From: John Hudson (tiro@tiro.com)
Date: Tue Jun 14 2005 - 16:29:20 CDT
Gregg Reynolds wrote:
> Nah. The question is which "ligatures" (I prefer "compound forms") are
> required by Generally Accepted Principles of Arabic Writing. That would
> be the lam-alif only; I don't see how one could get rid of it.
Again, you need to be clear whether you are talking about a ligature in a strict technical
sense, i.e. a single glyph representing more than one character, or in a looser sense of
two letters that are written together in a special form. As I explained in my earlier
message, demonstrated with VOLT lookup syntax, it is perfectly possible to render the
lam_alif 'ligature' without using a ligature glyph. It will still look like the
traditional and obligatory typeform, but it will not be a single glyph: it will be two
special glyphs, contextually substituted and linked using either a cursive attachment
anchor or simple kerning.
This is what I mean when I say that Arabic can be typeset without using ligatures: I'm not
talking about styles of disconnected Arabic, or Arabic without the obligatory lam_alif
shaping. I'm talking about typesetting technologies for Arabic in which multiple
characters are never rendered using a single glyph. I am using the term ligature in this
strict technical sense.
John Hudson
-- Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com Vancouver, BC tiro@tiro.com Currently reading: Truth and tolerance, by Benedict XVI, Cardinal Ratzinger as was An autobiography from the Jesuit underground, by William Weston SJ War (revised edition), by Gwynne Dyer
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