Re: FW: Persian alphabet

From: Roozbeh Pournader (roozbeh@sharif.edu)
Date: Fri Mar 16 2001 - 19:00:30 EST


On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, Vladimir Ivanov wrote:

> Does the standard of UniCode include standards on alphabetical order for
> the letters and other symbols, used in different languages.

Unicode only addresses a global sorting algorithm, which you can find at:

        http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr10/

> Our problem is in Arabic and Persian alphabetical sorting. We are
> using Microsoft Word, Excel, Access under Windows 2000, which claims
> to support UniCode. If you use Arabic keyboard for input and sort
> Arabic words everything is OK. But if you use Persian keyboard,
> sorting is done incorrectly: a) Persian "Kaf" is put after the last
> letter in alphabet, though it should be put in the same place where
> Arabic "Kaf" is. b) "Vav" is put after "He-havvaz" like it is in
> Arabic, though it should be done vice versa in Persian.

There are some other differenceses also, like for different kinds of Hamza
and Alef With Madda Above. And for the few cases where letters like Teh
Marbuta are used. I can give you a more complete list if you want to
implement it.

> We are unable to criticize Microsoft until we can refer to a standard.
> Is there such a standard?

Criticize us, the Persian computer people for not writing a standard yet.

I have not queried the national standards body yet for previous works on
sorting in the libraries etc, but we're starting some work based on ISO
14651 and UTR #10. Before that, I'll prepare an ISO 14651 table (a
sorting table) based on the best current practice in dictionaries, and
will post it to the Unicode mailing list when it got ready.

If you're interested in this or other internationalization related things,
it's good to get subscribed to the Unicode mailing list.

Roozbeh Pournader,
for the FarsiWeb Project.



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