Re: Arabic spelling (was RE: Loge, etc. (Was: Re: Graphemes defin e

--- Marco Cimarosti <marco.cimarosti@...>
wrote: > John Cowan wrote:

> > Marco Cimarosti scripsit:
> >
> > > In addition to the standard marks, religious
> > > text often use "filling" marks (generally shaped
> > > like little "v"'s) to fill up all the blank
> > > space where additional marks could
> > > conceivably be placed, in order to avoid any
> > > possible alteration of the text.
> >
> > Is this encoded in Unicode?
>
> I don't think.
>
> > If not, does it need to be?
>
> No, IMHO that has to be regarded as text decoration,
> pretty like the fairies in this "S":
>

http://ew2.lysator.liu.se/loth/c/o/costello/fairysversal.jpg

>
> It does actually also have that utilitarian function
> of avoiding modification of the text, but that's
> also true of, e.g., the diagonal line often seen on
> Western digit zero, or the crossbar seen on digit
> seven:
> elements which are seen as glyph elements in
> Unicode, and certainly not encoded as separate
> diacritic characters.
>
> Moreover, the presence, number and position of these
> marks depends strictly on the graphic appearance of
> the Arabic letters in that word and in that
> calligraphic style. Any blank area big enough to
> host a diacritic mark is sort-of barred out with
> that sign. But, in Unicode context, whether or not a
> certain letter leaves a blank area big enough
> depends on the design of the font, hence it doesn't
> belong to the encoding.
>
> Perhaps, automatically adding such signs could be a
> feature of a "science-fiction-level" OpenType font.

I think the first post made it sound like the marks
would fit in via straight analogy along with fatah and
dammah, but it's not so simple.

In reading English books on the Arabic language,
writing system, or calligraphy, I've found these marks
mentioned at best very briefly. Does anybody know if
they have on or more names in English, Arabic,
Persian,
Urdu?
Or anywhere were I might read more about them,
preferably online. I've always had trouble ignoring
them when trying to read Arabic (even street signs!)
and would also like to read about how calligraphers
decide where to put them. I'd bet there are fairly
specific rules and that it's not completely
willy-nilly.

Andrew.

> _ Marco
>
>

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