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bug #36115: Various little problems with Arabic/Persian glyphs

Submitter:  Masoud Abkenar <amp3030>
Submitted:  Fri 06 Apr 2012 02:30:43 PM UTC
   
 
Category:  individual character(s) Severity:  3 - Normal
Item Group:  glyph(s) ugly Status:  Fix posted
Privacy:  Public Assigned to:  Stevan_White
Open/Closed:  Open Release:  * 2012-05-03
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Tue 29 Sep 2015 07:56:42 PM UTC, comment #14: 

Hi Hsing-yen,

This report has been marked "Fix Posted", so it's inappropriate to add a new bug report to it.  Please open new reports on new problems.

Regarding “هشدار”: To the best of my limited understanding of Arabic, dal does not join with alef.  So I don't understand your complaint.  However, in FreeSerif normal, the dal and alef are much too close.  It's a mystery why though...

Regarding "حساب بسازیدد", OK, those letters are missing a little tail that I put on others to make them join.  I'll fix that.

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Tue 29 Sep 2015 09:20:29 AM UTC, comment #13: 

Well, I also found bāʾ and ḥāʾ seems don’t joined in Persian phrase “حساب بسازیدد” when I use FreeSerif Bold, you can see this text from here (maybe you need change the user agent of your web browser):

https://fa.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B2%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%86%DA%AF%D9%84%DB%8C%D8%B3%DB%8C#/editor/0

Hsing-yen He <hammerandsickle>
Tue 29 Sep 2015 08:59:47 AM UTC, comment #12: 

I found Parsian word “هشدار” seems have a little problem, in this case alef looks don’t link.

Hsing-yen He <hammerandsickle>
Thu 03 May 2012 06:29:17 PM UTC, comment #11: 

I wish I had got this into the release, but I only noticed it after.

The funny thing is, I know I've dealt with almost exactly the form you sent me.  Somewhere, maybe it was overwritten.

I need some clarification.

In the book I mentioned to you, by Mustafa Ja'far, the form of the final joined yeh is like the one in the place of alef maksura in FreeSerif (except without the dots).

Should the two final forms be different?

The Unicode samples have them similar.

Maybe I'm just misinterpreting these pictures.

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Thu 03 May 2012 08:51:21 AM UTC, comment #10: 

But Arabic yeh final form is still wrong, or you show me one native speaker who thinks it is right. Please see the attachment.

(file #25770)

Masoud Abkenar <amp3030>
Sat 21 Apr 2012 05:23:26 PM UTC, comment #9: 

I'm going to say this is dealt with, and split the issue of the shaping of 'hah' in different languages off in a separate report.

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Mon 09 Apr 2012 10:10:11 PM UTC, comment #8: 

And about 'hah': I was not aware of these subtleties in languages other than Persian and Arabic. As far as Persian is concerned, the current state of the 'hah'  glyph in Free Serif is correct (though a bit ugly, I will file a bug about it later). For other languages, I can judge after I read that text carefully.

BTW, I am constantly amazed by Jonathan Kew's knowledge of Arabic script. Everything I read on that document about Persian was absolutely correct. That is a very reliable source.

Masoud Abkenar <amp3030>
Mon 09 Apr 2012 08:10:17 PM UTC, comment #7: 

And again about yeh: in non of the references you mentioned I saw a final form of ي (U+064A) like the current glyph in FreeSerif (please tell me if I've missed something). The problem with the current glyph is the point at which it joins the previous glyph. It should join from the upper stick, not from the middle of it's curve. I hope this picture can show what I mean.


Masoud Abkenar <amp3030>
Mon 09 Apr 2012 07:12:11 PM UTC, comment #6: 

Hi Steve,

It looks like a lot of great work. Let me list my observations:

*The problem with fb7d (ﭽ) and similar glyphs has been beautifully solved.
*Alif (ا) is now much better with the slight rotation. It may look a very small modification, but in my eyes the improvement is huge!
*Dal (د) has been improved in my opinion.
*Middle and last forms of ف and similar glyphs are now fixed very well.

In conclusion, thank you :)

Masoud Abkenar <amp3030>
Mon 09 Apr 2012 01:06:45 PM UTC, comment #5: 

Hi Masoud,

I've made lots of alterations, and implemented most of your suggestions.  Please check out the latest versions.

Regarding the dal U+062F, some sources show a definate hook-like serif at the top.
This serves for one thing to disambiguate the letter.
However, I did reduce it and make it more angular.
(I guess this is what you're complaining about.)

One major problem concerns the hah U+0647.  According to this

Notes on some Unicode Arabic characters: recommendations for usage
Jonathan Kew
http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/render_download.php?format=file&media_id=arabicletterusagenotes&filename=ArabicLetterUsageNotes.pdf

It is represented in different ways in different languages.
But worse, it seems the rendering software is handling it
differently from other languages too.  Very confusing.

I still don't understand about the yeh U+064A and yeh-farsi U+06CC.  Sources have contradictory examples.  If I could just find an explanation of the difference (such as, "this is such and such a style, this is another style")

Mustafa Ja'far: The Arabic Script
(the same guy who wrote
"Arabic Calligraphy -- Naskh Script for Beginners"
which was my reference)
http://www.britishmuseum.org.pdf/AW_Image_Card_letterforms.pdf

Linotype fonts seem mostly to use the form you recommend.
http://blog.linotype.com/2011/08/tweet-for-better-arabic-typography-online/

Some comments on the Arabic Block in Unicode
Tom Milo, DecoType
http://www.decotype.com/publications/Various_Unicode_Contributions/COMMENTS.PDF

Cheers!

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Sun 08 Apr 2012 12:14:58 AM UTC, comment #4: 

About 062f and similar characters: the problem is that with their current shape I can confuse them with other characters:

fea7 with feab
ﺧ with ﺫ

and so on.

Masoud Abkenar <amp3030>
Sun 08 Apr 2012 12:08:38 AM UTC, comment #3: 

About Arabic yeh: there are a few different characters with the same basic shape, only differing in dots and other diacritics. As far as I can tell as a native Persian who has also read Quran in Arabic, there is no such character with a final form like current FreeSerif samples in the PDF. They should all have the same final form (apart from dots and diacritics) and that final form is like the one I have put in the PDF with 'Nazli' font.

This is Arabic Wikipedia page of alif maksura, and it has a link to the English page: http://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%89

Masoud Abkenar <amp3030>
Fri 06 Apr 2012 06:14:11 PM UTC, comment #2: 

Regarding the issue with
    'yeh arabic'   FEF2 is final
    'yeh farsi'    FBFC-FBFF
    'alif maksura' FEF0 is final
I am having some difficulty with this, perhaps you can help me sort it out.

The Unicode samples for these letters are very similar: the inital forms are all identical to my eye, as are the medisl/final forms.  The forms in FreeFont reflected that until the recent change of the yeh farsi final, at your recommendation.

Now, regarding the Arabic yeh, I had consulted an Arabic calligraphy manual, and the form there is like the form in than manual (not like your final Farsi yeh.)

As to the alif maksura, this seems to be quite a different letter, which is encoded with a medial form -- I wonder if everybody is confused about it.  In fact, somebody wrote that in the Quran, it is written as a y (yeh?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Arabic_alphabet

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Fri 06 Apr 2012 04:29:11 PM UTC, comment #1: 

Hi Massoud,

Except for the first issue, which I think we agreed is fixed,
these all seem to be issues of style.  (So I changed the item group to "ugly".)

I can tell you the origin of most of these is that the original set in FreeSerif was meant to function with a minimal set of forms, so the letters were designed to work (maybe minimally) in any position. Some of that original solution remains, although position variants are mostly implemented.

A couple of your cases strike me as stronger than others.  Particularly I have to agree the letters that should be loops in medial positions look rather goofy as they are.  The others strike me as being rather more delicate, or having to do with a matter of style or specific solutions to typographic problems.

This is by way of triage.  I'll work on the loop letters for now.

Steve White <Stevan_White>
Group administrator
Fri 06 Apr 2012 02:30:43 PM UTC, original submission:  

I have listed a few of the problems still existing in FreeSerif. I am happy to clarify problems or to draw something, if needed.

Masoud Abkenar <amp3030>

 

(Note: upload size limit is set to 16384 kB, after insertion of the required escape characters.)

Attach Files:
   
   
Comment:
   

Attached Files
file #25770:  alefmaksurafinalarabic.sfd added by amp3030 (1KiB - application/vnd.font-fontforge-sfd)
file #25622:  Final_yeh.png added by amp3030 (32KiB - image/png - final yeh: written by Mustafa Ja'far and typed by 'Karim' font.)
file #25601:  FreeSerifArbicBugList.pdf added by amp3030 (15KiB - application/pdf)

 

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Items that depend on this one: None found

 

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    Follow 10 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2012-07-26 Stevan_White StatusProceeding Fix posted
    2012-05-03 Stevan_White StatusFix posted Proceeding
        Releasedevelopment 2012-05-03
    2012-05-03 amp3030 Attached File- Added alefmaksurafinalarabic.sfd, #25770
    2012-04-21 Stevan_White StatusNeed info Fix posted
    2012-04-09 amp3030 Attached File- Added Final_yeh.png, #25622
    2012-04-06 Stevan_White Item Groupglyph(s) incorrect glyph(s) ugly
        StatusNone Need info
        Assigned toNone Stevan_White
    2012-04-06 amp3030 Attached File- Added FreeSerifArbicBugList.pdf, #25601

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