Re: Arabic Unicode fonts

[Mohammed Elzubeir <elzubeir at fakkir dot net>]

On Tue, Aug 14, 2001 at 10:02:26AM +0500, Mahin wrote:
> 
> Salam!
> 
> I do not think you are alone but I am not so eloquent / profecient as
> you are;). May I request you ( if at all possible ) to give example
> with one / two words from Quran with 'Airab - Alif+Ain+Ray+Alif+Bay '
> ? I know it is not relevent ( bit off topic ) but for any Arabic
> coding to be accepted ultimate test is Arabic for Non-Arabs, so that
> there are no distortions. Producing Quranic Script for Non-Arabs in
> Electronic format is what will determine wide spread adoption.

Hello there!

I don't quite follow your logic. Producing Arabic for 'Non-Arabs' is the
ultimate test? I can see that producing Quranic script would definitely
qualify for an extensive exhaustive test of the language support (we all know,
Muslims and non-Muslims) the contributions the Quran has made for the Arabic
language. But, are you talking about Arabic-derived scripts here?

> 
> In fact ' Ma-irab - Arabic written with Airab's ' Arabic will help
> Urdu as well as Persian. While I am in no position even to express an
> opinion on Uni-code /Utf-8 but there is some room for changes /
> improvements at this early stages. Apart from informative discussion
> there is real need for creating some visiual's with description for
> the benefit of those who are not so well read / informed on Unicode
> and its ramifications [ like you are ;)].

Certainly. Except that I hope that would not be the general format for fonts.
Explicit 'tashkeel' just makes the whole page too busy and makes it
more-or-less annoying. The only time where it would be appropriate really is
through-out the text for clarification. Generally, the 'tashkeel' of the word
should be implied by the context.

> 
> What is needed is a proof of what could not be done at all / not with
> ease using present form of Unicode controlled/delivered characters
> shaping/display and what it could be if your proposal are accepted. In
> my personal view the knowledge we have accumulated and preserved
> through centuries should not be abondened / denied access for  the
> simple reason that medium of preservation/recording has changed
>  paper to digital ). Yes! I agree with you "Its not a question of
> being able to support this or not (anything is possible); " and any
> amount of effort in ensuring continued access to accumulated knowledge
> is justified.
> 

I don't think the problem is whether Unicode fonts and algorithms are capable
of doing all of the above. They are. The question is, is this the best way to
do it? Isn't it too expensive on the computer resources? Why is it dealt with
differently from other Latin characters (note Nadim's note on the small and
capital letters, and encoding regarldess of keyboard mapping). 


-- 
Mohammed Elzubeir