Arabic star
Encyclopedia
- For stars with Arabic names, see List of Arabic star names.
The Arabic star is a punctuation mark developed to be distinct from the asterisk
Asterisk
An asterisk is a typographical symbol or glyph. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often pronounce it as star...
(*). The asterisk had existed in feudal times, and the original shape of the asterisk was six-pointed, each point like a teardrop coming from the center. However, some typewriter
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
s had difficulty printing the six arms distinctly.
The Arabic star is given a distinct character in Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
, , in the range Arabic punctuation
Arabic alphabet
The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...
.
In many modern fonts, however, the asterisk is five-pointed, and the Arabic star is sometimes six- or eight-pointed. The two symbols are compared below (the display depends on your browser's font).
| Asterisk | Full-width Asterisk | Arabic star | five-pointed star | six-pointed star | eight-pointed star |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| * | ＊ | ٭ | ★ | ✶ | ✴ |