Arabic Script — The Foundation of Five Scripts
The Arabic script forms the basis for the writing systems used on this site — Sindhi, Urdu, Pashto, Arabic, and Persian all use the same core set of letter shapes, with each language adding its own extensions. Understanding Arabic script, therefore, provides context for all five keyboards.
Classical Arabic has 28 consonantal letters. These letters change form depending on their position in the word — initial, medial, final, or isolated. This contextual substitution is handled automatically by the Unicode bidirectional algorithm and any modern text rendering engine, so you do not need to select the correct form yourself; simply type or click the base letter and the rendering engine handles the rest.
The Role of Harakat (Diacritics)
Standard Arabic writing omits vowels — or more precisely, it marks only the long vowels as full letters (ا، و، ي) while short vowels are optionally indicated by small diacritical marks above and below the consonant letters. These marks are called harakat:
- فَتْحَة (Fatha) — a diagonal stroke above the letter, marks the short /a/ vowel
- كَسْرَة (Kasra) — a diagonal stroke below the letter, marks short /i/
- ضَمَّة (Damma) — a loop above the letter, marks short /u/
- سُكُون (Sukun) — a small circle above, marks the absence of a vowel
- شَدَّة (Shadda) — a small letter sh shape, marks consonant doubling (gemination)
- التَّنْوِين (Tanwin) — doubled diacritics that mark nunation (indefinite case endings in formal Arabic)
Fully vocalised Arabic — with all harakat marked — is used in the Quran, children's books, and educational texts. Unvocalised Arabic is used in newspapers, books, websites, and everyday communication. This keyboard includes the harakat for users who need them.
Arabic on the Internet
Arabic is one of the most widely used languages online. As of the mid-2020s, Arabic is consistently in the top ten languages by internet user volume. The Arab world has high smartphone penetration, and Arabic social media is enormous — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE rank among the highest per-capita social media users globally.
Despite this, Arabic typing on non-Arabic devices remains a practical challenge. Many international keyboards lack Arabic script, and switching input language settings is not always practical on shared or work devices. A browser-based keyboard provides a clean, device-independent alternative.
Egyptian Arabic vs. Modern Standard Arabic
A practical note on usage: this keyboard outputs characters suitable for Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which is the written standard used across the Arab world for formal writing, journalism, and official communication. The same characters are used when writing Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf, or any other dialect in Arabic script, since all dialects use the same orthographic conventions in formal writing.
For informal dialect writing on social media, speakers often use Latin script mixed with numbers (the so-called Arabizi system) or write dialect forms phonetically in Arabic script. This keyboard supports that use as well — the Arabic letters are all available.
Quranic Arabic Typing
Users who need to type Quranic Arabic require full harakat support. This keyboard includes all the diacritical marks — fatha, kasra, damma, sukun, shadda, and all three tanwin forms — as well as the tatweel (kashida) character used to extend letter forms for alignment. The Arabic-Indic numerals (١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩٠) used in some Quran printings are also included.