Diacritical marks in Arabic appear on top of one another

[Alexander Key]

I have found a problem with the otherwise excellent Arabic text facility:

The shadda marking needs, in fully vowelled text, to be accompanied by a fatha or kasra. However, when one does this, the second marking appears on top of the first - making both illegible...

I would be grateful for any tips - or suggestions of the best fonts for typing fully vowelled Arabic (I found Kufic to be best but the problem above remains...)

Thank you in advance for your help!

[rpcameron]

I don't quite follow what you mean. Do you mean the fatha or kasra are improperly stacked over the consonant/character? Or that multiple vowel marks are added to the same consonant/character?

[Alexander Key]

Thanks for the second quick reply!

In Arabic one needs to add two diacritical marks to one letter: the shadda signifies that the consonant is doubled, while the fatha or kasra signifies the vowel which goes on the doubled consonant ("a" or "i").

I found that the two diacritical marks (one a short vowel and one a morphological symbol) appear in the same place - and therefore obscure each other...

[rpcameron]

So just to clarify, the shadda and fatha, or shadda and kasra, are being superimposed upon one another? Have you searched through the Unicode tables to see if there are combining versions of shadda and fatha or shadda and kasra together, so this won't be a problem?

(Similar example would be multiple diacritics for Vietnamese. There are versions of combining diacritics that include multiple accents (diaresis and acute, for example); this may be a similar situation.)

[Alexander Key]

wow - there they all are! Everything I was looking for and more!

Thank you very much indeed!

[gmk]

So just to clarify, the shadda and fatha, or shadda and kasra, are being superimposed upon one another? Have you searched through the Unicode tables to see if there are combining versions of shadda and fatha or shadda and kasra together, so this won't be a problem?

I have recently tried Mellel because the default Mac OS X system doesn't always work as expected with vowels and I encountered exactly the same problem with Mellel which is, for this particular point, inferior to the Cocoa text system.
I personaly didn't found a combined version in the Unicode tables, but it would be a pain if I couldn't use the keyboard and had to search through a table everytime I have to write those signs.

Beside, those signs DO work correctly in TextEdit:
- if I type a letter, then a shadda, then a fatha, the kasra is properly located on top of the shadda.
- if I type a letter, then a shadda, then a kasra, the kasra is properly located beneath the shadda.
- it is also possible to type the vowel first and then the shadda, the result is the same.
In Mellel, those signs DON'T work together:
- a shadda + a fatha are surimposed and illegible.
- a shadda + a kasra results with the kasra beneath the letter whereas it is more common to have the kasra above the letter, but beneath the shadda.
- a shadda + a damma are surimposed and illegible.

[rpcameron]

The difference between the vowels other forms presenting in TextEdit and Mellel has to do with the types of fonts used. Melle uses OpenType tables to place the vowel marks, while TextEdit (and the OS X system by default) uses Apple Advanced Typography (AAT). OS X 10.4 and beyond can read OpenType tables and interpret them as if they were AAT tables.

Perhaps the situation where it works in TextEdit and not Mellel is because an AAT font is being used, instead of an OpenType font.

[mikehyuan]

I am new to Mellel and a beginner student of Arabic. I have been struggling with this same problem, among others, with the fatha and kasra being mixed up in the shadda.

1. Could you tell me how to go to the Unicode table?

2. Does the table contain the short version of yeh (the second half of the letter only, the form it takes in diphthongs)?

3. Does the table contain letter combinations such as feh + yeh? The way my professor writes it by hand is totally different from the way Mellel does it, when you type feh and yeh together. There are other combinations that look very different in the handwritten version: nun + ha in the word for "we" (nachnu), the protean teh, nun, meem, in the middle of a word, etc. Similarly, is there any way to write the miniature alif, alif al maksoura, etc., by just typing without going to the unicode tables?

I agree with the complaint above that it is much too tedious to have to go to a table every time to write the combined harakats. It would probably be just as tedious if you had to go to a table every time you needed to type a capital letter in English. It seems that the combined harakats appear even more frequently than capital letters in English. Any chance that the next version of the software will change this?

[jannuss]

I am new to Mellel and a beginner student of Arabic. I have been struggling with this same problem, among others, with the fatha and kasra being mixed up in the shadda.

Michael, my knowledge of Arabic is very, very limited, but I'll tell you how I solve the problem in Hebrew and you can check if Arabic offers the same solution:

In Hebrew, the problem is solved on the keyboard itself.
Sometimes the combination is available
-- alt-0 gives SVAH
-- alt-6 gives KAMATZ
-- but, if I want KAMATZ & SVAH I use alt-1
Sometimes it takes two keystrokes
-- alt-, gives DAGASH (the double consonant sign)
-- then add alt-something for the vowel

As I said, my Arabic is almost non-existent, but aren't alt-c, alt-v, and alt-b combinations of symbols?

Janet

[rpcameron]

I am new to Mellel and a beginner student of Arabic. I have been struggling with this same problem, among others, with the fatha and kasra being mixed up in the shadda.

1. Could you tell me how to go to the Unicode table?

2. Does the table contain the short version of yeh (the second half of the letter only, the form it takes in diphthongs)?

3. Does the table contain letter combinations such as feh + yeh?

To open the Character Palette, choose "Special Characters" from the "Edit" menu. Once the palette is open, change the "View" to "All Characters". Then select "Arabic" from "Middle East Scripts" on the left-hand side. If you want specifics about the characters in the grid on the right, click the disclosure triangle next to "Character Info" below the grid. Hope this helps.

[mikehyuan]

Janet, Patrick, thanks so much to you both for the tips!!

I found the small yeh, I think, in the character palette. But I am still not able to find the combined diacritics (shadda + fatha or kasra) and other weird letter combinations that my professor writes on the board.

I use a Mac keyboard and have tried every single permutation/combination of keys using control, option, and command keys to get the characters I want, but have not succeeded.

Another professor said that we can always handwrite the harakats afterwards, but that goes for the rest of the language as well. Why even bother with a computer if you resort to writing it by hand?

I understand that in the mature, written language, the harakats are optional or completely omitted. However, for a beginning student like me, they are absolutely essential and for any educational material for beginning Arabic to be published, it goes without saying, the diacritic marks or harakats have to be there or we might as well try to teach Arabic using the English alphabet. The goal of my Arabic professor is to publish his teaching material for Arabic, and I am trying to figure out for him the technical aspects of writing it down in a wordprocessing document.

Any wordprocessing software, after all, should strive to be able to type everything in the given language, including all diacritics and other letter combinations.

Would you second me in urging the developers to address this problem?

[jannuss]

I found the small yeh, I think, in the character palette. But I am still not able to find the combined diacritics (shadda + fatha or kasra) and other weird letter combinations that my professor writes on the board.

Michael

In System Preferences/International/Input Menu, make sure you have keyboard viewer selected (3rd from top) and, of course, Arabic.

Switch your input to Arabic and click on the green crescent moon (upper right on the menu bar). Now select Show keyboard Viewer. A picture of the keyboard will appear with all the possible key combinations. Press "alt" or "shift" or "cntl" and you'll see all the additional characters available.

Are the combinations your need available?

You might try different Arab. Some may offer more character combinations then others.

Janet

[mikehyuan]

Thanks, Janet. I already have tried the keyboard viewer and still cannot find the shaddah combinations. By the way, is there any way to print the keyboard viewer? That would be really helpful. I can then cut and glue on the characters onto my keyboard cover and make my own specialty keyboards for different languages.

Another big problem I have with Arabic writing is its exasperating tendency to be fluid, slippery, and elastic in form. The letters change in form, shape, position, size, depending on the writer's caprice, it seems. The handwritten letters can combine and form a construct or synthesis that looks to the beginner's eye totally unrecognizable from the original component letters. And my professor asserts that it is the correct way to write it. Sigh. Mellel does do some of the transformations automatically, when the letters are connected, but not all of them. The preposition "from," feh and yeh combo, for example, looks more like a Greek epsilon in my professor's handwriting and not the basic original Arabic letters at all. Help!!

Why can't everything be like Chinese characters, fixed in animal bones eternally and unchangeable at least until the communist government decided to do away with the traditional characters along with other traditional things? Just kidding. At least Arabic is more "typable" than Chinese, which I still need to figure out on Mellel.

Any other tips would be much appreciated!! Thanks again.

[jannuss]

Thanks, Janet. I already have tried the keyboard viewer and still cannot find the shaddah combinations. By the way, is there any way to print the keyboard viewer? That would be really helpful. I can then cut and glue on the characters onto my keyboard cover and make my own specialty keyboards for different languages.

Michael, the only way I know to print the keyboard viewer is to take a screen snapshot of it [cntl-shift-4] and then print the resulting picture with Preview.

I appreciate your frustration learning to read Arabic, but be patient with yourself. The calligraphy is so special. You are sure to grow to love it.

Janet

[rpcameron]

Arabic has lots of ligatures, and not all fonts include them. Also, check to see you're using OT fonts and not AAT fonts; Mellel cannot use the features of AAT fonts. Also, if you expand the character info section, it'll give you related characters.