Re: Arabic cursive in Unicode

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 16:46:35 +0100: Andreas Prilop
<nhtcapri@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>: in sci.lang:

On Sat, 25 Nov 2006, Ruud Harmsen wrote:

I don't know how digits are written in Arabic.

From your message <news:dllcm2p9jlhvnhrtr3ddo5d27dbivjc73v@xxxxxxx> :

| Right to left, I suppose. So the direction of reading out number and
| of writing them in digits was the same. That was my statement.

Now what? Do you know or don't you know?

I don't, due to the confusing message about it here.
But it seems highly unlikely to me to write right-to-left Arabic words
and the suddenly write number left-to-right, if only because the
required width is difficult to estimae beforehand.

But it seems logical to
me to write them the same as the letters: right to left. Why do it
otherwise, why switch direction as soon as digits are involved?

C'est la vie! Don't argue with logic for languages.

Now ARE they written LTR? After or also before the advent of
computers? If so, why?

Also on typewriters? If so, how is that achieved mechanically, how do
you tell the typewriter how many digits the number will have? It needs
to know that in advance, to be able to skip the required number of
spaces.
Same question for typing Arabic on a computer. Does it shift the
number while the digits are entered, so they finally end up a the
right position?

--
Ruud Harmsen - http://rudhar.com
.

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