Mark E. Shoulson wrote:

>
> I remember reading something about this (or something like it) last year
> or so. Looks like the fonts are finally ready for market.
>
> http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/arabetics/mutamathil/
>
> It's an Arabic font with no shaping, no initial/medial/final/isolated
> forms, and even designed with LTR directionality in mind as a
> possibility. I don't know about LTR possibility, and I'm not an
> Arabic-reader myself, but *maybe* one could get used to it. Would be
> easier if there were a free version available too...

It's clever (additional lettershapes are shown at the "more like this"
page), but it would be like trying to read text printed with a display
font.

Such extreme compression isn't necessary -- the IBM Selectric Arabic
ball managed to fit a quite readable Arabic text font into the under-80
positions available (you can see it in just about every Arabic textbook
published in the 70s and 80s).

> I can see this used in advertising, etc. And if there were simplified
> versions, they'd go well in environments that may not have the software
> or space to handle full Arabic typesetting, like cell-phones or
> something. Well, remains to be seen. And sheen.

--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...