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

["Thomas Milo" <t dot milo at chello dot nl>]

Hi Abdulhaq,

Are you sure you are reflecting on the idea of encoding distinctive shaddas
depending on their use?

Or may I assume you are endorsing the idea to encode a single vowel followed
by any of three modulators?

Cheers,

t

Abdulhaq Lynch wrote:
> On Wednesday 22 June 2005 13:42, Gregg Reynolds wrote:
>
>>> In that transcription your first sample reads as follows:
>>>
>>> kitaabu-n (DMG: kitābu-n)
>>>
>>> The qur'anic assimilation of second one is not yet supported, but
>>> it will read like this:
>>> khushubu- m:usannadätu-n (DMG: ḫušubu- m:usannadätu-n)
>>> As you can see, initial compensatory shaddä is treated differently
>>> from morphological shaddä.
>>
>> Yes; this is an example where a very useful codepoint is unlikely to
>> be endorsed by unicode.  We could use  two shaddas, one phonotactic
>> and one lexical.  I think there might even be a third case but I
>> can't think of it at the moment.
>>
>
> By using an idghaam codepoint they could be easily distinguished.
>
> I feel compelled to say (to everyone here, not just you Gregg, and not
> particularly in terms of this thread) that the arabs already have
> conducted an immensely rich analysis of the arabic language and its
> morphology, phonetics etc in respect of the quran. To abandon that
> (probably out of ignorance rather than deliberately) would be an
> immense mistake.
>
> We should stick to the time-honoured names that all good arab and
> muslim scholars are already familiar with. To try and come up with a
> new lexicon based on western phonetic and morphological terms is a
> big mistake.
>
> I teach arabic here in the UK and those students who have learned
> arabic via latin grammatical terms (nominative, accusative, cognate
> accusative etc) are at an immense disadvantage in studying the
> subject compared to those who know the far better suited arabic
> terms. To repeat that orientalist disaster here would be extremely
> negligent.
>
> wassalaam
> abdulhaq
>
>>> What's the objection? It would be just as transparent as you
>>> solution.
>>
>> I have to think some more about the paired vowels idea.
>>
>>> Anyway, I like your approach. If it is to find any acceptance, there
>>> needs to be canonical equivalence with legacy encoding accoding to
>>> this formula:
>>>
>>> TANWEEN                         =                 <vowel><small
>>> noon> =      conventional tanween
>>> TAMWEEM                         =                <vowel><small meem>
>>> IDGHAM                              =                <vowel><idgham
>>> code>
>>
>> But I wouldn't call it <small noon>; we want to retain the semantics
>> of tanween explicitly in the encoding element so that software
>> doesn't have to infer tanween based on two codepoints.  This is the
>> kind of thing I mean when I say intelligence should be migrated from
>> software to the encoding as much as possible.
>>
>> -g
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