Simplified Arabic

[Vladimir Tamari]

Claudio, we probably agree about this more than our words reflect. It is so easy for us to get lost in words to describe our creative processes and attitudes to type design. This is paradoxical since type is what makes printed words possible :-) I looked up Futura and its sparse simplicity (that word again!) is something I tried to achieve in my font.

Strictly-speaking you are right, John. I was using the expression rather loosely in one of its modern variants (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor ). There is a more appropriate Arabic phrase I should have used السهل الممتنع (lit. impossibly easy). It is used to describe something that looks deceptively simple but is so perfect it is very difficult to achieve or imitate.

[piccic]

I've sent you a link to the Italian answer to Futura.
Alessandro Butti's Semplicità, which I am studying to digitize properly… :=)

In Arabic the positive simplification seems an inspiring process, considered it involves the re-evaluation of Kufic styles.

[quadibloc]

@John Hudson:
As I understand it, the concept of simplified Arabic, in which the number of variants of each letter is reduced by having isolated/final and initial/medial forms share the same glyphs,
Ah, this concept was used in typesetting as well. I knew that it was used on the Selectric typewriter for Arabic, and presumably on other Arabic-language typewriters as well - and, of course, on a typewriter, it probably works better than in typesetting, since a letter can overprint the join from the previous letter.

[AzizMostafa]

Latin Typewriters had less keys than Arabic Typewriters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_Arabic_Typewriter.svg
That was why Arabic was replaced with Latin in some countries?!
https://typography.guru/forums/topic/86305-forwarding

[quadibloc]

I know that I've read claims that replacing Arabic script with Latin script in Turkey helped improve literacy in that country. The argument usually given is that Latin is "more legible"; people used to the Latin alphabet think that some Hebrew letters - and many Arabic letters, at least not in their final forms - look too much alike and are hard to read.

While this seems to be valid to me, I also think that it's very easy for someone to fall into the trap of thinking that whatever he is used to must be the best.

Both the Hebrew and Arabic scripts omit vowels. This seems bad from the viewpoint of a speaker of a western language. but in Semitic languages, a lot of the vowels in a word change when one goes to a related form of the word, such as would be obtained by the simple addition of a suffix in another kind of language. So denoting the vowels by full-fledged letters in line with the consonants would make it hard to quickly see the root of a word.

In the case of the Hebrew alphabet, some consonant letters which were not applicable were instead used to represent vowels when it was used to write Yiddish, a dialect of German, an Indo-European language.

At least in the case of Urdu, also a language belonging to this family, this was not done, so there is an additional problem with the suitability of Arabic writing to the language in addition to legibility. However, Hindi is also written with the vowels as accents to the consonants, so this can't be a very big problem.

Changing from one alphabet to another is a lot of trouble, and for a small future benefit. Usually, countries don't change their mode of writing for greater efficiency. If it does happen, it is usually because of religion or politics. Thus, just as the Arabic script followed Islam, Latin script followed Roman Catholicism, Cyrillic script followed the Orthodox church, and scripts derived from Devanagari (including the Tibetan and Thai scripts) followed Hinduism and Buddhism.

Turkey, of course, is still a Muslim nation, unlike, say, Malta. But while the force was nationalist politics instead of religion, if it hadn't been for a leader who, like Russia's Tsar Nicholas, wanted the country to make a break with the past it is unlikely the change to the Latin alphabet would have taken place. I don't think that such changes could be justified by a rational calculation, except, possibly, in the case of non-alphabetic scripts.

[AzizMostafa]

Usually, countries don't change their mode of writing for greater efficiency.
If it does happen, it is usually because of religion or politics.
-
Absolutely true!
Politicians can make the ugly look beautiful and make the beautiful look ugly?!

[khalid]

As typographers (and typohiles), we discredit ourselves when we link Arabic script with the levels of illiteracy in the Arabic script using world. Having worked in the area of poverty for over 12 years, I know that illiteracy is the product of more serious social and economic factors. I encourage those interested in illiteracy in the Arab world, and indeed, in illiteracy in the world in general, to familiarize themselves more with Poverty issues and the Millennium Development Goals.

It is actually unfair to blame the Arabic script for illiteracy. In fact, if the Arabic script has anything do with literacy levels, it should be in a positive way for the intrinsic powers that the Arabic script has.

To start with, Arabic script might be the closest script that represents the way the language is spoken. The omission of the short vowels that are represented in the writing system as diacritics still renders Arabic text completely readable, and indeed very compact. In my blog writing, as an example, (http://arabictype.wordpress.com), I only use the Dhamma to disambiguate passive voice, and the tanween as an embellishment. An additional diacritic that I use is the shadda (which is not a short vowel). Arabic journalistic writing today does away with all three with no complaints about the clarity of meaning or the linguistic quality.
http://arabictype.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/alhawadeth.jpg

Arabic spelling is relatively easy and is somewhat forgiving. The major difficulty in Arabic spelling is probably only with the way that the hamza is represented. Writing مسئولية instead of مسؤولية does not look as silly or unprofessional (in professional writing) as spelling mistakes would be in English writing.

Arabic handwriting is close to the printed script, and the compact ruq’aa-based handwriting style is probably the ultimate in its flow and its balanced mix of catenation and separation.
http://arabictype.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/arabic-handwriting

On the readability of the Arabic script, I have to say now that I “believe” that it also very easy to read. This is mostly because of the catenation of letters, the wide variation of letter shapes, and the form of terminal letters. These characteristics contribute to easy recognition within saccades as the eyes scan the text. I am hoping to validate my “belief” with an empirical study if I could. I honestly encourage those who could afford doing legibility and readability studies to generate more knowledge in this area.

[Vladimir Tamari]

Khalid, welcome to the Typophile Arabic Typography and Type Design Special Interest Group. A group of us Arabic typographers (who were associated with the Tasmeem software fonts released by Winsoft) made a big effort to start this Group a few years ago. That was partly in response to the Matchmaking program some aspects of which threatened to take Arabic type design in the wrong direction. I find your defense of Arabic script above and in your blog encouraging and refreshing. During the past few years I was really depressed by the recent trends to Latinize Arabic typography with squared up shapes and even with serifs! This is an unhealthy trend that you have called 'touristic' in your blog. The genius of Arabic script is in its compactness and richness of forms that create unique word-shapes that are indeed helpful for legibility. In this article that published in 1971 I pointed out that in Arabic types the dots tended to become smaller and smaller at the expense of legibility. One very 'popular' (ie default) Microsoft Arabic font is scandalous in this respect with dots so tiny they might as well not be there. Nadine Chahine of Linotype was doing her PhD thesis on the legibility of Arabic type. I wonder what her conclusions will be, as she is in a position to promote Arabic typography in the right direction.

[quadibloc]

@khalid:
As typographers (and typohiles), we discredit ourselves when we link Arabic script with the levels of illiteracy in the Arabic script using world. Having worked in the area of poverty for over 12 years, I know that illiteracy is the product of more serious social and economic factors.

Even if the common attitude of users of the Latin alphabet that Arabic has legibility problems is entirely correct, of course it is really the social and economic factors that are the primary cause of illiteracy. The example of Japan proves this.

The people who blamed China's writing system for widespread illiteracy in China were not, by doing so, claiming that it was impossible for the average person to learn to read and write in Chinese characters. They were merely claiming that, given China's poverty, learning to read and write properly with Chinese characters would not be possible given the limited amount of formal education with which China was capable of providing its citizens.

If the English-speaking countries were as poor as China was, it would be just as possible for someone to observe that the system of English spelling was such as to ensure that only the wealthy elite could afford to keep their children in school long enough to learn to spell properly.

As you note, Arabic writing is a close match to Arabic phonology. Thus, full literacy, the ability to express oneself in writing as well as to passively read, should indeed be as easy to obtain in Arabic as in Finnish or Italian, instead of as in English or Chinese.

And, of course, typewriters and even printing presses are recent inventions.

One can indeed make the claim that different letters in the Arabic alphabet are objectively hard to distinguish. If one is talking about Naksh as it is usually typeset, in forms that have been stripped down to be compatible with mechanization designed around the Latin alphabet.

Thus, in Pakistan, where the newspapers had been prepared by calligraphers instead of typesetters, because of the national preference for Nastaliq', rather than being quaintly primitive, as Westerners would assume on first impulse, they have the right idea. Preferring Nastaliq' is as rational for people in Pakistan as preferring newspapers in 8-point type instead of 6-point type is for English speakers.

Thus, if there is anything about Arabic script that promotes illiteracy, it is the fact that it is ill-suited to the hand-me-down printing and typesetting equipment from the West the Arab world has had to make do with until recently.

But "illiterate" is not the right word for a literate person whose eyesight simply cannot cope with common printed matter - although a dearth of readable printed matter certainly can contribute to real illiteracy.

[Vladimir Tamari]

@ quadiblock "-Thus, if there is anything about Arabic script that promotes illiteracy, it is the fact that it is ill-suited to the hand-me-down printing and typesetting equipment from the West the Arab world has had to make do with until recently."

The fact that Arabic it is right-to-left is certainly a problem in some software that has not been properly programmed for that. As to more traditional methods there was no insolvable problem in metal typesetting, or typewriters, or Linotype machines that hindered the use of printed Arabic. Indeed as the example of Japan you cited shows (something like 99% literacy despite a devilishly difficult writing system) other factors are responsible for illiteracy in the Arab World. But good type design will certainly help. And bad teaching methods do not see how this poor Jordanian kid is being taught how to write the Arabic numeral nine

[John Hudson]

Khalid: The omission of the short vowels that are represented in the writing system as diacritics still renders Arabic text completely readable, and indeed very compact.

However, one of the few things that have been determined about Arabic script through systematic empirical testing is that reading accuracy (measured in terms of fewer reversed saccades and comprehension testing) is improved when the vowel diacritics are included. This shouldn't surprise us: when more linguistic information is available, we read more accurately. The fact that mature readers are also able to read reasonably accurately when the text is not fully vocalised says more about the amazing human cognitive capacity than it does about the virtues of the script.

[AzizMostafa]

@ Vladimir, I pointed out that in Arabic types the dots tended to become smaller and smaller at the expense of legibility.

That's why the dotted read dotless at smaller sizes. Solving this problem,
we have made it possible to change dot size independently of font size.
See the word Graphic at the bottom of this page:
http://www.maryamsoft.com/Default.aspx?Page=TopFont
That's is the exclusive virtue of Arabic script.

[AzizMostafa]

@ Vladimir … other factors are responsible for illiteracy in the Arab World.
-
Nationalism , Democracy + deviated teachings + practices of Western-backed Rulers.
http://almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=170949&language=en

[AzizMostafa]

@ John Hudson, The fact that mature readers are also able to read reasonably accurately when the text is not fully vocalised says more about the amazing human cognitive capacity than it does about the virtues of the script.
-
More Accurately, The fact that mature readers are also able to read reasonably accurately when the text is NOT VOCALIZED AT All* says more about the amazing human cognitive capacity than it does about the virtues of the ARABIC + JAWI script.
http://wardahadnin.blogspot.com/2011/01/pertandingan-menulis-artikel-dal...
-
* NOT VOCALIZED AT All + All Hamazs over + below Alifs are dropped.

[khalid]

Thanks, Vladimir.

It is really exciting, and somewhat challenging, to be part of these discussions. For a small post, one has to face up to the downpour of intellect that comes in response. I hope I have the means and time to be up to it. I also think that it is an exciting time to be around in the field of Arabic Typography at large. There is so much to be done about it.

In transferring to type using Western technology, Arabic script might have not retained its original calligraphic elegance and has been adulterated with the “incompatible” system as some have commented. But the influence of this technology is inevitable, and to me it is even welcome. As a designer of Arabic type, I see my role in adapting the writing system to the new technologies, and not necessarily in a defensive or reductionist manner. There is scope for much innovation in the adaptation process and it is very possible to come out with products that are useful, relevant, and expressive of our times.

The Simplified Arabic approach seems reasonable to me. It has served its purpose in its application in metal type, and has even helped in reintroducing classical Arabic to the masses. It is still offering a viable solution for using the Arabic script in modern digital technology. Computer applications, such as Tasmeem, which try to bring in the calligraphic elegance of Arabic script, show the way to many possibilities.

>> John Hudson: “reading accuracy (measured in terms of fewer reversed saccades and comprehension testing) is improved when the vowel diacritics are included.”

The finding, in fact, does not surprise me and seems logical. However, I don’t know how that lab-controlled finding would apply to contemporary usage of printed or hand written Arabic text. Diacritics are now only used in exacting texts such as that of the Quran. Most contemporary writing is devoid of diacritic marking, and I had already cited an example of modern journalistic Arabic. But you know what, I am already visualizing that moving news subtitle on the BBC Arabic TV channel with diacritcs.

[AzizMostafa]

@ Khalid, I see my role in adapting the writing system to the new technologies,
-
I see my role in adapting new technologies to the writing system.
http://graphics4arab.com/showthread.php?t=4515&page=1
http://graphics4arab.com/showthread.php?t=4515&page=2
http://70.32.105.174/node/48495

[quadibloc]

@Aziz Mostafa:
Nationalism , Democracy + deviated teachings + practices of Western-backed Rulers.

That's a very strange list of problems.

Not that it is controversial that many of the rulers in the Middle East that have the support of the United States are anything but democratic.

It appears, though, that you are bringing up politics. I'm not sure what you mean by "deviated teachings". If I were confident that "true" Islam was in total opposition to terrorism, then it would be easy to see a return to true Islamic values as being beneficial.

Since the terrorists are just a very few individuals, it should be easy to see that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. What causes the confusion? Jihad is supposed to be the armed resistance of Muslims to persecution; that Muslims reserve the right to defend themselves is hardly a legitimate charge against Islam.

Why many people in the West suspect that Islam itself is part of the problem is that they are unsure whether the following things, which seem to have broad popular support in the Islamic world, and which seem to be part of Shari'a, belong in the category of "deviated teachings", or are genuinely part of Islam:

* a subordinate status for non-Muslim minorities in majority-Muslim nations. (This is a serious problem because this subordination includes reduced access to legal protection against acts of violence.)

* the use of force in response to blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad. (The Miss World riots in Nigeria, or the false charges against Asia Bibi in Pakistan illustrate the problem with this.)

The reason the West supports Israel, instead of viewing its existence as a simple theft of land from the people of Palestine, is because the partition of Palestine in 1947 is believed to have been due to violence against Jews there, and it is believed that a one-state solution for Palestine would imply that the Jews would suffer persecution (specifically that a sexual assault by an Arab against a Jew would not be responded to in the same manner as a sexual assault by a Jew against an Arab: recent events in Egypt involving the Coptic Christian minority illustrate what is feared).

Is Islam compatible with the principles set forth in the First Amendment? Only if the answer can be an unequivocal "Yes!" will it not be suspected of being part of the problem.

[AzizMostafa]

Quadibloc, your questions are partially answered here:
https://typography.guru/forums/topic/63099-forwarding?page=2#comment-322450
https://typography.guru/forums/topic/63099-forwarding?page1#comment-320686
https://typography.guru/forums/topic/63099-forwarding?page1#comment-321741
Need more?!

[Vladimir Tamari]

@Aziz Greetings. The link to Mariam software is STILL only in Persian I checked it out two years ago!! Control of dot size independently would be very interesting. BTW what happened to your flowers?

@John Greetings!

@Khalid Thanks we are probably in agreement on all issues. Your concern seems to be in combating illiteracy and indeed a simpler font would be best for the purpose. What should be avoided at all costs are the newfangled fonts in which many letters resemble each other - the dal has the same shape as the middle Ha, the meem as the middle 'Ain and so forth (trying to make Arabic look 'squarish' and with a uniform 'x-height' like Latin). In my AlQuds font one of the chief concern was to find the most common or generic form of each letter, and to maximize the difference between them, yet retain overall harmony.

@quadibloc, Aziz it is true that politics is often the root cause of social and educational problems, but it is wildly off-topic here!

[AzizMostafa]

@ Vladimir, Greeting + Thanks with Flowers,

1. There is no point building a site in English for Off-topic reasons?!
Nevertheless, we always try to take any opportunity to appear wherever welcome:
http://ihtse.ir/ar/
http://ihtse.ir/en/
http://ihtse.ir/fa/

2. My Flowers are frozen for Off-topic reasons?!
https://typography.guru/forums/topic/61401-forwarding
http://powerwordpuzzles.com/sunbursts/
https://typography.guru/xmodules/typophile/files/16-petals.pdf

3.Tracking posts, you will see I never started any Off-Topic unless provoked?!

[khalid]

Aziz,

Nice work indeed. It seems to compete headlong with Tasmeem, and one of the links you provided kind of shows the competition. But competition is usually healthy and variety is always good. Utilities like these could bring in the Arabic calligraphy touch to typography. There still seems to be some way ahead as you can see from the comparison of the Tasmeem word shaping example (right) and actual calligraphy (left) in the image below.

I have written an article on how Linotype’s Al-Harf Al-Jadeed replaced Ruq’aa in Arabic newspaper headlines (http://arabictype.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/fonts-harf-jadid). Programs such as Tasmeem and Arabic Calligrapher could probably bring Ruq’aa back in.

The calligraphic effect in typography might represent one end of the business. Arabic typography needs better solutions in a number of areas such as better fonts for body text, motion graphics, and more important for the web pages.

[AzizMostafa]

@ Tasmeem and Arabic Calligrapher could probably bring Ruq’aa back in.
@ It seems to compete headlong with Tasmeem,
-
Compared to MAC (MaryamSoft Arabic Calligrapher), Tasmeem is useless. Why?
Tasmeem goes with InDesign ONLY. MAC is platform-independent, Elaborating:
1. MAC runs on Windows + Apple systems and goes with M$ + Adobe applications.
2. Unlike Tasmeem fonts, Texts set in MAC fonts are exchangeable. See:
http://www.maryamsoft.com/files/download/MaryamSoft%20Quranic%20Naskh.swf
3. Ruq’aa is under construction at MaryamSoft.com.
-------------
Vladimir + Khalid, contact me to get your complimentary copies of MAC with Flowers.

[khalid]

Many thanks, Aziz. I was planning to do a review on the Arabic Calligrapher on my blog. Now I can actually use it and that would help in projecting a first-hand experience.

[AzizMostafa]

Welcome Khalid, Please do:
1. See my shared Jawi floder + Download jawisetup.exe
2. Install it and type in your serial number: xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx
3. See the auto generated code and send it to me to get the AC:
http://www.maryamsoft.com/Default.aspx?Page=ActivationCode
Enjoy with Flowers

[Vladimir Tamari]

@ Aziz Thank you- I will take up your kind offer soon inshallah.
@ Khalid "better fonts for body text, motion graphics, and more important for the web pages." امين Amen to that - particularly web pages I think this is a danger area for Arabic as young people hate the fonts and keyboard approaches available, and started to type online text using Latin letter and numeral substitutions

Marh7aba la3allak bixeir..etc. I am not sure of the full gamut of this ingenious but very ugly stopgap measure.

However with touch screens starting to fill the market, I have high hopes for Arabic input. The iphone and ipod etc. touch have Arabic keyboards that are a marvel in ease of use and clarity tap the aleph you get an aleph, but keep the finger or pen on it a bit longer and you get a choice of variants as in the photo.