العربية

Farsi (Nastaliq) practice sheets

Learn Farsi (Nastaliq) step by step: the 40-lesson path →

Farsi, or Nastaliq, is the Persian hand: it grew in Iran in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and became the script of Persian poetry, and in the Arab world it is simply called Farsi. Its letters are drawn with a fine, sloping pen, bowls are wide and shallow, and each word descends from right to left so that a line hangs rather than sits — which is why Farsi suits a single verse or a name more than a paragraph. Below is the whole alphabet in Farsi, each letter in the four shapes it takes — alone, opening a word, inside a word and closing it — set in Gulzar, an open-licence Nastaliq face. The shapes on their own are only half of Farsi: the other half is how words step down the line, which only shows once letters join, so practise these forms and then whole short words. Trace opens each letter in Farsi with a reed nib cut to the script's own pen angle: trace over it and the studio measures how much of the letter you covered; the printable sheet sets the Farsi model at the top of an A4 page with rows to trace over by hand.

Sentences from the master pieces

Once the letters hold, write whole sentences. These are the complete lines of our calligrapher's Thuluth master pieces, shortest first, set here in the Gulzar typeface.

Trace opens each letter in Farsi (Nastaliq) with a reed nib cut to its pen angle, measured from the letters themselves: thick and thin come from the direction you pull, with a mouse, a finger or an Apple Pencil. There are no numbered strokes; the studio measures how much of the true letter you covered. · Farsi (Nastaliq) phrases to try · the history of Farsi (Nastaliq) · for teachers

Practice sheets in the other scripts: Naskh · Thuluth · Ruq'ah · Diwani

Farsi (Nastaliq) calligraphy art for sale