anā), باب (bāb) and نار (nār); the other 27 are on our Arabic writing worksheets page.
Words and names that start with alif: what inshallah means, what alhamdulillah means, Amir in Arabic and Amira in Arabic.
Frequently asked questions
How do you pronounce the Arabic letter alif?
The sound of alif (ا) is long a, as in father, written a / ā in transliteration.
Does alif join to the next letter?
No. Alif is one of six letters, ا د ذ ر ز و, that join only to the letter before them. It has two shapes: ا when nothing joins it, and ا after a joining letter, and the letter after it always starts a new piece of the word.
Is alif a sun letter or a moon letter?
A moon letter. Before alif the l of al- is pronounced, so الأخت is al-ukht (the sister).
What is the abjad value of alif?
1, in both the Mashriqi and the Maghribi order.