Peh, Initial Form

Enter ordinary peh and let text shaping choose its form. For Persian or Urdu text, type پ; when it joins the next letter, the text system displays peh in its initial shape. This character is a stored positional form, not a separate sound.

As of 2026, Unicode guidance treats positional forms as shaping output and recommends base characters for text interchange. Some fonts may not include every encoded presentation form, so ordinary peh can display correctly even when this exact form does not.

Where did peh come from?

Peh joined Persian writing when Arabic script was adapted for Persian sounds. Persian had earlier writing traditions, including Pahlavi. Arabic-script Persian documents emerged in the 9th/10th centuries; the earliest surviving manuscript in that script dates from the beginning of the 10th century.

The added letter represents Persian /p/, a sound standard Arabic lacks. Persian adapted the script's existing letter shapes by adding dots: peh has three below a beh-shaped base. Urdu later carried this adapted Persian-script tradition into South Asian administration and literature.