Language (10)

As an information junkie, one of my favourite pastimes is to think about words that carry more than one meaning. The first word that lit that particular lamp in my brain was "reflection", with meanings related to thought and to physical light. Very soon I formed the following theory/conjecture: those loaded words don't in fact carry more than one meaning! Instead, they refer to processes that occur on different levels of abstraction, but that are similar from an algorithmic point of view. For example, the process of a mirror reflecting light is pretty much the same as my mind reflecting on a certain problem.

Some sites try to serve me targeted ads based on my geographical location. Because I live in the Middle East, most ads I get on American sites are the two reproduced below. For non-Arabic speakers, the campaign encourages people to apply for a working visa to the US.

and

Click the attachment to see the full thing.

Globalization from the point of view of the globalizee.

Leaving aside the religious content (for the sake of this discussion), check out the Arabic text on this page. You'll have noticed it is an embedded image, but see how clearly the writing and diacritics are displayed. One would wish that Arabic text were rendered this way on a browser.

What does it take to do that, I wonder.

First, is Unicode enough to capture all the combinations of diacritics and letter shapes? The Unicode does have isolated forms for diacritics, from U+FC5E to U+FE7F. But notice that on the example page, upper diacritics are placed at 2 different height levels. I don't know if that's supported. There seems to be a logic to the placement of the diacritic at a certain fixed height above

My friend Islam made this. He once told me his vision of a world language where letters from all alphabets are used. I like that!

(Click the attachment to view the full thing.)

The western world has a tough time learning Arabic. Here's a suggestion to make it a bit easier:

Arabic words have no vowels: alif, waw, and ya' play ambiguous roles that are outside the scope of this discussion. Consonants are stringed together, with diacritics providing pronunciation and more precise meaning. So let's do the same with Latin consonants, which provide as much meaning as their Arabic counterparts. This will give something like:

k_t_b_ al w_l_d_ b_q_l_m_h_

Now it remains to choose Latin diacritics that will perform the same functions are the Arabic counterparts. Unfortunately, it seems that the current Unicode Latin script does not contain all possible combinations between letters and even the basic Arabic diacritics (fatha, kasra, damma). So what follows is only an approximation:

David Bohm was a quantum physicist who tried to reconcile the philosophical implications of new discoveries in physics (chiefly quantum behaviour) with art, society, and eastern mysticism. Retaining scientific rigour all the while, which earned him near-universal respect.