Re: Arabic letter boundaries?

Nicholas Bodley wrote:

>
> To a casual student of Arabic, it seems that one of the aspects of that
> writing system that one needs to learn (probably implicitly, as a serious
> student) is where the boundaries are between letters. Alphabets have
> letter spaces, and the few ligatures seem to be easy to understand
> (although to someone new to an alphabet, they might not be as easy).
>
> However, until one learns the forms of Arabic letters (and other graphic
> elements of the writing system), the letter boundaries seem rather hard to
> determine.

Why would they be any harder to determine than "boundaries" between
letters written in roman cursive?

Arabic letters comprise loops and minims, with or without dots. There
are no "boundaries," just lines connecting the significant parts.

> (Am I being silly?) :)

Yes.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...