One Through Ten in
Arabic
Arabic Numerals
picture by Ron Walker
Learning Arabic numbers
is a piece of cake, as it were, or khanafa...
Historically "true" Arabic numbers are the ones we use in the West
like 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.
The numbers in use in the contemporary Arab World are
derivations of Hindi/Indian numbers. Their pictures and pronunciations
are below (1-10):
You write the numbers left to right, rather than
right to left like Arabic words. So the number 12 would read the same
way in English and Arabic.
Here's how to write and
say numbers one through ten:
 (wahid - with a short "i," rhymes with 'id' -
rather than 'waheed')
 (ith-nane)
 (thalatha)
 (arba'a)
 (khamsa)
 (sitta)
 (seba'a)
 (thamaniya - like tha-man-iya)
 (tissa'a)
 (asharra)
zero - siffer (the
diamond shaped number in ash-ara above)
Easy as wahid, ithnein, thalatha, right?
When you write the numbers, again, they go from
left to right, just like English words and numbers but opposite from Arabic
language (words in Arabic read from left to right). For example the number 127 would look like this:
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