The Arabic alphabet evolved either from the Nabataean, or (less widely believed) from the Syriac.[citation needed] This table shows changes undergone by the shapes of the letters from the Aramaic original to the Nabataean and Syriac forms. Arabic is placed in the middle for clarity and not to mark a time order of evolution. It should be noted that the Arabic script represented in the table below is that of post-Classical and Modern Arabic, not 6th century Arabic script which is of a notably different form.
It seems that the Nabataean alphabet became the Arabic alphabet thus: