WRITING SYSTEM
Typing in Arabic
5 languages here are written in Arabic, right to left, with a layout map behind every one of them and 218 practice words to learn on. They take 5 layouts between them — Arabic 101, Kurdish Sorani, Pashto Afghan and 2 more — so the language you pick decides the map you learn.
Written right to left, with letters that change shape depending on whether they start, sit inside, or end a word — and most of them join to the letter after. The renderer handles all of that: you press one key per letter and watch the forms resolve as the word builds. Short vowels are normally not written at all. Persian, Urdu, Pashto and Kurdish each extend the alphabet for sounds Arabic lacks.
What typing it involves
- Direction
- right to left
- Key inventory
- 55 distinct characters across 218 practice words
- Composition
- marks stack or join onto the letters they modify
- Input
- typed directly on the keys
- Arabic keyboard layouts
- Arabic 101, Kurdish Sorani, Pashto Afghan, Persian Standard, Urdu Standard
- Keyboard guide
- labels every key, for every language here
- The chart reaches
- 70% to 84% of what each language's words use
The Arabic keyboard
Drawn from Arabic’s key map. This script is typed on 5 different layouts here; the rest are on their own language pages.
- left little finger
- left ring finger
- left middle finger
- left index finger
- thumb
- right index finger
- right middle finger
- right ring finger
- right little finger
Physical key labels appear above. العربية layout labels appear below. These three rows produce 24 of the 31 characters the practice words here use; the rest are reached with a modifier or a dead key.
The characters you will type most
Counted across every practice word in all 5 languages below, most frequent first. These are the keys worth finding without looking.
- ا 105
- و 50
- ل 46
- ن 42
- ر 40
- م 37
- ت 30
- ب 29
- ی 29
- س 27
The longest practice word in this script is المدرسة in Arabic, and the widest bank to practise from is Arabic at 64 words.
The 5 languages written in Arabic
- Arabicالعربية
- Kurdish (Sorani)کوردی
- Pashtoپښتو
- Persian (Farsi)فارسی
- Urduاردو
Other writing systems
- Devanagari An abugida, where each consonant carries an inherent vowel that other marks replace.
- Bengali Closely related to Devanagari and just as much an abugida, with a distinctive headline running along the top of most letters.
- Ethiopic An abugida: the one the word is named after, from the Ge'ez letters a-bu-gi-da.
There is a written guide for this script: Typing the Arabic script: one alphabet, five keyboards. One script, five layouts. What Persian, Urdu, Pashto and Kurdish each change, why a letter changes shape after you type it, and which of it transfers.
Every script this site teaches, with the languages written in each, is on the languages hub. If your computer does not produce these characters yet, that is a setting rather than a missing keyboard — adding a keyboard layout covers it for Windows, macOS, Linux and ChromeOS. The rest of the written guides cover what is the same whichever script you are in: posture, the home row, and why speed follows accuracy rather than the other way round.