I
Front Matter
Arabic العربية
The script of the divine and the peak of calligraphy — 420 million users, where each letter flows into four forms.
Developed from Nabataean script around the 4th century AD, Arabic script writes the mother tongue of ~420 million people worldwide. As the language of the Quran, it is considered "divine script" in Islam, where calligraphy became the highest art form. Written right-to-left, the same letter takes up to 4 different forms depending on its position within a word — a uniquely sophisticated system.
II
Primary Artifact
Birmingham Quran manuscript
c. 568–645 · Hijazi script · University of Birmingham
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Bottom
— Hijazi script on parchment · among the oldest surviving Quran manuscripts
Carbon-dated in 2015 to the lifetime of (or just after) Prophet Muhammad. Two parchment leaves preserving parts of Surahs 18–20 in early Hijazi script — a rare specimen of the earliest Arabic writing.
III
The Letters
Signs · Unicode · TypesSample GlyphsClick to copy
Unicode
Range 1U+0600–U+06FF
Range 2U+0750–U+077F
Range 3U+08A0–U+08FF
Total signs28
In Unicode396
Unicode Blocks
Glyph evolution
Form change over time
Loading evolution data…
V
Reading Mechanics
Direction · Method↔
Direction
Right to Left (RTL)
우→좌 (RTL). 단어 내 위치에 따라 글자 형태가 변형됨 (초성·중성·종성·독립형 4가지).
α
System
Abjad
⌨
Input method
키보드 입력 시 자동 연결형 처리. Windows/macOS 아랍어 키보드 레이아웃 지원.
Keyboard layout
Standard IME · input chart
Arabic Keyboard (Windows)
Right-to-left input. Characters auto-change form by position.
ض
ص
ث
ق
ف
غ
ع
ه
خ
ح
ش
س
ي
ب
ل
ا
ت
ن
م
ك
ئ
ء
ؤ
ر
لا
ى
ة
و
ز
ظ
space
⌫
💡 Arabic letters auto-switch among 4 forms: initial, medial, final, isolated.
VI
The Lineage
Family · DescendantsPhylogeny
Descendants of hieroglyphs
Phylogeny
Related scripts
Ancestors · Descendants · Family
VII