Re: Arabic wasla in Unicode

["N. Heer" <heer at u dot washington dot edu>]

	The word waslah will be found in Butrus al-Bustani's dictionary
"Muhit al-Muhit"  along with the actual character written over a line
rather than over an alif.  I have never seen a waslah that was not written
over an alif except in grammar books or dictionaries.  Waslah over alif is
almost always written in copies of the Qur'an, but almost never in any
other Arabic text.  It is not necessary to write it because an alif at the
beginning of a word without a hamzah is assumed to have a waslah.  I think
that is why waslah on alif was completely left out of ISO 8859-6.  At
least Unicode has added alif with waslah. However, I'm not sure whether
waslah separate from an alif should be added to Unicode.  If one needed to
have waslah by itself in a font, why not just consider it a glyph rather
than a part of the character set?

					Nicholas Heer

On Mon, 28 Jan 2002, Jihad Daoud wrote:

> 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.
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