Re: Quranic Proposal

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

just wanted to say jazaahumallaahu khairan to Muhammad and Nadim for taking 
on this very important job in such a professional manner.

wassalaam
abdulhaq

On Tuesday 08 June 2004 22:25, Mohammed Yousif wrote:
> Hello,
>
> > --- Thomas Milo <t dot milo at chello dot nl> wrote:
> > > Dear Mete,
> > >
> > > I took a quick look and concluded that the document
> > > is a bit misguided. I
> > > call it so, because Unicode does not encode GLYPHS,
> > > it encodes CHARACTERS.
>
>  First of all, I would like to make it clear that we certainly don't
>  want new glyphs for existing characters but we need to add
>  some _new_ characters, if you think that one or more of the
>  proposed characters are merely different glyphs for existing
>  characters please note it so I can explain.
>  BTW: although the subject of the email and the title of the proposal
>  has the word "glyphs", it is not really about glyphs, it's about
>  characters. (Nadim, could you please update the PDF to read "Quranic
>  Characters Proposal" instead?)
>  Let's please discuss it to make the unicode standard suitable
>  for encoding the Qur'an.
>
>  With the current situation, it is impossible propely encode the
>  Qur'an with unicode thus it cannot be used at all to encode
>  the Qur'an and any attemp to do so will surely get rejected
>  by any Qur'an certification organization.
>
> > > As you may have observed on the Unicode mailing
> > > list, I just tabled this
> > > subject. In observed, among others, that what this
> > > proposal calls
> > > "sequential fathatan" etc. can just as well be
> > > called "repeated fatha" etc.,
> > > after all, we have already a repeated dhamma. In
> > > that case no new CHARACTERS
> > > are needed. the GLYPH for "repeated fatha" etc. can
> > > be substituted by font
> > > technology. In Egyptian style, you expect two
> > > slightly offset fatha's, in
> > > Magribi style, they are typically sequential, i.e.,
> > > next to each other.
>
>  I'm with you that we can use "repeated fatha" for _either_ the regular
>  fatahatan _or_ the glyph of the proposed sequential fathatan glyph but
>  not _both_.
>  That's our point, the Qur'an needs _both_ of them not only the sequencial
>  fathatan, not only the regular fathatan but _both_ of them and in many
>  instances the two characters may coexist in the same verse.
>  In the Othmani script (used by the Qur'an) the two characters have
>  _different_ pronouncations not only different glyphs.
>   For example:
>    Regular Fathatan ---> this character means that the tanween must be
>                                  pronounced clearly "Izhar rule"
>
>    Sequential Fathatan ---> this character means that the tanween must be
>                                     either applied with the next character
> to form a diphthong "Idgham rule" OR not pronounced at all "Ikhfa'a rule"
> depending on whether a shadda exists on the next char or not.
>
>  With that being explained, I cannot stress more on the need for _two_
>  characters for properly encode the Qur'an.
>
> > > There is no need to include ligatures including
> > > trailing alifs etc.
>
>  You mean the proposed character "Superscript Alef standalone"?
>  Then please explain how can the sample provided be encoded.
>  Please note that for the given sample the small alef is not just
>  a "haraka" on the Reh, it's not a haraka at all and it have its own
>  spacing between the Reh and the Teh.
>  The proposed character along with U+0670 (which is not a haraka) is
>  the same case as U+06E6 and U+06E7, you cannot have only one of
>  them but _both_ of them are needed.
>
>  If you need more samples for the use of U+0670 and the proposed
> character, please tell me.
>
> > > , because
> > > the Unicode standard is not a glyph list. The block
> > > of Presentation Forms
> > > should be ignored, it was a mistake.
> > >
> > > Moreover, the proposal overlooks the problem with
> > > the zero consonant that we
> > > were pursuing last year.
> > >
> > > More follows,
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > t
>
>  Sorry, but I didn't understand anything from this quote, could you please
>  explain?
>
>  Please help us solve these issues with Unicode for people to stop using
>  non-standard encodings to encode the Qur'an (ALL of the Qur'an
> applications available do that, there isn't a single application that uses
> unicode for the Qur'an for the above missing characters).
>
>  If you think that the proposal is misguided, please note the parts which
> you think is so I can explain why it's a character not a glyph and why we
> need it and even give you a lot of samples from the Qur'an where unicode
> fails miserably to encode.
>
>  Thanks for your time,,