Arebica

Arebica or arabica was a variant of the Perso-Arabic script used by Bosnian Muslims to write the Bosnian language. It was used mainly between the 15th and 19th centuries. In the 20th century there were some efforts made to accept Arebica as the third alphabet for writing (alongside Latin and Cyrillic script), but they were unsuccessful and Arebica was officially forbidden. The last book was printed in this alphabet was in 1941.

Arebica was made of original perso-Arabic letters with some special characters added for the IPA| [ʦ] ,IPA| [lj] and IPA| [nj] phonemes (which are not found in Arabic, Persian or Ottoman Turkish). Symbols are also included for all vowels, making Arebica a true alphabet (unlike both the original Arabic script and the Persian script).

The final version of Arebica was made by Mehmed Džemaludin Čaušević at the end of the 19th century. His version of alphabet was called also "Matufovica", "Matufovača" or "Mektebica".

Text example::مۉليمۉ سه ذهبي بۉژه = "Molimo se tebi, Bože" (We pray to you, o God)

ee also

*Gaj's Latin alphabet
*Serbian Cyrillic alphabet
*Belarusian Arabic alphabet, another script used by Slavic-speaking Muslims

External links

* [http://www.openbook.ba/bmss/books/kemura/kemura_index.html Hevaji] Text examples: Hevaji, Kaimija, etc.
* [http://blob.blogger.ba/arhiva/2007/11/06/1208364 Još malo o arebici] (More on arebica)

References

* "Enciklopedija leksikografskog zavoda", entry: "Arabica". Jugoslavenski leksikografski zavod, Zagreb, 1966