M-x set-input-method RET ucs RET jufdd0$1 RET If you type C-a and then step through the characters with the right arrow, the direction is reversed. It seems like the entry of $ followed by something else is triggering it, but that may just be an impression/side effect. I suspect that the reason is that most Unicode noncharacters (https://www.unicode.org/faq/private_use.html#nonchar1) are in an Arabic block (https://www.unicode.org/faq/private_use.html#nonchar4b) and that the cause is an incorrect generalisation of the properties of the characters in this block. In GNU Emacs 27.1 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.20, cairo version 1.16.0) of 2020-09-19 built on lgw01-amd64-021 Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12013000 System Description: Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS Recent messages: Char: ﷐‎ (64976, #o176720, #xfdd0, file ...) point=4361 of 7190 (61%) column=23 Mark set [2 times] Auto-saving...done Configured using: 'configure --build=x86_64-linux-gnu --prefix=/usr '--includedir=${prefix}/include' '--mandir=${prefix}/share/man' '--infodir=${prefix}/share/info' --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var --disable-silent-rules '--libdir=${prefix}/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu' '--libexecdir=${prefix}/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu' --disable-maintainer-mode --disable-dependency-tracking --prefix=/usr --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --libexecdir=/usr/lib --localstatedir=/var/lib --infodir=/usr/share/info --mandir=/usr/share/man 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