Final form

For approaches that focus on the final form of the biblical text, see Canonical criticism.

In certain languages, the final form is a special character used to represent a letter only when it occurs at the end of a word. Some languages that use final form characters are: Arabic, Hebrew, Manchu and one letter in Greek (ς).

The lowercase Latin letter "s" had separate medial (ſ) and final (s) in the orthographies of many European languages from the medieval period to the early 19th century; it survived in the German Fraktur script until the 1940s.

Hebrew

In the Hebrew alphabet the final form is called sofit (Template:Lang-he-n, meaning "final" or "ending"). The following five Hebrew letters take a final form:

Letter name	Non-final	Final (sofit)
Mem	Template:Hebrew	Template:Hebrew
Nun	Template:Hebrew	Template:Hebrew
Tsadi	Template:Hebrew	Template:Hebrew
Pe	Template:Hebrew	Template:Hebrew
Kaf	Template:Hebrew	Template:Hebrew

This set of letters is known acronymically as Template:Hebrew.

The now final forms Template:Hebrew predate their non-final counterparts; They were the default forms used in any position within a word. Their descender eventually bent forwards when preceding another letter to facilitate writing. A final form of these letters is also called pshuta (Template:Hebrew, meaning extended or plain).

The Letter Template:Hebrew also had a descender (Template:Hebrew), however, its current final form Template:Hebrew was a variant of Template:Hebrew used interchangeably in all positions. One instance of a medial Template:Hebrew is preserved in the Hebrew Bible (Isaiah 9:6). Arguably, Genesis 49:19-20 have a final Template:Hebrew.

Modern Hebrew uses the forms Template:Hebrew finally, when transcribing a plosive pronunciation, for example Template:Hebrew (microscope), Template:Hebrew (Mubarak, مبارك).