Re: Standalone Superscript Alef (Item 8)

[Mohammed Yousif <mhdyousif at gmx dot net>]

On Wednesday 16 June 2004 18:48, Mete Kural wrote:
> Salaam Mohammed,
>
> >   That's exactly why it won't work:
> >    "you get the sequence fatha- superscript alif
> > anyway"
> >   EVERY small Alef in the Qur'an has a fatha
> > preceding it.
>
> This is true only, if one flips the order of waw and
> superscript alif. Looking at Ottoman and Magribi there
> seems to be variation whether to place the superscript
> alif on the waw or on the letter before it. In the
> King Fuad Quran, superscript alif sits right on top of
> waw - one letter away from fatha; in the Rushdi
> example it sits on lam of /Salaat/.

 This is a proof to my point, they are all correct, no doubt here.
 Because it's not on the lam nor on the waw so every mushaf tries
 to put it somewhere between them.
 It's a separate Alef letter, can you please consider that?
 Do you think an Alef can come without a preceding fatha?
  If you say "No", then the proposed behavior is not correct.
  If you say "Yes", then I will ignore the fact that this contradicts with
  Arabic rules and say then how can it handle this sample (that you have
  in your scans btw)?
  2 (Al-Baqara) verse no 2.
  One of them is the required contextual behavior you mentioned and the other
  one is the current one, yet both has a preceding fatha. (Please comment on
  this)

>
> There still is no case for off-set superscript alif as
> a separate character; 
  
  I gave you the sample already
  2 (Al-Baqara) verse no 2 (the first word in the verse)
  But I will give you more obvious samples (Please someone scan them because
  I don't have a scanner):
   60 (Al-Momtahena) verse no 4            بُرَءَآؤُا۟
(with the Alef after the hamza being the *separate letter* I'm talking about)

   64 (Attaghabun) verse no 14            أَزۡوَاجِكُمۡ
(with the Alef after the waw being the *separate letter* I'm talking about)

 All of them has a preceding fatha so how are you going to differtiate them
 from ٱلۡرَّحۡمَـٰنِ for example "it has a preceding fatha too"


  Mete, since you are ignoring a fundamental fact in Arabic even after I
  backed them up with logical analysis and samples from the Qur'an, I think
  you better ask any Arabic scholar these two questions.
   Can be there an Alef without a preceding fatha?
   Are the small Alef's in the Qur'an acting instead of the real Alef?

> these are just orthographic 
> inconsistencies on top of the regular and predictable
> shift to the left.
>

  So you agree that they have to be shifted to the left.
  That's my point, it's a separate letter and cannot be just on another
  letter (and the scans you sent proves that by showing that one can put
  it on the waw and one can put it on the lam and one can put it in the
  middle, actually they are all on the middle but they look like they are on
  the prev/next letter because of their tiny width)

> >  Mete, what you call an assumption is a fundamental
> > Arabic rule.
> >  I gave you a proof that the small alef is used
> > instead of the alef,
> >  you cannot put and Alef on a Waw, Alef is not a
> > haraka, it's a
> >  _standalone_ letter.
> >  And even if you are correct, it's still preceded by
> > a fatha
> >  (look at any sample and notice the haraka on the
> > prev char)
>
> Superscript alif is a recognized element of Arabic
> orthography and encoded as such. However, the off-set
> positioning that you want to be recognized as
> graphemic, is in fact contextually conditioned
> behaviour that belongs in the domain of rendering.

  That is the same for small Yeh, still unicode encodes it as
  two characters.
  (Alef and Yeh are both stated in the last pages of the Qur'an in the
   *same* category as letters that can be missing and replaced by small
    Alef or small Yeh. Please check this for yourself)

> Comparison with other Qurans shows that superscript
> alif is not always preceded by fatha; and that in
> these cases it defaults to the normal position on top
> of the associated rasm letter. Here are scans from the
> Fuad, Maghribi, and Rushdi Qurans respectively for you
> to visually detect this phenomenon:
>
> http://69.55.224.165/Supesrcript%20Alif%20-%20Fuad.jpg
> http://69.55.224.165/Supesrcript%20Alif%20-%20Maghribi.jpg
> http://69.55.224.165/Supesrcript%20Alif%20low-rez-%20Rushdi.jpg
>
 
 Even if you think it's on the waw, the prev letter "Lam" *still* has a fatha,
 and even if you think it's on the lam, the prev letter "Sad" *still* has
 a fatha.
 And this from the images you scanned (Thanks for doing this, it's now very
 easy for me to prove)

>
> To determine whether minimal differences in script
> behaviour are orthographic (graphemic or encodable) or
> calligraphic/typographic (and therefore rendering
> issues), one needs a minimal pair that proves that it
> is a meaningful contrast to distinguish these two such
> words. For instance, the word /la aay�/ as spelled in
> the modern Arabic Qur'an and /la ayy�/ provide a
> minimal pair in contrastive opposition:
> http://69.55.224.165/laaya.jpg
>

  From which mushaf you got that? It seems to me that the second
  word is wrong, it has to be lam alef with floating hamza for the Qur'an
  and if it's regular text, then it has to be لآية

  Anyway I won't try to base my proof on Arabic rules since you are simply
  rejecting them but I will give you a sample that would break the proposed
  contextual behavior. (see below)
> In order to be able further to discuss the graphemic
> status of the off-set superscript alif, we need to see
> a minimal pair in contrastive, i.e., meaningful
> opposition.
>

  Mete, we have the problem of either:
     1. Drawing it high (as U+06E7)
     2. Drawing it as a regular character (as U+06E6)

  You are suggesting that if it's not preceded by a fatha, 1 should
  be triggered and if it's preceded by a fatha 2 should be triggered.
  This contradicts with
      60 (Al-Momtahena) verse no 4            بُرَءَآؤُا۟
 (with the Alef after the hamza being the small Alef)
  Here it's preceded by fatha (on the hamza), according to your suggestion
  1 would be triggered causing it to be draw high             بُرَءَٰؤُا۟
   Clearly this is very wrong and very different from the real one because the
   needed behavior here is 2 not 1 at all.

  I think this sample should settle all of that, it's a proof by contradiction
  and I had to use this proof method because you are denying a very
  fundamental Arabic rule.

 
-- 
Mohammed Yousif
Egypt