writing the ªayn عين

the four shapes of the 3ayn The ªayn عين is a letter with four shapes.

Like most letters, it has a tail only when at the end of a word.

But it also changes shape when it is joined to the previous letter.

When the ªayn عين starts a word, or follows the letters ا د ذ ر ز و, it lloks like a horseshoe:

[horseshoe 3ayn] ]]

Otherwise, it is joined to the previous letter, and looks like an X:

[medial 3ayn] ]]

The horseshoe seems easy to draw. It looks like a C. It's one square high and one square wide. ¿Easy, isn't it?

Well, not so easy, in fact. Our letter C is taller than it is wide, but the ªayn عين is wider. Make sure that the horseshoe touches the four sides of a square.

Drawing the X

Draw these dots in square grid paper:

Then join all the dots like this, going from right to left:

Draw again, until your hand learns the movement.

Then try again, this time with no pencil dots.

Now you know how to draw ªayn عينs well enough for people to read them.

But they're quite ugly, because of those two angles at the bottom.

Draw a few X in red ink. Then write over them in black, but smoothing the corners, like this:

That's better, but if you'd rather do "perfect", then make the first diagonal VERY slightly S-shaped. The top of the letter should not be flat, but bulge slightly:

Note that the second diagonal is not an "S".

The rest is learning to do the same without any pencil marks.

The ªayn عين 's Tail

When the X is the last letter of a word, it gets a tail like the Haa# حاء's tail.

Draw these in red:

Go over them in pencil:

Now take a marker. The first curve is slightly like an "S", the second curve bulges:

And then draw a single curve over the rest:

You may take off, following the arrow.

Most people, on their first tries, draw the head too big and the tail too small. The tail must be high enough to put an ا under it:

the isolated ªayn عين

When the ªayn عين is the last letter of a word and follows a non-joining letter, its shape is a horseshoe plus a tail.

Draw a 1x1 square, then a 2x2 square under it:

Fill completely the small square with a horseshoe, and put an uppercase C into the big square:

The big C must be wider than the horseshoe, but less wide than the square.

Again, the tail must be two squares high.

Be Careful

The ªayn عين looks like this:

This thing:

appears in print very often. Be careful: that's NOT a ªayn عين. It's a variant shape of the crocodile mouth. It is not commonly found in handwriting.

Writing the ªayn عين in Roman Letters

Most Arabs, when using Roman letters, just leave this letter unwritten. Others use an "A".

Western scholars mostly use a left quote (`), or a small lifted c (^c), or two stacked c's.

The problem with the left quote is that it's too small and doesn't look like a letter, so most people who see a word written as (`ayn) will copy it as (ayn).

Some Arabs use a sometimes a 3 on e-mail, because a 3 looks like a ع seen on a mirror.

In this website I'll write this letter as ª.

Copyright (c) 2001-2009 Jordi Mas Trullenque.
email: jordimastrullenque at gmail dot com
http://purl.oclc.org/net/arabe/aynescri.en.html
Last revised: 2008-03-20

letter ghayn غين

ªayn عين

writing_arabic -> alphabet -> writing the ªayn