Re: Proposal for the Basis of a Codepoint Extension toUnicodefortheEncoding of the Quranic Manuscripts

[Gregg Reynolds <gar at arabink dot com>]

Mete Kural wrote:

> It still seems to me that the tanween needs to be kept intact whether
> there is idgham or not since the idgham is determined by the next
> word. Two instances of the same exact indefinite noun may or may not
> employ idgham based on what word follows it. If we don't keep the
> tanween intact, then for instance it won't be possible to search for
> the indefinite form of a noun and get consistent search results
> unless both the with idgham and without idgham forms of the words are
> searched. But if the tanween is kept intact then it should be
> possible to simply substring search for the regular no idgham form of
> the word and get both with idgham and without idgham instances.

I see your logic, but I think the counter-argument is stronger:

a.  It's true that idgham is determined by the following word (initial 
consonant), but that's a higher-level issue.  The idgham mark is 
explicitly encoded in written text using a particular letterform 
(distinct from "ordinary" tanween).  Therefore we want to encode it; 
then it becomes possible to search for idgham without any special logic 
in the software.

b.  The interpretation of tanween as a marker of indefiniteness is also 
a higher-level issue.  If you bring it up with the Unicode folks the 
defense shields will go up instantly.  For an encoding design, "tanween" 
should only mean exactly what it says: appending a nuun phoneme in 
pronunciation.  "tanween idgham" indicates a phonological variant of 
"tanween".

c.  Searching for an indefiniteness marker necessarily involves looking 
for several different marks in printed text; machine search for 
<tanween> and <tanween idgham> would be no different.  Personally I 
don't view a regex involving e.g. [aui][ñÑ%] as very troublesome.  If 
you indicate idgham with a modifier following plain tanween, you may 
simplify search specifications for some purposes, but at the cost of 
added complexity in the software to handle idgham rendering.

-gregg