alqahira
CairoThe word, broken down.
اَلْقاهِرة reads right to left. Below, each letter in reading order, with its sound and the keys that type it.
A long 'a' vowel. A single upright stroke, and the first letter of the alphabet.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A plain 'l'. A tall upright stroke with a curved foot.
A deep 'k', made far back in the throat.
A long 'a' vowel. A single upright stroke, and the first letter of the alphabet.
A soft 'h', as in the English word 'hat'.
A short 'i', written as a small stroke below the letter.
A rolled 'r', closer to Spanish than English.
The 'tied tāʾ'. It marks a feminine ending, sounded as a soft 'a'.
What does alqahira mean in Arabizi?
alqahira is how you write اَلْقاهِرة in Arabizi, the Arabic chat alphabet. It means “Cairo”. No numbers in this one; it spells out in plain Latin letters.
New to the chat alphabet? See how every letter and number maps: the Arabizi → Arabic guide. Got it the other way round, with Arabic script to convert? That is the Arabic to Arabizi converter.
The keystrokes, in order.
On a standard Arabic 101 / Arabic-PC layout — 10 key presses. Diacritics sit on the Shift keys. The on-screen keyboard on this site highlights each key as you go.
It sits in the travel & places lesson of our Arabic typing practice course, if you would rather drill it next to the words it turns up with.
Practice typing this word →- 01H→ا
- 02Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 03G→ل
- 04Shift+X→ـْ
- 05R→ق
- 06H→ا
- 07I→ه
- 08Shift+A→ـِkasra
- 09V→ر
- 10M→ة