Lorna | 11 August 2025

We are very pleased to announce a new release of Harmattan, an Arabic script font designed for use by languages in West Africa.

Changes

This release includes the following changes for this version:

New

  • Added:
    • 088F ARABIC LETTER NOON WITH RING ABOVE
    • FDFE ARABIC LIGATURE SUBHAANAHU WA TAAALAA
    • FDFF ARABIC LIGATURE AZZA WA JALL
    • 10EC5 ARABIC SMALL YEH BARREE WITH TWO DOTS BELOW
    • 10EC6 ARABIC LETTER THIN NOON
    • 10EC7 ARABIC LETTER YEH WITH FOUR DOTS BELOW
    • 10ED0 ARABIC BIBLICAL END OF VERSE
    • 10EFA ARABIC DOUBLE VERTICAL BAR BELOW
    • 10EFB ARABIC SMALL LOW NOON
  • Added cv88 (Guillemet) to provide a choice for angled guillemot characters in Arabic script
  • Added Malay Jawi language support

Improved

  • Added sample strings and feature tooltips to the character variants for applications that support them
  • Made width of punctuation space (U+2008) consistent with width of period

Known issues

  • Shaping for the newly added characters may not yet occur in applications.
  • Medial and final high hamza characters may have collisions (these likely do not occur).
  • Lam + high hamza alef ligature does not form as it likely does not occur.
  • In InDesign: some behaviors, such as the lam-alef ligature, raised kasra with shadda, and subtending marks, will not function correctly unless Ligatures is turned on in the Characters panel.

Both desktop and web fonts are provided in a single, all-platforms package on the Download page.