qalam rasas
pencilThe word, broken down.
قَلَم رَصاص reads right to left. Below, each letter in reading order, with its sound and the keys that type it.
A deep 'k', made far back in the throat.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A plain 'l'. A tall upright stroke with a curved foot.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
A plain 'm'. A small round head with a tail.
A rolled 'r', closer to Spanish than English.
A short 'a', written as a small stroke above the letter.
An emphatic 's', pronounced with a fuller, deeper mouth.
A long 'a' vowel. A single upright stroke, and the first letter of the alphabet.
An emphatic 's', pronounced with a fuller, deeper mouth.
What does qalam rasas mean in Arabizi?
qalam rasas is how you write قَلَم رَصاص in Arabizi, the Arabic chat alphabet. It means “pencil”. 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 — 11 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 home 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 →- 01R→ق
- 02Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 03G→ل
- 04Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 05L→م
- 06Space→
- 07V→ر
- 08Shift+Q→ـَfatḥa
- 09W→ص
- 10H→ا
- 11W→ص
In Cairo, “pencil” is 'alam ruSaaS (قَلَم رُصَاص). Our sister app Bel Masri teaches the Egyptian dialect, with audio and example sentences. Hear 'alam ruSaaS on Bel Masri →