Re: Quranic Proposal

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

Dear Thomas

sorry about the long delay.

>> As I think about the issue more I am considering indo-pak masaahif. These
>> differentiate between long and short madd by the weight of the glyph. The
>> subsequent question would be, how do we account for all the other
>>  variations of glyphs that may occur in masaahif around the world? 

>The ones I investigated use traditional Arabic spelling conventions. For all
>clarity, do you mean madd as in calligraphic madd (tatweel, keshideh) or as
>in tashdeed or consonant reduplication?

I'm referring to the various tajweed-related muduud that govern the length of 
the pronounciation of the long vowels. (the madda glyph 0x06E4: madd/muduud 
= concept, madda = calligraphic sign). If you like, we can discuss in more 
detail the conventions and rules relating to tajweed and its calligraphic 
representation in a separate thread.

I'm going to borrow one of these mashaf today isa and I'll have another look 
for anything unusual (to me).

>> I agree that this is how script is best rendered, but I am very surprised
>>if you mean that text should be coded like this. Do you really mean that?

>As far as the rendering is concerned, this the basic principle of our ACE.
>However, what I meant to say is: this is how arabic script works, therefore,
>this is how it should be encoded.

I read your paper about constructing fonts using the nuqaaT as ligatures and 
I can see the logic in that. But if the actual document encoding were along 
those same lines, then searching documents (e.g. on the internet) for 
particular strings would become very burdensome. Already you have to 
consider alternative spellings, this would mean having to add a further 
spelling variation where some letters have two characters and others only 
one - wouldn't it?

wassalaam
abdulhaq

On Sunday 13 June 2004 15:23, Thomas Milo wrote:
> > As I think about the issue more I am considering indo-pak masaahif.
> > These differentiate between long and short madd by the weight of the
> > glyph. The subsequent question would be, how do we account for all the
> > other
>
> variations
>
> > of glyphs that may occur in masaahif around the world?
>
> The ones I investigated use traditional Arabic spelling conventions. For
> all clarity, do you mean madd as in calligraphic madd (tatweel, keshideh)
> or as in tashdeed or consonant reduplication?