1 Alphabets of Languages with Bidirectional Scripts and their Support Israel Ervin Gidali IBM Globalization Centre of Competency- Complex Text Languages

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 2 Agenda The predecessors of the first true alphabets The first alphabets Direction of writing The modern RTL scripts Bidirectionality Bidi – some of the challenges Implementation aspects

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 3 The Alphabet Predecessors The predecessors of the first true alphabets: The Egyptian hieroglyphics (since 3000 BCE) The Mesopotamian cuneiforms (since 3100 BCE)

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 4 The Egyptian Hieroglyphs Pictograms Logograms Phonograms

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 5 The Cuneiform Writing Systems logo-syllabic syllabic words

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 6 The First Alphabets

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 7 The First Semitic Alphabets Proto-Sinaic and Proto-Canaanite. Originated around the 18 th or 17 th centuries BCE, under the influence of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 8 The First Semitic Alphabets The revolution: purely phonetic (only consonants without vowels). Influenced originally by the polyphony practice in hieroglyphic and cuneiform scripts.

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 9 Proto-Canaanite Limit the set of sounds to 22 consonants only, still without vowels. Acrophonic. Letters easy to distinguish and remember (their shapes resemble familiar objects).

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 10 Proto-Canaanite Descendents

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 11 The alphabet success Proto-Canaanite, Phoenician and Greek

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 12 Ancient Hebrew and Samaritan

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 13 South Arabian

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 14 Aramaic

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 15 The Square Hebrew Script

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 16 Nabatean

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 17 Direction of Writing Hieroglyphs were written in both directions. Starting from the 11 th century BCE, the writing direction of all Semitic scripts (except Ethiopic) is from right to left.

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 18 The Modern RTL scripts אין כל - חדש תחת השמש ( קהלת פרק א פסוק ט ') There is nothing new under the sun. (Qohelet/Ecclesiastes 1/9)

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 19 Arabic

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 20 Arabic Script – the Script of Islam The Arabic script, the script of Quran, used for: Arabic Persian (Farsi) Urdu Ottoman Turkish (until 1929) Uighur, Kazakh,Uzbek, Tajik, Kirghiz, Old Malay, Swahili, Hausa, Baluchi, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Pashto, Lahnda,Dargwa,Morrocan Arabic, Adighe, Ingush, Berber,Kurdish, Jawi/Javanese……

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 21 Arabic Vowels

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 22 Hebrew Script Used for: Hebrew Yiddish Ladino (Judezmo) Arabic Karaite/Karaim Turkish עברית שפה יפה

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 23 Hebrew Script

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 24 Hebrew script and diacritics Hebrew text: Vocalized with points and cantillation marks: בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 25 Syriac

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 26 Thaana

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 27 Decimal digits forms European digits (Arabic digits): (Used in Hebrew script and in some Arabic countries) Arabic-Indic digits: Numbers are written from left to right regardless of their form and regardless of regional variety (Used in Arabic)

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 28 Bidirectionality National language (Arabic, Hebrew, etc...) text is written from Right to Left TXET CIBARA Numbers and English (or French,Russian, etc.) text is written from Left to Right english text 123 TXET CIBARA

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 29 Bidi Appearance Aspects- Directionality Mixed direction of text segments: Page alignment on the right Book binding on the right Mirroring of GUI elements (only when translated)

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 30 Bidi Data Processing Aspects – some of the challenges Bidirectional text data entry Visual versus Logical text type The Paragraph Orientation Arabic script cursiveness: shaping and ligatures Variety of text layouts in use

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 31 The Bidi Layout Challenges Bidirectional text in different systems and applications has multiple possible layouts In heterogeneous environments proper layout transformations should be performed Higher order protocols integration

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 32 The Challenge of GUI Mirroring When translating the interface of an application to a language with Bidirectional script, provisions must be made to ensure that the GUI is properly mirrored.

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 33 Implementation Aspects Almost all platforms and Operating Systems provide support for Bidirectional text entry and processing New platforms should react to this challenge too Except for adequately engraved keyboards, there is no need for special hardware for Bidi text support.

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 34 Last Word RTL scripts are not a novelty. As a matter of fact they have preceded the current Western world scripts Their support is different but not necessarily much more complex, as long as one is prepared for it.

18th International Unicode ConferenceHong Kong, April 2001 Alphabets of languages with Bi-directional scripts and their support 35 The End Thank You