Andrew Dunbar wrote:

>
> --- 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.

Please. fatHa, Damma, kasra.

> 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?

I've never even seen them discussed in books on Islamic calligraphy.

> 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.

I'd bet there aren't -- in calligraphy, once you've mastered the basic
hands, anything goes.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...