Nicholas Bodley wrote:

>
> On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 12:23:28 -0500, Mark E. Shoulson <mark@...> wrote:
>
> > It's not too complicated. At the time in question, the letter MEM was
> > drawn in two strokes: first a stroke kind of like a digit 7, then a
> [...]
> > if it's word-final it will just be drawn straight down... just in
> > position to hit the bent bottom of the first stroke.
>
> While casually becoming acquainted with Arabic, I have wondered whether
> such influences have affected the forms of its letters in a significant
> number of cases.

Yes. That's why the "final form" or "independent form" curl up or down
at the left.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...