Arabic Letter Reh

It represents an r consonant inside a word.

Its name is commonly written rāʾ, ra or reh. Arabic teaching describes a trilled r; Urdu teaching describes a flap, a single quick tap of the tongue. Persian also uses the letter, and each language sets its own pronunciation.

Arabic writing developed from Nabataean, an older script in the Aramaic tradition. The Arabic script had a distinctive form by the 4th century CE. Early Arabic documents include PERF 558, a papyrus text dated 643 CE.

Why does ر break the connection?

It can join to the letter before it, then stops.

Arabic is written from right to left. ر can join to a preceding letter on its right when that letter allows it, but it never joins the next letter on its left. That gap can appear inside a word; it does not mark a space.

The font picks the isolated or right-connected form from context. The curve varies by typeface, but you do not need a separate character for each position.

How do I type ر?

On Arabic (101), press V.

First switch to the Arabic input layout; on a Latin layout, V produces the Latin letter V.