>From: Ali Khanban <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: Abi Lover <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED],
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: [farsiweb]Farsi, heh, +, hamzeh, above
>Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 14:41:57 +0100
>
>Hi,
>
>It seems to me that these are all different shapes of one letter
><hamza>. But <heh+hamza above> is a mixture of two letters: <heh> and a
>transformed <yeh>. It is not even a ligature, because it is not supposed to
>be handled by font to write <heh+hamza above> instead of ><heh and yeh>.
>
>Best
>-khanban-
>
>Abi Lover wrote:
Letter forms like <vav + hamzeh> or <alef + hamzeh> are representations of
TWO sounds and letters, a vowel, plus what linguists call a "glottal stop",
which is represented by the hamzeh. Linguists have traditionally
transliterated this glottal stop in the Latin script with an inverted comma
{'}. Actually, the sound it represents is more often a glottal plosive than
a glottal stop. In a word like <mo'men>, it is a glottal stop; but in a word
like <mas'ul>, it is a glottal plosive. In the English language, this
glottal stop (or rather plosive) occurs only at the beginning of words which
begin with a vowel, like {a,e,i,o,u}, therefore it is not represented by a
separate character. it is taken for granted. But in Arabic and Farsi,
because it can also occur in the middle and at the end of words, it needs to
be represented by a special character of its own. It is in fact a fully
fledged consonant, and has its own distinct sound and alphabetical
representation in the language. Thus it is not correct to say that all these
different letter forms are "different shapes of one letter <hamzeh>". They
are representations of different vowels plus the glottal stop. <vav +
hamzeh> is a representation of the vowels {o} or {u}, plus the glottal stop
or plosive. In <mo'men>, the glottal stop occurs after the vowel; in
<mas'ul>, the glottal plosive occurs before the vowel. But in both cases,
the shape represents a combination of the two.
Returning to the subject of <heh + hamzeh>, in this case the hamzeh is not
used to represent a glottal stop (or plosive) at all, but by a centuries old
convention it is used to represent the Farsi <ezafeh>, when it follows the
letter <heh>. That convention has served the language adequately for
centuries, and one does not simply change a centuries old convention by an
arbitrary decision. Whether this particular shape can correctly be defined
as a ligature or not may be open to discussion. A ligature normally consists
of two or more letters of the alphabet which are physically joined together,
like <la> in Farsi. A hamzeh does not connect to anything. It behaves more
like a diacritical mark, rather like the French accent. But the principle is
still the same. Just as it is possible to create a shape like <vav +
hamzeh>, which consists of TWO sounds and characters, and which can then be
parsed into its constituent parts using the correct algorithm in the
computer, it is also possible to create the shape <heh + hamzeh>, which
consists of two letters which can be parsed into its constituent parts.
Regards
Abi
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