There are even records of religious scriptures translated into Arwi including the Bible and the Hadiths (scriptures that mention the works of the prophet Muhammad). While spoken Arwi is pretty much extinct in the present Tamil world, the written language is still taught in South India.Īrwiis used in literature to address topics such as Sufism (a sect of Islam), law and medicine. The Arwi alphabet is the same as the Arab alphabet, but includes thirteen additional letters to represent Tamil consonants whose sounds do not exist in the Arab alphabet. The purpose of Arwiis to serve as a bridge language for Tamil Muslims to learn Arabic in order to improve their skills in reading the Quran and other Arab literary works. In Tamil script, Arwi is அர்வி or more commonly known as அரபுத்தமிழ் or Arabu-Tamil. And just as with Punjabi and other languages, this influence is also found in an Arabicized script that has been adapted into the Tamil language, known as "Arwi".Īrwi (لسانالأروي orlisān al-arwi) is a written language that represents the Tamil alphabet in Arabic script.
Islam is practiced by many Tamils and a significant number of Muslims have contributed to Tamil culture. Tamil was also the dominant language in South India and northern Sri Lanka, and it seems reasonable that Arabs would have had a need to interact with the Tamils in order to ensure effective trade. Cities such as Colombo and Trincomalee had ports that allowed for effective trade between the Middle East and Southeast Asia. While the scripts form the same phrases for the most part, they use completely different alphabets to do so.Īrab culture has also had an impact on the Tamil world. The script of western Punjab is an Arabic-type script, while eastern Punjab uses an entirely different script. However, what is most remarkable is the script of the two Punjabs. This partition resulted in some divergence in the culture and religion of the two sides. After the partition of India at independence, the state of Punjab was divided in two: the eastern portion became the Punjab state of India while the western portion became the Punjab state of Pakistan. Languages such as Kurdish, Persian, Pashto, Punjabi, Sindhi, Urdu and Malay have strong ties to Arabic with respect to vocabulary and script.
It is not difficult to see the Arab influence in these regions, especially in what are now Muslim dominated countries. Furthermore, Arabic is the language used in Islam since Muslims are expected to read and interpret the works of the Quran, they are expected to read the Arabic found in this religious text.Īrabic has had a great influence on many other languages as a result of the expansion of Islam and Arab culture into India, Malaysia and Indonesia. It is the predominant language of the Middle East and North Africa, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – countries with a significant Tamil population.
Arabic is one of the ten most spoken languages in the world.
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