On Thu, 22 Jul 2010, [email protected] wrote: > [...] > To wrap up, are my observations about the Pashto writing conventions > correct? And is there a standard for assigning the Pashto characters > representing /j/ and /i:/ to Unicode code points?
Practical answer: U+0649 and U+064A are included in MacArabic/MacFarsi and Windows-1256; but U+06CC is not. Support for 0649 and 064A in fonts is still better than for 06CC. For example, try the various Arabic fonts in Windows XP: http://www.user.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/temp/ya.arabic.html Therefore you should use only U+0649 and U+064A for Arabic, Persian, Urdu if you want your documents to be displayed on other computers. I have done so in http://www.user.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/arabic-alphabet.html http://www.user.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/persian-alphabet.html http://www.user.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/mac-urdu-alphabet.html However, for Pashto you need characters outside Windows-1256 anyway. * * * * * * Theoretical answer: U+0649 has (should have) four glyphs without any dots. This is no Arabic letter, but an Uighur letter. Therefore you should not use U+0649 for Arabic, Persian, Pashto, Urdu but only U+06CC. I have done so in http://www.user.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/urdu-alphabet.html http://www.user.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/pashto-alphabet.html U+0649 has the traditional name "alif maqsura" because it was taken from ISO-8859-6. But I see no objection to use U+06CC for alif maqsura. You cannot distinguish the initial and middle glyphs of 064A and 06CC. Use whatever you want. Given the practical answer above, you might prefer U+064A. But if you don't have U+06CC in your font, you probably don't have Pashto letters either.
