Different kinds of hamza characters in Arabic script
As part of the development process for any Arabic script font, and especially for a Nastaliq-style font, understanding the different forms of “hamza” characters and how they are rendered is important.
ARABIC LETTER HAMZA
Section titled “ARABIC LETTER HAMZA”ء is the standard hamza base character, essentially the head of an ain (ع). It is always displayed as an isolate form, causing breaking in the middle of the word. It never has cursive connections to other characters.
In general, the Nastaliq-style of the hamza is written in a similar manner to the Naskh-style of hamza. However, when used as a combining mark on a base character, it usually looks more like a wavy character. Some languages, such as Kashmiri, will retain the hamza shape as used in the blue line below.
ARABIC LETTER YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE
Section titled “ARABIC LETTER YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE” ئ is canonically equivalent to the sequence < ي , ◌ٔ >. However, when hamza above is applied to yeh, it loses its dots in all positional forms. See the Combining Hamza
section in The Unicode Standard.
In addition, the position of the hamza above is different for the Kyrgyz language. The hamza should be placed toward the top of the yeh in isolate and final forms, rather than over the bowl.
Combining hamza and hamza-like characters
Section titled “Combining hamza and hamza-like characters”◌ٔ , ◌ٕ , and ◌ٟ are true combining characters; they behave like diacritics. You would generally expect to find them on vowels or approximants such as alif, waw, yeh, yeh-barree (bariyeh), heh, goal-heh, reh, or laam.
◌ٟ was added for the Kashmiri language.
ARABIC LETTER HIGH HAMZA and related characters
Section titled “ARABIC LETTER HIGH HAMZA and related characters”ٴ is intended only for use in a few languages like Kazakh, Malay, and perhaps Uyghur. It is a base character (spacing), not a combining mark.
Additionally, Malay Jawi uses ٴ . The position of the high hamza remains at three-quarters height, but it is similar in size to ء .
See the High Hamza section in The Unicode Standard.
The following characters are not recommended for use because their compatibility decompositions include ٴ , but the ordering of characters in the decomposition sequences are the reverse of what is expected.
- ٵ
- ٶ
- ٷ
- ٸ
Other characters that include a hamza
Section titled “Other characters that include a hamza”- أ
- ؤ
- إ
- ٲ
- ٳ
- ځ
- ۀ
- ۂ
- ۓ
- ݬ
- ࢁ
- ࢂ
- ࢨ