 Additional diacritics have come into use to facilitate the writing of sounds not represented in the Arabic language.The term "", which comes from the Arabic root for "foreign," has been applied to Arabic-based orthographies of African languages.Today Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and China are the main non-Arabic speaking states using the Arabic alphabet to write one or more official national languages, including Azerbaijani, Baluchi, Brahui, Persian, Pashto, Central Kurdish, Urdu, Sindhi, Kashmiri, Punjabi and Uyghur.