What direction does Arabic read?

Arabic reads Right-to-left (RTL).

What direction does Phags-pa read?

Phags-pa reads Top-to-bottom (TTB).

How many characters does Arabic have?

Arabic has 1,413 characters in Unicode.

How many characters does Phags-pa have?

Phags-pa has 56 characters in Unicode.

Arabic vs Phags-pa

Writing system comparison · ISO Arab vs ISO Phag

Arabic is a Living Right-to-left script from Middle Eastern (1,413 Unicode characters) used by 60 languages. Phags-pa is a Living Top-to-bottom script from Central Asian (56 Unicode characters) used by 0 languages. A key difference is reading direction: Arabic reads Right-to-left, while Phags-pa reads Top-to-bottom.

Arabic

مرحبا بالعالم

العربية

Phags-pa

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Side-by-Side Comparison

Attribute	Arabic	Phags-pa
ISO Code	Arab	Phag
Direction	Right-to-left	Top-to-bottom
Status	Living	Living
Region	Middle Eastern	Central Asian
Characters	1,413	56
Languages	60	0
Script Type	Abjad	Abugida
Descended From	Nabataean	Tibetan
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+A840–U+A877