Belarusian Arabic alphabet

The Belarusian Arabic alphabet (Беларускі арабскі алфавіт) or Belarusian Arabitsa (بَلاروُسقایا ارابیࢯا, Беларуская Арабіца, ) was based on the Arabic script and was developed in the 16th century (possibly 15th). It consisted of twenty-eight graphemes, including several additions to represent Belarusian phonemes not found in the Arabic language.

The Belarusian Arabic alphabet was used by the Lipka Tatars, who had been invited to settle in Belarusian territory, at the time part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. During the 14th–16th centuries they gradually stopped using their own language and started using the Old Belarusian language rendered in the Belarusian Arabic alphabet. Books of that literary tradition are known in Belarusian as Kitab ("Кітаб"), which is Arabic for written material.



Some Polish texts were also written in the Arabic script in the 17th century or later.

Additional graphemes

 * For the sounds (ж),  (ч) and  (п), which are absent from the Arabic language, the following Persian graphemes were used:


 * &lrm; &lrm;


 * For denoting the soft (дзь) and  (ц) sounds, the following newly constructed graphemes were used:


 * &lrm; (Letter dal with three dots.png Letter sad with three dots.png)


 * These graphemes were used during the 16th–20th centuries to write Belarusian and Polish.


 * The sounds (ў) and  (в) were both represented by the same symbol:



Vowels
/a/ is consistently written long (that is, with a mater lectionis), while /e/ is consistently written short.

/o/ is most commonly written long.

Sample Text
Below is a sample text, Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.