Mark E. Shoulson wrote:
>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> >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.
> >
> Yeah, turns out there are three flavors of Mutamathil Arabic fonts. The
> unqualified one that I linked to is intermediate: favors RTL
> directionality, no shaping or final glyphs. There's another version that
> favors RTL more strongly and has final forms for some letters, a little
> closer to normal Arabic, and a version in which all the letters are
> perfectly symmetrical about the vertical axis(!), with no final forms or
> anything, attempting to make LTR layout feasible. That last one has to
> be tough to get used to, even if you stick with RTL. Dal is tough to get
> used to, and I bet ray takes some work as well.

Nu, where are these impossible dal and raa' shown? (Couldn't <r> and <z>
simply be a vertical descender, looking like a san-serif j?)

> >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 guess it depends on your view of "necessary." I think part of this
> guy's whole point is the simplification of Arabic writing, to bring it
> more in line with simpler single-letter-based alphabets. Obviously,
> whether or not this is a Good Thing is a matter of opinion!

You can be sure there ain't never gonna be no Qur'an or other religious
text using it!

If he wants to simplify Arabic writing, shouldn't he be starting with
handwritten forms? But it would be a huge tradeoff in speed -- Arabic is
very quick to write because of the high degree of connectedness, and
that advantage will be lost if letters have to be drawn. (Just imagine
having to block-print English as in First Grade!)
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...