On Sat, 28 May 2011 17:44:27 -0400, Richard Wordingham
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...> wrote:
>> I'd be surprised if typesetting in an accceptable-looking
>> nasta`liq is available -- if only because words or short phrases occupy
>> diagonal
>> spaces within each right-to-left line.
>
> OpenType includes a special type of 'positioning' that joins anarbitrary
> sequence of characters in the sloping style required forNastaliq. An
> example of its application is shown at
> <http://www.microsoft.com/typography/links/news.aspx?NID=1275> . In
> principle, all you need to do is obtain a good font and type in theright
> sequence of characters.

{snip, re line spacing --nb}

> Richard.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= (Still on topic:)

Patrick Chew was most helpful in offering his expertise on the topic. I
followed links from those he gave, and, indeed, have concluded that even
Urdu can be typeset quite well. I asked permission to forward the message
he sent me, and he graciously granted it. Here it is; unfortunately, Opera
mail failed to create links when I copied his message:

Mr. Bodley:

With regards to specimens of <nasta`liq>, please refer to:

<http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Nastaliq-Persian-Hands-Present/dp/1568592132/>

For other calligraphic handwriting (particularly Arabic, rather than
Perso-spheric), please refer to:

<http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Arabic-Practical-Introduction-Script/dp/0198151500/>

{The Review comments at Amazon are worth a look, as well. --nb}

Both <nasta`liq> and <ruq`ah> styles of Perso-Arabic have decent fonts
available:

<nasta`liq>: c.f.
<http://www.crulp.org/software/localization/Fonts/nafeesNastaleeq.html>
{There are several pages of interest at CRULP. --nb}

<ruq`ah>: googling for "font ruqah" will pull up a number of links...

Please also note that modern typsetting for Arabic script in a number of
different languages has made extremely great advances and one of the best
typesetting software available can be found at: http://www.decotype.com/,
where the Tasmeem product line has been developed to not only account for
calligraphic styles of Persian and Arabic, but also allows for
geolocal-specific stylistics and the capability for individual adjustments
as felt to be necessary.

WRT Indic fonting, it is not only Malayalam that has traditionally had
'stacking' consonants, but also other Dravidian (southern) scripts, as
well as Hindi. With the advances made in typographical technology and the
advent of Open Type Fonts, more fonts are available that accommodate
traditional forms of typesetting/writing.

regards,
-Patrick Chew

================
Mr. Chew's link to DecoType,
<http://www.decotype.com/> brings up simply an image; there's no content
in computer text form. I was very impressed.

Some links I found to be interesting:
<http://faiznastaliq.blog.co.in/>
<http://www.inpage.com/urdu.htm> Specimens of typeset Urdu

Imho, this next is truly impressive -- an online Pakistani newspaper; it
might well be one of the few most prominent:
<http://www.nawaiwaqt.com.pk/>
Hover over any story, and its boundaries show up. Click within the
boundary to see undecorated Urdu text (I'm assuming this to be Urdu!)

What I'd call "headlines", the incredible blocks of text where strokes are
surrounded by white and grey, appear to be typeset. I can't judge by most
of the content, but the small symbols along the top appear truly
identical, whereas if they were handwritten, there would be slight
variations. I'm very deeply impressed.

I did a decent amount of study, and it appears that the computer people
gave the support for typographic layout, while some of the best Urdu
calligraphers created huge numbers (roughly 20,000?) of ligatures as part
of the fonts. While Eurocentric and South Asian fonts are products of
glyph designers, as I see it, this Urdu typography merges complex
calligraphic ligatures, apparently a much-more sophisticated variety of
typography. As well, I learned a bit about the significance of Urdu in its
own culture, and it seems to have a place of quite high regard in that
part of the world.

One body of text told how specimens of Urdu were gathered to create
ligatures, and, in all, they had collected about 30,000! Apparently, by a
lot of careful work, similar ones were merged, but the corpus was still
utterly huge.

Yrs trly is only an amateur, surely aware of the Latin origin of that
appellation.
From this point on, unless I'm horribly "off base", as we say about
baseball players, I'm going to hold Urdu computer typography in very high
regard.
While it is reproducing the work of talented and revered calligraphers, I
do wonder whether computers can help originate beautiful calligraphy.

After all, Bézier (and iirc cubic) splines, which can be very beautiful,
are at the root of the curves of the best computer typefaces, moderated,
to be sure, by talented typographers. There are, after all, other
mathematical curves (I like pedal curves) besides splines; try the
interactive graphical applets from the University of St. Andrews' Famous
Curves Index:
<http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Curves/Curves.html>
<http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Java/index.html>
[Imho, this Web site merits archiving for millennia.]

Present-day type design software seems very limited, mathematically.

I have profound appreciation for traditional calligraphy by pen and brush,
but also wonder whether 21st Century calligraphy might use splines and
other beautiful mathematical curves under control of talented people as
working tools. They already are, after all, in design of glyphs. Google's
one-day recent animated logo in honor of dancer Martha Graham's birthday
give some idea -- it was astonishing and beautiful animated calligraphy.
(Why should calligraphy not make artistic use of gradient colors, for
instance? There's lots of art that uses software tools, after all.)

Best regards,

--
Nicholas Bodley _.=|*|=._ Waltham, Mass.
amateur

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