Numbers in Arabic Netspeak

Question

I came across this list of numbers to represent sounds in Arabic netspeak:

2 is A

3 is a heavy (so heavy) A, sure you can't even pronounce it but you could replace with a regular A, no one would care

4 is basically (th) like the word (tho).

5 is k and h together it's hard to pronounce so you could just pronounce with a regular k

6 is kind of between hard T and hard D, a difficult letter for non-Arabic speakers, but you can just pronounce it as a T.

7 is the most common number that ME players use, it pronounces heavy H but you can pronounce it with a regular h

8 is basically (g) like in the word (go).

9 is a heavy S, but you can pronounce it with a regular s

How do the numbers relate to the Arabic alphabet? Is there a specific reason that the number matches the sound/letter?

Curious to see how all of this works.

Answer 1

These numbers are chosen to resemble various Arabic letters that don't have Latin equivalents.

• 2 is ء
• 3 is ع‎
• 5 is خ
• 6 is ط‎
• 7 is ح‎
• 9 is ص‎

You can see that the number vaguely resembles the shape of the Arabic letter.

I'm not sure which letters they're describing for 4 and 8; there are multiple Arabic letters that could fit that description, and none of them look especially like the number.