[XeTeX] Position of kasra when used together with tashdid in Arabic

[Kamal Abdali]

While the problem is with fonts, I think it is really caused by language
differences.  In Urdu, the convention for the tashdid-kasra combination is
to put tashdid above and kasra below the letter. This convention applies
even to Arabic texts (e.g., the Qurans) published in countries like Pakistan
and India with large numbers of Urdu speakers. The Qurans published in Arab
countries place kasra below the tashdid symbol, of course. Incidentally,
there are several other orthographic differences in the Qurans published in
Pakistan and India and those published in Arab countries.

This variation is unfortunate because it limits the use of many fonts across
different languages.

Below is the image of a Mac TextEdit window with the tashdid-kasra
combination in three different Urdu fonts.

Kamal Abdali

[image: tashdid-kasra-urdu.jpg]

On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 15:02, Andy Lin <kiryen at gmail.com> wrote:

> > The best thing is to try a font which does not have this kind of issue.
>
> I've attached a pdf file of various Arabic fonts (most of them are
> included with newer versions of Windows). The string is input with
> tashdid before kasra. The first column has the script set to Arabic,
> the second column has the language set to Urdu (the SIL fonts behave
> differently here!), and the third has the language set to Farsi.
>
> Hope this helps,
> Andy
>
>
>
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