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Help! Is This Arabic?

isthisarabic.com

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Re: Help! Is This Arabic?

#11

Post by least »

olliej wrote: post #7

The core issue is people without familiarity with how non-native (to them) script can function - in the English centric world it means assuming one letter == one visual glyph, and the visual glyph won't get a different rendering depending on context. Native English speakers don't seem to really acknowledge that the English alphabet does have contextually different glyphs for the same letter: that is what capitalizati…

> The core issue is people without familiarity with how non-native (to them) script can function - in the English centric world it means assuming one letter == one visual glyph, and the visual glyph won't get a different rendering depending on context.

English has cursive and I think most English speakers are at least aware of cursive. We have script that is designed for print as well, though, while Arabic script does not; it is always cursive.

Re: Help! Is This Arabic?

#12

Post by anonu »

The question should be more precise. Is this Arabic script?

There's a half dozen languages at least that are not Arabic but use Arabic script, such as Persian or Urdu. The typographic rules mentioned still apply though.

Re: Help! Is This Arabic?

#13

Post by anonu »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #9

naive question. Is there an arabic equiv of a 7 segment display? It looks like a writing system that is very amenable to that sort of digitization. Always a center line, and then up to two strokes going {up, down, diagonal, curved} intersecting at the {left, middle right} of the main line, followed by some dots to further specify a sub-category. Seems like a small finite set of graphical components being composed tog…

Numbers will typically be rendered in Arabic numerals and not in Arabic script if a 7 segment display is being used. Latin characters are already pretty difficult to read on a 7 segment... Arabic would be even more difficult.

Re: Help! Is This Arabic?

#14

Post by Galanwe »

rippercushions wrote: post #3
whoknew1122 wrote: post #2

The whole 'two billion people can read the Arabic alphabet to some degree' is a weird claim. Maybe it's possible, but there aren't two billion people with functional Arabic literacy. Most Arabic is written without small vowels (harakat). You could have script that is justified right-to-left and with letters correctly connected and it still be gibberish. And many of those 'two billion people' would be none the wiser.

It's an approximation of how many Muslims there are in the world, making the generous but not entirely incorrect assumption that they will be familiar enough with Arabic to at least be able to tell if you've completely borked your rendering.

I would be careful linking "Muslims" and "Arabic readers/speakers".

I know Muslims who would be challenged to speak more than 3 words of Arabic, as well as Arabic speakers who are Christians or atheists.

Re: Help! Is This Arabic?

#15

Post by least »

anonu wrote: post #12

The question should be more precise. Is this Arabic script? There's a half dozen languages at least that are not Arabic but use Arabic script, such as Persian or Urdu. The typographic rules mentioned still apply though.

I also thought it might've been about the differences between them, given that Pashto has its own characters unique to its script and Arabic has diacritic marks not used by Farsi or Pahto. This is a different subject, though, that has little to do with what the post is complaining about. Their grievances apply to all scripts based on Arabic.

Re: Help! Is This Arabic?

#18

Post by andsoitis »

least wrote: post #11
olliej wrote: post #7

The core issue is people without familiarity with how non-native (to them) script can function - in the English centric world it means assuming one letter == one visual glyph, and the visual glyph won't get a different rendering depending on context. Native English speakers don't seem to really acknowledge that the English alphabet does have contextually different glyphs for the same letter: that is what capitalizati…

> The core issue is people without familiarity with how non-native (to them) script can function - in the English centric world it means assuming one letter == one visual glyph, and the visual glyph won't get a different rendering depending on context. English has cursive and I think most English speakers are at least aware of cursive. We have script that is designed for print as well, though, while Arabic script doe…

Some have developed non-cursive Arabic script, but it hasn’t taken off.

For instance, the Simplified Arabic Alphabet was devised by Muhammad Shakeel as an alternative way to write Arabic. It is a non-cursive alphabetical script as opposed to the traditional cursive Arabic abjad. The letter shapes are based mostly on the early Arabic Jazm script. It is not connected to or inspired by Nasri Khattar's Unified Arabic script.

https://omniglot.com/conscripts/saa.htm

Re: Help! Is This Arabic?

#19

Post by IncRnd »

gkfasdfasdf wrote: post #8
whoknew1122 wrote: post #2

The whole 'two billion people can read the Arabic alphabet to some degree' is a weird claim. Maybe it's possible, but there aren't two billion people with functional Arabic literacy. Most Arabic is written without small vowels (harakat). You could have script that is justified right-to-left and with letters correctly connected and it still be gibberish. And many of those 'two billion people' would be none the wiser.

> The whole 'two billion people can read the Arabic alphabet to some degree' is a weird claim Not a weird claim at all. Even without harakat, it is obvious when Arabic script is messed up (via alignment or letter reversal) to anyone who can read the script. It just makes whatever you are reading look janky and unprofessional.

It's weird, because the number is off by an order of magnitude. "If you count all of the varieties of today’s Arabic together, you can safely estimate that there are about 313 million Arabic speakers in the whole world, making it the fifth most-spoken language globally behind Mandarin, Spanish, English and Hindi." [1]

[1] https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/how-many-people-speak-ara...

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