Re: chairless hamza

From: Behnam (behnam.rassi@gmail.com)
Date: Sat Jan 05 2008 - 06:33:00 CST

  • Next message: arno: "Re: chairless hamza"

    On 5-Jan-08, at 6:15 AM, arno wrote:

    > Khaled Hosny wrote:
    >> On Sat, Jan 05, 2008 at 09:05:08AM +0100, arno wrote:
    >>> Again: the only possible reason not to do it, is: The present
    >>> dividing behaviour is asked for by an other language written with
    >>> the Arabic script. In that case U+0621 should be depreciated for
    >>> the Arabic language as is ARABIC LETTER HIGH HAMZA (U+0674) and
    >>> the new hamza should be named 'ARABIC LETTER ARABIC HAMZA'
    >> I've been told that a previous proposal to change the properties of
    >> U+0621 was met by resistance from Persian people claiming that it
    >> will
    >> break existing text where hamza is supposed to disjoin dual joining
    >> characters.
    >
    > Maybe Roozbeh Pournader could help.
    > Or anybody with some idea of Persian!
    > Or are all experts on the bidi list only?

    I guess I fit the second criteria and can give you some 'street
    knowledge' of Persian not academic one. But it's better than nothing!
    First of all, hamza (the letter) is only used in words we consider
    'Arabic' within Persian text. Off the top of my head, I can't find a
    case in which hamza is used in the middle of a word, requiring the
    letters before and after to be disjoint. Chairless hamza is always at
    the end of the word as far as I can see. So technically yes, it does
    require disjoint characters before and after, but this can also be
    achieved by mere fact that hamza is placed at the end of the word,
    followed by a space, a zwnj or a line breaker.
    If your proposal doesn't affect the formation of a word such as:
    شیء-اشیاء
    as it is currently formed, I can't see a case that would be adversely
    affected by your proposal but I do thing that suggestion of keeping
    this hamza as it is and re-defining another hamza with new behaviour
    as 'current' hamza is more sound.

    I honestly think that we should be more concerned about
    directionality standard right now!

    Behnam



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