Re: Quran data and issues in encoding the Quran in unicode

[Abdulhaq Lynch <al-arabeyes at alinsyria dot fsnet dot co dot uk>]

I don't agree with some basic points about all this. As I understand it 
Unicode wants to move from what has become a glyph-based coding over to a 
semantic-based encoding, and allow the font technology to worry about the 
glyphs. Fine.

However, Thomas et al. seem to be determined to pursue the opposite in terms 
of tanween and tajweed related marks. Tanween is semantically totally 
different to a fatha or one fatha followed by another. It is a semantic 
character of its own and deserves codes of its own. Iqlaab, ikhfaa, madd etc 
are tajweed marks that govern the pronounciation of the arabic and each 
carries a full semantic load. It should be possible to encode these 
semantically loaded objects in any textual representation of quran. If the 
Unicode consortium is not interested in encoding one of the most common books 
in the world then a further code standard must be developed on top of the 
unicode one. Hacks like placing two characters next to each other to 
'inspire' the font renderer to display a third semantically different 
character just don't cut it.

If Unicode really is about semantics and not glyphs, then let's have that then 
please and give us a code-point per semantic load. If instead we have to hack 
around with glued-together glyphs to try and indicate missing meaning, then 
we should look elsewhere.

If anyone is interested (on the safe assumption that Unicode is not interested 
in that) then perhaps we could discuss such a code extension here.

Abdulhaq

On Friday 17 June 2005 09:29, Thomas Milo wrote:
> Hi Mete, Meor,
>
> Just a quick reaction: U+0641 TATWEEL does not represent a character (or
> rather, grapheme) but a unit of typography (i.e., a glyph). It should never
> have been part of the Arabic code block in the first place. If you prefer
> the sequence like Fatha-SmalAlifAbove (in regular Unicode) to print with a
> upporting Tatweel, consider building a substitution in your OTF.
>
> A second point is the use of tanween followed by SmalMeemAbove and
> SmalMeemBelow. This is non-standard use of the small meems, plain and
> simple. The fact that the obvious encoding with sequential single harakat
> and single harakat+small meem is not supported correctly by Microsofts
> Uniscribe does not justify the use of illegal encoding. It would be better
> to report a bug to MS typography or, if you don't like to be the prisoner
> of third party's prorietary solutions, develop your own OTF parser (what we
> do).
>
> BTW, Mete did not mention Decotype's Naskh as a font that handles Qur'anic
> Arabic, because it is not yet published. In this project we consider the
> Uncode points SmalMeemAbove and SmalMeemBelow a mistake: they are
> contextual variants of SmallMeem (were - a single! -kasra pulls it below
> the script line). Therefore we treat them as identical. However, for
> compatibility's sake we could add a few front end substitutions to convert
> your private encoding to our (private?) encoding (which I believe you could
> have done to bypass the MS Unicsribe constraints)
>
> Regards,
>
> t
>
> Mete Kural wrote:
> > Hello Meor,
> >
> > Please find my suggested encodings and explanations below.
> >
> >> About the small alef, personally I would like to encode it using a
> >> tatweel + superscipt alef  for medial position, and a space +
> >> superscript alef for isolated position. The reason being is that the
> >> sequence will work on most, if not all existing font. You might argue
> >> that we don't need a tatweel for medial position, but without it, you
> >> will encounter another problem under windows. The same goes for small
> >> noon and yeh, which i thnk beter encode it with a tatweel. For small
> >> waw, I agree with Mr Milo.
> >
> > First of all, I would suggest to you not to steer the project in a
> > way to accomodate the variety of Arabic fonts that are available
> > today which do not implement the Unicode Arabic spec adequately. More
> > than 90% of the Arabic fonts out there ignore implementing
> > considerable sections of the Unicode Arabic specs. Only a handful of
> > fonts come close to rendering the Quran correctly (at least rendering
> > what can be encoded of the Quran with the current Unicode spec,
> > excepting the missing needed Quranic characters). Take notice that I
> > say come close to rendering the Quran correctly. I wouldn't be
> > surprised if there are only a handful fonts in the world today that
> > in fact do render correctly what can be encoded of the Quran with the
> > current Unicode spec. In fact the only four that I know are
> > Microsoft's Arabic Typesetting, your Arabeyes.org Meor font, and
> > SIL's Scheherazade (even these two have problems with small alef I
> > think) and Lateef fonts
>
> (http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=ArabicFon
>t s).
>
> > There may be other solutions that are not yet delivered to the market
> > or I haven't heard of. So I think trying to accomodate the encoding
> > of the text to render the small alef correctly with other fonts that
> > aren't suitable for rendering the Quran is unnecessary. The
> > compromise made on the consistency of the encoding is not worth it to
> > try to accomodate these unsuitable fonts. You already have a
> > challenge to accomodate for the Gnome and Uniscribe rendering
> > engines; trying to accomodate for some incomplete fonts in addition
> > to that would leave you with a not so desired encoding quality. This
> > is why I would recommend you not to use a tatweel before the small
> > alef.