The Arabic alphabet:
Shapes of the letters

Shape is determined by position

The table shows the letters of the alphabet in their possible states, depending on whether they are isolated or together with other letters in a word. If it is in a word, its form is affected by its position within the word, whether initial, middle or final. This causes a letter to have 4 possible forms, 1 when alone, and 3 when in a word: initial, middle and final.

Only two possible forms...

However, some letters cannot be joined to what comes after them, in which case they have only two possible forms: alone/initial and middle/final. There are six such letters, and they are ا د ذ ر ز و .

 NOTE: A PDF file of the table below is available here.

The Arabic alphabet

Attached			Alone
Final	Middle	Initial
ـأ	ـأ	أ	أ
ـب	ـبـ	بـ	ب
ـت	ـتـ	تـ	ت
ـث	ـثـ	ثـ	ث
ـج	ـجـ	جـ	ج
ـح	ـحـ	حـ	ح
ـخ	ـخـ	خـ	خ
ـد	ـد	د	د
ـذ	ـذ	ذ	ذ
ـر	ـر	ر	ر
ـز	ـز	ز	ز
ـس	ـسـ	سـ	س
ـش	ـشـ	شـ	ش
ـص	ـصـ	صـ	ص
ـض	ـضـ	ضـ	ض
ـط	ـطـ	طـ	ط
ـظ	ـظـ	ظـ	ظ
ـع	ـعـ	عـ	ع
ـغ	ـغـ	غـ	غ
ـف	ـفـ	فـ	ف
ـق	ـقـ	قـ	ق
ـك	ـكـ	كـ	ك
ـل	ـلـ	لـ	ل
ـم	ـمـ	مـ	م
ـن	ـنـ	نـ	ن
ـه	ـهـ	هـ	ه
ـو	ـو	و	و
ـي	ـيـ	يـ	ي

Things to note:

• six of the letters do not connect to what comes after them, namely:
  أ د ذ ر ز و . Therefore, their middle and final forms are the same, while their initial forms are identical to their separate forms.
• All letters are linked to their previous letter unless the latter is itself one among the six letters in the 1st note above
• بـ تـ ثـ نـ يـ have the same shape when in the initial or middle position; care should be taken to insert the appropriate dot(s) in the right position.

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