1 Alphabets of Languages with Bidirectional Scripts and their Support Israel Ervin Gidali IBM Globalization Centre of Competency- Complex Text Languages

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Alphabets of Languages

with Bidirectional Scripts

and their Support

Israel Ervin Gidali

IBM Globalization Centre of

Competency-

Complex Text Languages

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18th International Unicode Conference Hong Kong, April 2001

Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support

Agenda The predecessors of the first true alphabets The first alphabets Direction of writing The “modern” RTL scripts Bidirectionality Bidi – some of the challenges Implementation aspects

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The Alphabet Predecessors

The predecessors of the first true alphabets:

The Egyptian hieroglyphics (since 3000 BCE)

The Mesopotamian cuneiforms (since 3100 BCE)

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The Egyptian Hieroglyphs

PictogramsLogogramsPhonograms

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The Cuneiform Writing Systems

logo-syllabic syllabic words

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The First Alphabets

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The First Semitic Alphabets

Proto-Sinaic and Proto-Canaanite. Originated around the 18th or 17th

centuries BCE, under the influence of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

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The First Semitic Alphabets

The revolution: purely phonetic (only consonants without vowels).

Influenced originally by the polyphony practice in hieroglyphic and cuneiform scripts.

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Proto-Canaanite

Limit the set of sounds to 22 consonants only, still without vowels.

Acrophonic. Letters easy to distinguish and

remember (their shapes resemble familiar objects).

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Proto-Canaanite Descendents

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The alphabet success

Proto-Canaanite, Phoenician and Greek

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Ancient Hebrew and Samaritan

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South Arabian

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Aramaic

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The Square Hebrew Script

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Nabatean

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Direction of Writing Hieroglyphs were written in both

directions.

Starting from the 11th century BCE, the writing direction of all Semitic

scripts (except Ethiopic) is from right to left.

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The “Modern” RTL scripts

אין כל-חדש תחת השמש

)קהלת פרק א פסוק ט'(

There is nothing new under the sun. (Qohelet/Ecclesiastes 1/9)

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Arabic

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Arabic Script – the Script of Islam

The Arabic script, the script of Quran, used for: Arabic Persian (Farsi) Urdu Ottoman Turkish (until 1929)

Uighur, Kazakh,Uzbek, Tajik, Kirghiz, Old Malay, Swahili, Hausa, Baluchi, Kashmiri, Sindhi,

Pashto, Lahnda,Dargwa,Morrocan Arabic, Adighe, Ingush, Berber,Kurdish, Jawi/Javanese……

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Arabic Vowels

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Hebrew Script

Used for:•Hebrew•Yiddish•Ladino (Judezmo)•Arabic•Karaite/Karaim•Turkish

עברית שפה יפה

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Hebrew Script

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Hebrew script and diacritics

Hebrew text:

Vocalized with “points”

and cantillation marks:

בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ

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Syriac

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Thaana

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Decimal digits forms

European digits (Arabic digits):(Used in Hebrew script and in some Arabic countries)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

Arabic-Indic digits:

Numbers are written from left to right regardless of their formand regardless of regional variety

(Used in Arabic)

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Bidirectionality National language (Arabic, Hebrew, etc...)

text is written from Right to Left

TXET CIBARA Numbers and English (or French,Russian,

etc.) text is written from Left to Right

english text 123 TXET CIBARA

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Bidi Appearance Aspects- Directionality

Mixed direction of text segments:

Page alignment on the right Book binding on the right Mirroring of GUI elements

(only when translated)

means Hebrew is beautiful

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Bidi Data Processing Aspects –

some of the challenges Bidirectional text data entry Visual versus Logical text type The Paragraph Orientation Arabic script cursiveness:

shaping and ligatures Variety of text layouts in use

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The Bidi Layout Challenges

Bidirectional text in different systems and applications has multiple possible layouts

In heterogeneous environments proper layout transformations should be performed

Higher order protocols integration

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The Challenge of GUI Mirroring

When translating the interface of an application to a language with Bidirectional script, provisions must be made to ensure that the GUI is properly mirrored.

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Implementation Aspects Almost all platforms and Operating

Systems provide support for Bidirectional text entry and processing

New platforms should react to this challenge too

Except for adequately engraved keyboards, there is no need for special hardware for Bidi text support.

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Last Word

RTL scripts are not a novelty. As a matter of fact they have preceded the current Western world scripts

Their support is different but not necessarily much more complex, as long as one is prepared for it.

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The End

Thank You

Documents

1 Alphabets of Languages with Bidirectional Scripts and their Support Israel Ervin Gidali IBM Globalization Centre of Competency- Complex Text Languages