How many letters are there in the Roman alphabet as used by English
speakers?
26 right. Perhaps I should ask how many symbols?
Without much effort, just with the letter A, I've can come up with 4
different symbols, excluding differences in width to height, serif or sans
serif, old style, new style and transitional. As native English speakers we
recognize all these symbols as one letter of the alphabet.
So, how many symbols? I don't know. I've never tried to count them. And
just think what arguments trying to count them would start! Some would say
that the 2nd and 4th symbols above are variations on the same symbol.
What constitutes A-ness, or B-ness? Look at this example.
The first and last symbols are B and D. With experience, the next symbols
in, moving towards the center, are also recognizable as B and D [Well,
perhaps the 2nd symbol is a 6, it depends on context.] But what of the
middle symbol?
B-ness comes from a circle with a line coming down on the left side,
D-ness by a circle with a line coming down on the right side, but the symbol
in the middle has the line coming down in the middle. Is it a B or a D?
There could be some argument that because of the way it is drawn, with the
thick and thins lines, that the letter is a badly formed D, but examined as
a sans serif, gothic style letter it becomes more difficult.
Of course, context plays an important part of interpreting a letterform.
Is the first symbol an A or a D?
The point of all this is that Arabic writing has even more of this kind
of Cultural Literacy than English. Arabic has almost always been a hand
written form, and its scribes are very proud of their calligraphic
traditions. Expect to be confused and remember that their calligraphy is the
way they write it, not the way you think it should be. When you see
something you don't understand, learn from it
