Kurdish typography
# Kurdish typography

The Central 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.

## Kurdish Unicode fonts

| Font pack | Names of fonts | Link |
| - | - | - |
| with Microsoft Windows | Arabic Transparent Arabic Typesetting Arial Courier New Microsoft sans Serif Microsoft Uighur Tahoma Times New Roman | |
| 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 Group – X 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 | Unikurd Chimen Unikurd Digital Unikurd Ezmer Unikurd Goran Unikurd Hana Unikurd Hejar Unikurd Hemen Unikurd Hiwa Unikurd Jino Unikurd Kale Unikurd Kamran Unikurd Kawe Unikurd Koch Unikurd Magroon Unikurd Mestan Unikurd Midya Unikurd Nali Unikurd Nasko Unikurd Penos Unikurd Peshiw Unikurd Qandil Unikurd Rawanduz Unikurd Reyhan Unikurd Roonak Unikurd Seyran Unikurd Shilan Unikurd Siber Unikurd Sirwan Unikurd Tewar Unikurd Tishk Unikurd Web Unikurd Xani Unikurd Xatoon Unikurd Xezal Unikurd Yadgar | suited by Kurd IT group – Download 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.net Archived 2005-10-13 at the Wayback Machine – Download Page |
| SIL International | Scheherazade Lateef | created by SIL International – Download 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

### 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

Download zanest fonts 1994

### Converting to Unicode

* http://www.transliteration.kpr.eu/ku/en.html Kurdî Nûs], a versatile tool for converting to Unicode and Kurdish Latin by pellk Software Development Institute.
* KurdITGroup's font converter, for converting non-Unicode fonts 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
