Re: Tanween variants and Unicode

[Meor Ridzuan Meor Yahaya <meor dot ridzuan at gmail dot com>]

Please see my comment below.

On 8/24/05, Mete Kural <metek at touchtonecorp dot com> wrote:
> Hello Meor,
> 
> Thanks for the confirmation that there is no tanween other than tanween with a meem/tamweem and sequential tanween/silent tanween that is not supported by Unicode.
> 
> >Any new projects?
> 
> Tom is gonna present to the Unicode people in next months's Unicode conference in Florida God willing so I wanted to make sure that the list of missing Madina Mushaf Quranic features in Unicode is complete.
> 
> So can you think of anything else than the below list that is not supported in Unicode:
> 
> New character codes that are needed:
> ------------------------------------
> 
> - A new Arabic letter hamza is needed. This hamza will not be dis-joining like the current hamza 0621. When put between two joining letters it will not split them but float on top of them.
> 

Yes , this is very needed.

> New Protocols that are needed:
> ------------------------------
> 
> - The contexual variant of superscript alef that shifts position when preceded by a fatha needs to be clarified. There is no need for a new character code here, just an explanation that the current superscript alef does shift position when preceded by a fatha.

At first, I did not understand this issues stressed by M Yousif
(original project maintainer). He insist on a new code point for the
small alef used in the Madinah Mushaf. In my opinion , there are at
least 3 problems if we don't introduce new codepoint:
1. At least there is one occurance of standalone small alef in the
Mushaf. According to unicode, this type of character is a spacing
character (that's why I encode it with a space+superscript alef), thus
have a different property than the superscript alef.
2. The small alef does not just shift position, it does occupy some
space as well. Of course, the rendering engine can insert a tatweel
for that, but I think it will complicate things even more (even for
basic arabic feature, many rendering engine have problems to render it
properly)
3. We will have problems to standardize a searching algorithm. In
madinah mushaf, there is no superscript alef as used by other Mushaf.
The alef always represent a missing alef. The superscript alef, on the
other hand as used by Pakistan Mushaf, always denote a mad. So, for
searching, we can always neglect a superscipt alef to search a word,
but for madinah style, we need to convert the small alef to an
ordinary alef (if preceded by fatha), or substitude the character
before the small alef with alef (without fatha).  The problem is, a
program like Miscrosoft Word, it will never know how the text is
written: Madinah style, Pakistan style ot other style, thus by itself
it cannot differentiate . If we have a seperate codepoint for the 2,
we will not have this problem. We can develop a consistent searching
algorithm for all application.

Maybe we can discuss this matter more.

There are also some other glyph missing: the superscript waw is one of
them that I can think of right now.

> - Tanween ending in meem: fathatan+superscript meem will trigger the "tamweem" symbol, and so forth for kasratan+superscript meem and dammatan+superscript meem. No new character code is needed, just a protocol that explains that the combination will trigger the corresponding glyph.

I think this is ok, but we might encounter some implementation problems.

> - Silent/sequential tanween: fathatan+sukuun code will trigger the silent tanween/sequential tanween glyph, and so forth for kasratan+sukuun and dammatan+sukuun. Sukuun is a good choice for a codepoint here since the noon sound of the tanween is in a way silenced. No new character code is needed, just a protocol that explains that the combination will trigger the corresponding glyph.
> 

I think I need to check on this. I'm not sure if sukun would be the
best choice. I still think a new code point will be better.


> New canonical equivalences (this one is not absolutely needed for the Madinah Mushaf):
> ----------------------
> - Basic tanween canonical equivalence: fatha+fatha needs to be made canonically equivalent to fathatan, and so on for kasratan and dammatan.
> 
> Kind regards,
> Mete
> 
> ---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
> From: Meor Ridzuan Meor Yahaya <meor dot ridzuan at gmail dot com>
> Reply-To: General Arabization Discussion <general at arabeyes dot org>
> Date:  Tue, 23 Aug 2005 11:25:05 +0800
> 
> >I think as far as tanween is concern, that's about it. Of course, this
> >only considering it's visual appearance according to the madinah
> >mushaf ( not the whole tajweed rule)
> >
> >Any new projects?
> >
> >On 8/20/05, Mete Kural <metek at touchtonecorp dot com> wrote:
> >> Salaam Abdulhaq, Meor and all,
> >>
> >> I wanted to ask you to refresh my memory on something we discussed about in the discussions.
> >>
> >> As far as I remember we had decided that these tanweens are not currently supported in Unicode:
> >>
> >> - tanween with a meem/tamweem/?
> >> - sequential tanween/silent tanween/?
> >>
> >> Were there any other tanweens that are currently not supported by Unicode?
> >>
> >> Thank you,
> >> Mete
> >>
> >> --
> >> Mete Kural
> >> Touchtone Corporation
> >> 714-755-2810
> >> --
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> General at arabeyes dot org
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> >>
> >
> >
> 
> --
> Mete Kural
> Touchtone Corporation
> 714-755-2810
> --
> 
> 
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