Script guide › Arabic Script
Arabic vs Kurdish (Sorani)
Arabic and Kurdish (Sorani) sit in the same corner of the writing-system map — Grafle's Arabic Script group — and players mix them up constantly. Here's the fastest way to tell them apart.
The tell
Sorani writes every vowel — ە, ۆ and ێ appear constantly — and drops Arabic's ال article.
Side by side
Arabic
يولد جميع الناس أحراراً متساوين في الكرامة.
مرحبا بك في العالم العربي.
الشمس تشرق من الشرق.
Arabic's own tells
- The article ال (alif-lam) starts words constantly.
- Never has پ, چ, گ or ژ — those extra letters mean Persian, Urdu or Kurdish.
On signs in:
- Saudi Arabia
- Egypt
- Iraq
- Morocco
- United Arab Emirates
- Algeria
- Syria
- Jordan
- Yemen
- Libya
- Sudan
- Oman
- Qatar
- Kuwait
- Tunisia
- Lebanon
- Mauritania
- Bahrain
- Djibouti
- Comoros
- Somalia
- Chad
- West Bank
Kurdish (Sorani)
هەموو مرۆڤێک ئازاد و لە کەرامەت و مافدا یەکسان لەدایک دەبێت.
سڵاو، چۆنیت؟
زمانی کوردی زۆر جوانە.
Kurdish (Sorani)'s own tells
- Writes every vowel — ە, ۆ and ێ appear constantly, so words look 'fully spelled out'.
On signs in:
- Iraq
- Iran