sa7il
coastThe word, broken down.
ساحِل reads right to left. Below, each letter in reading order, with its sound and the keys that type it.
A plain 's'. Three small teeth in a row.
A long 'a' vowel. A single upright stroke, and the first letter of the alphabet.
A breathy h from deep in the throat, heavier than an English 'h'.
A short 'i', written as a small stroke below the letter.
A plain 'l'. A tall upright stroke with a curved foot.
What does sa7il mean in Arabizi?
sa7il is how you write ساحِل in Arabizi, the Arabic chat alphabet. It means “coast”.
The 7 stands for ح (ḥa): a breathy h, deeper than English h. 7 bends the way ح bends.
For the rest of the chat alphabet, see 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 — 5 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 →- 01S→س
- 02H→ا
- 03P→ح
- 04Shift+A→ـِkasra
- 05G→ل