Arebica

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Arebica or arabica was a variant of the Perso-Arabic script used by Bosniaks to write the Bosnian language. It was used mainly between the 15th and 19th centuries. In the 20th century there were some efforts made to accept Arebica as the third alphabet for writing (alongside Latin and Cyrillic script), but they were unsuccessful and Arebica was officially forbidden. The last book printed in this alphabet was in 1941.

One of the oldest texts written in Arabica (which is in fact Arabic script for the Croatian language) is a love song called "Chirvat-türkisi" (= Croatian song) from 1588, written by a certain Mehmed in Bosnia. This manuscript is held in the National Library in Vienna. Except for literature Arabica was also used in religious schools and administration. Of course, it was in much lesser use than other scripts.^[1]

Arebica was made of original perso-Arabic letters with some special characters added for the [ts],[lj] and [nj] phonemes (which are not found in Arabic, Persian or Ottoman Turkish). Symbols are also included for all vowels, making Arebica a true alphabet (unlike both the original Arabic script and the Persian script).

The final version of Arebica was made by Mehmed Džemaludin Čaušević at the end of the 19th century. His version of alphabet was called also Matufovica, Matufovača or Mektebica.