What direction does Arabic read?

Arabic reads Right-to-left (RTL).

What direction does Bamum read?

Bamum reads Left-to-right (LTR).

How many characters does Arabic have?

Arabic has 1,413 characters in Unicode.

How many characters does Bamum have?

Bamum has 657 characters in Unicode.

Arabic vs Bamum

Writing system comparison · ISO Arab vs ISO Bamu

Arabic is a Living Right-to-left script from Middle Eastern (1,413 Unicode characters) used by 60 languages. Bamum is a Living Left-to-right script from African (657 Unicode characters) used by 1 language. A key difference is reading direction: Arabic reads Right-to-left, while Bamum reads Left-to-right.

Arabic

مرحبا بالعالم

العربية

Bamum

ꚠꚡꚢ

Side-by-Side Comparison

Attribute	Arabic	Bamum
ISO Code	Arab	Bamu
Direction	Right-to-left	Left-to-right
Status	Living	Living
Region	Middle Eastern	African
Characters	1,413	657
Languages	60	1
Script Type	Abjad	—
Descended From	Nabataean	—
Total Speakers	~291M	—
Introduced	400 CE	—
Unicode Ranges	U+0600–U+06FF U+0750–U+077F U+0870–U+089F U+08A0–U+08FF U+FB50–U+FDFF U+FE70–U+FEFC U+10E60–U+10E7E U+10EC2–U+10EFF U+1EE00–U+1EEF1	U+A6A0–U+A6F7 U+16800–U+16A38