In certain languages, the final form or terminal 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).^[1][2]

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 (Hebrew: סופית, meaning "final" or "ending").

This set of letters is known acronymically as אותיות מנצפ"ך‎ (מ, נ, צ, פ, ך‎ letters).

The now final forms ן ץ ף ך‎ 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 (פשוטה‎, meaning extended or plain).

The letter Mem also had a descender 𐡌‎, however, its current final form ם‎ was a variant of מ‎ used interchangeably in all positions. The standardization is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud (Megillah 2b-3a and Shabbas 104a). One instance of a medial ם‎ is preserved in Isaiah 9:6 of the Hebrew Bible, while Nehemiah 2:13 and arguably Genesis 49:19–20 have a final מ‎.

Modern Hebrew uses the forms פ כ‎ finally, when transcribing a plosive pronunciation, for example מיקרוסקופ‎ (microscope), מובארכ‎ (Mubarak, مبارك), while their final forms ף ך‎, are transcribing a fricative pronunciation, for example כך‎ (Kach), שף‎ (Chef).

References