Hebrew alphabet . The Arabic letters generally (as six of the primary letters can have only two variants) have four forms, according to their place in the word. The same goes with the Mandaic ones, except for three of the 22 letters, which have only one form. In forms of Hebrew older than Modern Hebrew, כ״ף, בי״ת and פ״א can only be read "b", "k" and "p", respectively, at the beginning of a word, while they will have the sole value of "v", "kh" and "f" in a "sofit" (final) position, with few exceptions. In medial positions, both pronunciations are possible. In
Arabic alphabet dots above; the letter ن (n) also has the same form in initial and medial forms, with one dot above, though it is somewhat different in isolated and final form. Both printed and written Arabic are cursive, with most of the letters within a word directly connected to the adjacent letters. There are two main collating sequences for the Arabic alphabet: abjad and hija. The original "" order (), used for lettering, derives from the order of the Phoenician alphabet, and is therefore similar to the order of other Phoenician-derived alphabets, such as the Hebrew alphabet. In this order, letters