I'm trying to find a solution to the following problem:
I want to use the *Al-Aser.ttf font, however, both GIMP and Inkscape do not display the font as intended.
Only Libre Office seems to display this font correctly.
However, in Inkscape, when the font is viewed in the Text and Font window, it displays correctly, although it continues to be written on the page in an undesirable way.
I remember having seen this type of problem before and if I remember correctly, the solution was found at the time. However, I can't remember where this issue was discussed and solved before, much less what the solution was at the time.
Does anyone know how to unravel this situation and guide me on how to make the font type as expected?
Even worse In my Gimp, it displays as latin characters
Looking at it in fontforge, those characters are in the "Private" area.
A very quick fix (because I am well overdue to pack in for the night) is a copy/paste into a new blank font. (attached, zipped) Unfortunately I did not get round to filling all the name fields so it shows as Untitled1 which might do until tomorrow.
09-19-2024, 07:15 AM (This post was last modified: 09-19-2024, 07:25 AM by rich2005.)
(09-19-2024, 12:50 AM)Krikor Wrote: ......I am starting to think (assume) that I should have the keyboard working in Arabic, but I am not sure.
I will do some more research and try to understand the situation.
You are probably correct about the keyboard. I do not know how useful that font will be. Arabic is a phonetic not easy to learn. Right to left except for numbers which are the same position units - tens - hundreds from the right. 1234 is still 1234
Do a search for Windows and Private User Area, it seems there is a Windows tool to make your own and using it is from the character map. This the first I found https://youtu.be/D2XH8osK6Fc bound to be better somewhere.
I worked in the Middle-East for a good number of years, all biz and documents in English so never picked up any Arabic. For translations you have to go:
first translator english to arabic
then
second translator arabic back to english and compare with the original.
(09-19-2024, 12:50 AM)Krikor Wrote: ......I am starting to think (assume) that I should have the keyboard working in Arabic, but I am not sure.
I will do some more research and try to understand the situation.
You are probably correct about the keyboard. I do not know how useful that font will be. Arabic is a phonetic not easy to learn. Right to left except for numbers which are the same position units - tens - hundreds from the right. 1234 is still 1234
Do a search for Windows and Private User Area, it seems there is a Windows tool to make your own and using it is from the character map. This the first I found https://youtu.be/D2XH8osK6Fc bound to be better somewhere.
I worked in the Middle-East for a good number of years, all biz and documents in English so never picked up any Arabic. For translations you have to go:
first translator english to arabic
then
second translator arabic back to english and compare with the original.
best of luck
"I worked in the Middle-East for a good number of years, all biz and documents in English so never picked up any Arabic"
This experience seems fascinating to me. Living immersed in another culture for a few years, especially a culture so different from our own, is undoubtedly quite an adventure.
I imagine you have many interesting stories from this experience.
I thought that writing in Latin characters using this font would produce a text that looked like Arabic text.
The result left a lot to be desired.
However, it is useful in RPG games as a message to be deciphered.
What is initially an eligible text, when copied and pasted becomes an immediately readable text.
I'm going to talk to a master of an RPG group and suggest this to him. I think he'll like the idea.
09-21-2024, 07:42 AM (This post was last modified: 09-21-2024, 07:43 AM by rich2005.)
(09-20-2024, 09:30 PM)Krikor Wrote: I thought that writing in Latin characters using this font would produce a text that looked like Arabic text.
The result left a lot to be desired.
However, it is useful in RPG games as a message to be deciphered.
That is an interesting idea. Basically a substitution code. The position in the charactermap maps one-to-one.
Strictly since arabic is phonetic you have to translate by sound for non-dictionary words. This a scan from a very-very old phrase book and my name 'richard' from equally old driving license.
09-21-2024, 11:43 AM (This post was last modified: 09-21-2024, 11:44 AM by rich2005.)
This is just for fun. I am sure the text produced will be gibberish to an arabic speaker. I see why the AL-Aser.ttf font looks "plain" when typed in. Many of the characters are those start-middle-end of word forms mapped to adjacent latin keyboard characters.
Making a font as best I can with just one character used and phonetics gets this which looks a bit more interesting. Lower case is latin, upper case is arabic.
It's scary how these civilizations have gone to such lengths to create the most complicated alphabet possible.
The Chinese, for example, for the most part don't know even 60% of all the words and letters that exist in their language.
The French use numbers as if they were doing mathematical calculations. (Fortunately, the Canadians didn't adopt this practice).
I tried to rewrite the word (Name) Richard in Arabic format (using the information contained in Appendix B of the image attached to the previous post) making it the same as shown in the image.
But the only letter I could find was the letter 'R'.
Without the letter "i" and having to rely on sounds that I don't know, this became an impossible task for me.
I was playing around with the RPG-arabic font and detected at least 3 repeated pairs:
Q and G,
F and V,
P and C
"Lower case is latin, upper case is arabic" - It looks really good that way!
09-22-2024, 07:33 AM (This post was last modified: 09-22-2024, 09:29 AM by rich2005.
Edit Reason: typos
)
(09-21-2024, 11:58 PM)Krikor Wrote: ...But the only letter I could find was the letter 'R'.
Without the letter "i" and having to rely on sounds that I don't know, this became an impossible task for me.
I was playing around with the RPG-arabic font and detected at least 3 repeated pairs:
Q and G,
F and V,
P and C
"Lower case is latin, upper case is arabic" - It looks really good that way!
Well I did say, probably gibberish to an arabic speaker
Looking at that old "equivalent sounds" chart there are some that do not exist, C for example. Then there are some arabic forms that "double-up" seen or sahd are both S as well as sheen = sh
To add to the mix, there are different forms depending on position in the word. None of these I have taken into account. Missing an "i" not uncommon I used to work here: Abqaiq (Arabic: بقيق, romanized: Biqayq) also Buqayq try a "y"
That font looks very "classical", the sort of thing from old documents, different from modern written arabic.
In English you can generally scramble the message and still be understandable, not always true for other languages.
At one stage I thought you might be packing luggage for a trip East. Have fun.
