From: Maher Alnubani (maher.al-nubani@oracle.com)
Date: Fri Mar 05 2010 - 13:14:40 CST
I hope I was able to answer your questions. Please see my comments below.
On 3/4/2010 5:16 PM, CE Whitehead wrote:
>
>
> Hi! The chart you provided had two parts: first the Arabic alphabet;
> second, the vowel diacritics, not alone, but in the company of
> consonants.
>
> So for someone learning Arabic letters the link you sent has some use.
>
> (I wish I could say it helped me with unicode characters; I see that
> there are some combining characters represented in the Presentation
> Forms at the Unicode code charts, and those are what I wanted I think.
>
> But for anyone learning Arabic also here's a link I found where you
> can learn about why certain characters have different glyphs:
> http://www.abjad.com/pyramid.htm there is also:
> http://www.funwitharabic.com/alphabet.html where you can meet the
> characters in order, and there is a song too)
>
> However, what I was trying to ask about was primarily a display
> question perhaps.
>
> BACKGROUND:
>
> There are versions of the Arabic vowel diacritics associated with the
> indefinite case endings, which actually consist of the short vowel
> plus the -n sound at the end, and these come only at the end of
> words--and in fact, only at the end of words that are 'indefinite' or
> 'not determined' by the article 'al.'
>
> You don't have to write the diacritics in Arabic, only the consonants
> (so these diacritics are secondary and more like accent marks and such
> in Latin-1). The problem comes with the indefinite accusative
> however, fathatan,
> because you have to insert an unspoken/not-pronounced alef as a seat
> for the diacritic and the alif has to be written of course.
>
> (Similarly, there is a 'consonant,' the hamza it is called, which is
> the glottal stop, that often takes a seat; unlike the seated fathatan
> diacritic for the accusative indefinite -- the seated hamzas are
> represented in the primary characters chart at:
> http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0600.pdf
>
> You can have the hamza alone and also represented with different
> seats: 0621-0626 -- although one of these characters actually involves
> a suppressed hamza -- or whatever [the hamza is suppressed when
> it comes between two vowels; I think I've got this right?] for 0622
> [is this right?].
>
> This group might actually be considered to consist of combined
> characters since all but 0621 include both a diacritic and a character
> seat for it.
>
> The vowel diacritics are represented here in isolation, also on this
> page but not with seats.
>
> You represent the vowel diacritic fathatan with aleph [or alternately
> it's written alif] elsewhere in the supplements [Presentation Forms-A]
> and the hamza diacritics as well [Presentation Forms-B].
>
> [On the main page again, see 0627 - 064A for the primary consonants if
> you want those; those are the characters that have to be typed, that I
> consider primary.])
>
> But of course the only time the inflectional ending needs a seat is
> when it is in the accusative case; otherwise it is just a diacritic at
> word's end!
>
> * * *
> Now . . . for my questions:
>
> (1), The logical typing order for the vowel diacritic for sure is
> normally first the consonant seat and then the vowel
> diacritic--although the vowel diacritic appears above or below the
> consonant and not in rtl order.
>
> However, at the end of the word, with the inflectional ending, you
> don't have alternate ways of writing the vowel and its character seat;
> so whether you type the vowel diacritic before or after the alif that
> serves as a seat, there should be only one display possibility as far
> as I can think (I may be wrong).
>
> But my browser (IE) displays the vowel-aleph combo differently
> depending on typing order -- and I don't think it should in this case
> since this diacritic is an end of word character -- someone straighten
> me out on this. I'm sending the attachment again (renamed because the
> name was confusing because I call this a double vowel diacritic
> because there are two slashes and not one but it's not really a
> doubled vowel): on the attachment, you can see the characters
> together and the two different typing orders.
>
> (Maybe typing order matters?--someone correct me.)
>
Yes, logical typing order does affect the visual display. Generally,
Tanween Al-FATH (what you called fathatan) would be the last thing typed
in a word. If you type it before the Alef, the renderer would super
impose it on the previous letter not the Alef.
> * * *
> (2), Also, further down in my attached page, the tah-marbutah is an
> end-of-word character, and I expected it to turn into an ordinary tah
> when I added an inflectional ending since in Arabic an ordinary tah
> must precede the inflectional ending; but the character remained a
> tah-marbutah; you can add inflectional endings to it and so I am
> wondering: shouldn't it display like an ordinary tah when there is an
> inflectional ending afterwards? (Do you code it as in someway an
> allo-glyph of tah?)
>
As you stated, Tah-Marbutah is an end-of-word character, and is a
different letter from the Tah. Tanween vowels (what you call
inflectional ending) would super impose on it the same way they would on
the Alef for Tanween Fateh. But, you do not need to add an Alef for
Tanween Al-Fateh when a word (normally a noun) ends with Tah-Marbutah.
> Displaying it like tah before an inflectional ending would look
> Arabic. (Someone is going to argue with me and say that I should have
> typed a tah and not a tah-marbutah anyway before the inflectional
> ending but I would first type the word, then the tah-marbuta, then
> perhaps later add in my voweling.)
Again, Tah Marbutah letter and Tah letter are two different letters.
Maybe you are confusing it with the Ha letter. Ha at the end of the word
would look like the Tah marbutah but without the two dots above. When
you add a letter after the Ha, the Ha would connect to it. In Arabic,
however, you would never find a word that ends with a Ha and at the
same time have a Tanween ending. When Ha connects to a name, it makes it
a definite name (similar to adding AL). Definite names wound not accept
Tanween as an ending.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Best,
>
> C. E. Whitehead
> cewcathar@hotmail.com <mailto:cewcathar@hotmail.com>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 18:56:41 +0100
> > From: prilop4321@trashmail.net
> > To: unicode@unicode.org
> > CC: cewcathar@hotmail.com
> > Subject: Re: Arabic aleph representation of glyphs
> >
> > Dear CE Whitehead:
> >
> > Your messages are confusing and I don't really understand
> > what you mean and what you want.
> >
> > But have a look at
> > http://www.user.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/arabic-alphabet.html
> > Perhaps this page will help you understanding the Arabic script
> > in Unicode.
> >
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ??
>
> 064B 0627
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ??
>
> 0627 064B
>
> ?
>
> FD3C
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> ABOVE: the aleph with the double (for an indeterminate ending)
> fatah diacritic, varying logical order; followed by the
> presentation form.
>
>
> BELOW: the tah marbuta connected to a following aleph with double
> fatah diacritic, varying logical order for the aleph and fatah
> diacritic.
>
> ???
>
> 0629 064B 0627
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ???
>
> 0629 0627 064B
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Note: as you can see, everything displays as it should regardless of
> when/where you type the vowel diacritic logically--except the change
> in logical order should not, in my opinion, change the display
> appearance in any wayl; also if you have any problems with the display
> all you need to do is add a meta tag stating the document character
> set; I think it's o.k. though as it's actually encoded ansi and I put
> in numbers of course. In any case, you may wish to check this display
> in different browsers--I'm not sure what's making the two orderings
> display differently--something about the unicode characters or
> something to do with the browser implementation? Thanks.
>
>
> Below: Character Input Order Sometimes Does Matter; It Suppresses
> Display Altogether
>
> darrasa 'to teach'
>
> ???????
>
> ???????
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Mar 05 2010 - 13:17:18 CST