Kurdish typography

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The Middle Kurdish variety Sorani is mainly written using an Arabic alphabet with 33 letters. Unlike the regular Arabic script, which is an abjad, Kurdish Arabic is an alphabet in which vowels are mandatory.

Table of Unicode characters used in Kurdish-Arabic script

Arabic Unicode name (Arabic letters) Hex.
ئ Yeh with Hamza above 0626
ا Alef 0627
ب Beh 0628
پ Peh 067E
ت Teh 062A
ج Jeem 062C
چ Tcheh 0686
ح Hah 062D
خ Khah 062E
د Dal 062F
ر Reh 0631
ڕ Reh with small V below 0695
ز Zain 0632
ژ Jeh 0698
س Seen 0633
ش Sheen 0634
ع Ain 0639
غ Ghain 063A
ف Feh 0641
ڤ Veh 06A4
ق Qaf 0642
ک Keheh 06A9
ك Kaf 0643
گ Gaf 06AF
ل Lam 0644
ڵ Lam with small V 06B5
م Meem 0645
ن Noon 0646
و Waw 0648
ۆ Oe 06C6
ۇ U 06C7
ۊ Waw with two dots above 06CA
ھ Heh Doachashmee 06BE
ه Heh 0647
ە Ae 06D5
ی Farsi Yeh 06CC
ێ Yeh with small V 06CE

Non-letter characters in addition to punctuation marks and symbols are:

  • Tatweel (U+0640), used to stretch characters.
  • Zero width non-joiner (U+200C). Usage of the ZWNJ is non-standard but occurs a lot, most of the time this is due to poor conversions from non-Unicode to Unicode mapping in texts.

Unicode fonts

Font pack Names of fonts Link
with Microsoft Windows
X Series 2 fonts
  • XB Zar
  • XB Yagut
  • XB Riyaz
  • XB Roya
  • XB Shafigh
  • XB Shafigh Kurd
  • XB Shafigh Uzbek
  • XB Shiraz
  • XB Sols
  • XB Tabriz
  • XB Titre
  • XM Traffic
  • XM Vahid
  • XP Vosta
  • XM Yermook
  • XB Yas
  • XP Ziba
by Iranian Mac User GroupX Series 2 Download Page, built on freely available fonts and extended to support Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Pashto, Dari, Uzbek, Kurdish, Uighur, old Turkish (Ottoman) and modern Turkish (Roman) and equipped with two font technologies, AAT and OpenType. Can be used on any platform; Mac, Windows or Linux.
  • Note: XB Shafigh Kurd automatically adds a ئ (Yeh with Hamza above) before vowels. It seems fine while you're using this font, but since there aren't any actual ئs in the text, you have to add them when you switch fonts.
Unikurd fonts <templatestyles src="Div col/styles.css"/>
2
suited by Kurd IT groupDownload Page
Nefel fonts
  • A_Nefel_Adetî
  • A_Nefel_Adetî_Qelew
  • A_Nefel_Botan
  • A_Nefel_Sereke
  • A_Nefel_Sereke_Qelew
suited by Nefel – Download Page
ABD fonts
  • 43 ABD Fonts
suited by eDuhok.netDownload Page
SIL International
  • Scheherazade
  • Lateef
created by SIL InternationalDownload Page
PakType
  • PakType Naqsh
  • PakType NaskhBasic
  • PakType Tehreer
PakType – Pakistani Typography
Droid Droid Arabic Naskh Google font directory, FFonts
Bahij
  • 72 Bahij Fonts
Bahij Virtual Academy - Kurdish Standard Fonts
Sarchia
  • 100 Sarchia Fonts
suited by Sarchia Khursheed – Download Page

Non-Unicode fonts

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Ali fonts

Alifonts, widely used with Windows 98, enabled typing of Kurdish with Arabic or Farsi keyboard layouts. While it uses a non-standard mapping, typing Kurdish with Alifonts remains popular, as it does not require a specific Kurdish keyboard layout.

Ribaz fonts

Ribaz Font, 99 non-Unicode fonts suited from Arabic fonts. file

Zanest fonts

Dilan fonts

Converting to Unicode

Beware: Some old converters convert Teh Marbuta (0629) to Heh + ZWNJ (0647 200C) instead of the correct Ae (06D5)!

Most converters don't retain formatting through non-joiners and therefore give a slightly different, albeit more standard, rendering.

Web fonts

  • Unikurd Web: for 10, 11 and 12 pt
  • Tahoma & Tahoma Bold
  • Times New Roman
  • Arial

See also


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