missing Latin letter for transcription

From: Arno Schmitt (arno@zedat.fu-berlin.de)
Date: Wed Mar 17 1999 - 12:28:18 EST


I'm interested in the transcription of Arabic, Hebrew and Persian.
I have two observation to make.

1.) two letters are missing:
Latin Capital Letter S with line below
and
Latin Small Letter s with line below

They is the Persian (and dialectal Arabic) transcript of Arabic
Letter THAA 062B, the standard Arabic transcript being Latin
Capital/Small Letter T with line below 1E6E and 1E6F

Now that all other Latin letters needed for transcription and
transliteration of Middle Eastern languages have a code point as
precombined letters, S with line below should be added. In some
regions 062B is pronounced like a "normal" t -- then the standard
transcription is used and the line below is ignored in speech --,
but in other regions and in Persian thaa sounds just like sin
("normal" s), hence the s with the line below taken from the
transcript of the "proper" letter.
The proper place for the the letters is Extended LATIN Additional,
something like 1EFA and 1EFB
or 1EFC and 1EFD

2.) Modifier Letter left/right half Ring 02BE and 02BF are
described as transcript of Arabic hamzah and ain.
BUT hamzah and ain are letters, not Modifier letters.
There are normal letters, can be the first or the last letter of a
word, or stand in between. They can be doubled and you can
hyphenate before and after it (depending on the other letters of
the word).
The only difference to a normal letter is:
in one of several common sorting orders hamzah and ain are
ignored, but so are "al-" "ibn" and "abu" in some sorting orders,
but you do not classify "a", "l", "i", "b" ... as Modifier
letters.
  
Arno Schmitt



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