Joining Type

What is Joining Type?

Joining Type is a Unicode character property that describes how a character participates in the cursive joining behavior of Arabic-script (and other scripts that use connected cursive forms, such as Syriac, N'Ko, and Mongolian). It is fundamental to correct text shaping for Arabic and related scripts, because Arabic letters change their visual form depending on their position in a word — specifically, whether they connect to the letters before and after them.

The Unicode standard defines the Joining_Type property with six values, stored in ArabicShaping.txt in the Unicode Character Database.

The Six Joining Types

How Arabic Letters Change Shape

An Arabic letter's joining type, combined with its position in a joining sequence, determines which of up to four contextual glyph forms (allographs) the font renders:

• Isolated form: The letter appears alone or between non-joiners
• Initial form: The letter begins a joining sequence (connects to the right, toward the next letter)
• Medial form: The letter is in the middle of a sequence (connects on both sides)
• Final form: The letter ends a joining sequence (connects to the left, toward the previous letter)

For example, the Arabic letter Ba (ب, U+0628, Dual_Joining) appears as:

This shaping logic is implemented by text shaping engines like HarfBuzz, which is used by virtually every modern application that renders Arabic text (browsers, LibreOffice, Android, iOS).

Transparent Characters

Characters with Joining_Type=Transparent are critical for correct shaping. A Transparent character between two Dual_Joining letters does not break their connection — the joining algorithm "looks through" it. Arabic diacritical marks (tashkeel, like fatha ◌َ U+064E and shadda ◌ّ U+0651) are Transparent, allowing vocalized text to join exactly as the unvocalized base text would.

Zero Width Joiner and Non-Joiner

Two special-purpose characters control joining explicitly:

• ZWJ (U+200D, Zero Width Joiner) — Join_Causing: forces a joining connection where it would not otherwise occur
• ZWNJ (U+200C, Zero Width Non-Joiner) — causes a break in an otherwise-connecting sequence

Quick Facts