Re: Arabic wasla in Unicode

[Jihad Daoud <jihad at passagen dot se>]

Hi (or should I say hej?),
Sorry Miikka for this delay, kind of have loads to deal with ...

Have been reading through your proposal, here are my reflection.
- The name you mentioned wasla or sila is quit confusing. I havn't head of 
it in those terms. (to be honest I thought it was about "Arabic  dash", 
until I got to page 3!).
To be more ohnest I didn't know how the diacritic you request in Unicode 
looks like.
- There is two kinds of hamza. Hamzat wasel and hamzat qat3. Although 
hamza is used to donate 0674 (in Unicode), wasla is somthing I haven't 
used or heared about! but wait.
- I checked a book in Arabic for fith grade elemnetary school in Jordan 
and there was a little grammar rule about hamzat alwasel and alqat3. The 
book says that hamzat awasel look like an alef with something on it as in 
0671, and hamzat alqat3 looks like 0674 (without an alef). This is in my 
opinion inconsequent and I didn't like it. The book uses hamzat alwasel 
whenever there is an al (alef lam).
- Checking the another book for fourth grade elemntary school in Syra, and 
no sign of hamzat alwasel there. It's simply not printed.
- Check the Quran and the Bibel and sure enough hamzat alwasel (the actual 
diracritc) was there on every al (maybe some where lese also.
- Now. Checked a grammar book (for elemntary school ekuivalent) printed in 
Egypt. And a rather detailed rule was there. The book have no diacritic 
for hamzat alwasel above the alef, but it has one for hamzat alqte3. An 
important issue is hamzat alwasel is droped if not in the beginig of the 
meaning (according to the book, in the beging of speach!)
- You will never see, in a text, see the hamzat lawasel diacritic above 
0640.
It might be that a spesific diacritic is used in some countries for what 
you call wasla, but it's not of frequent use in books. People tend to drop 
hamzat alqt3 too, which is a big mistake. Droping the other one (hamzat 
alwasel is ok in my opinion)!
So yes, it might be interesting to have it in Unicode for historical or 
gramatical reasons. And About the name of the diacritic, I don't know. But 
sila sounds as wrong as wasla but I am not saing it's not correct, I just 
can't find evidens for the name somewere.

I suggest that you correct these before you hand in your proposal:
Page 4 first row, till should be to.
Page 4 third row, didacritical should be diacritical.
Think, ask, about the naming.
Omit the part about the diacritic above 0640 on page 4.

(That was a long answers, but have not much to do with your original 
request!)
Try droping an e-mail to arabic-l mailinglist (need to subscribe, I can 
help you with that otherwise) to get a more qualified answer about it's 
origin, use and existens.

Have fun.
--
Jihad Daoud
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I might made you disappointed in me, but I still love you.