Arabic typography
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Arabic typography is the typography of letters, graphemes, characters or text in Arabic script, for example for writing Arabic, Persian, or Urdu. 16th century Arabic typography was a by-product of Latin typography with Syriac and Latin proportions and aesthetics. It lacked expertise in the three core aspects of Arabic writing: calligraphy, style and system. Calligraphy requires aesthetically skilled writing in a chosen canonical style such as naskh, nastaʿlīq or ruqʿah. System denotes the script grammar covering such rules as horizontality and stretching.[1]
Characteristics
[edit | edit source]Some characteristics used in Latin scripts, like bold, letter spacing[dubious – discuss] or italic, are not usually used in Arabic typography.
Calligraphic style
[edit | edit source]Some Arabic computer fonts are calligraphic, for example Arial, Courier New, and Times New Roman. They look as if they were written with a brush or oblong pen, akin to how serifs originated in stone inscriptionals. Other fonts, like Tahoma and Noto Sans Arabic, use a mono-linear style more akin to sans-serif Latin scripts. Monolinear means that the lines have the same width throughout the letter.
| Text example | Calligraphic (Arial) | Monolinear (Tahoma) |
|---|---|---|
| Eastern Arabic numerals | ٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩ | ٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩ |
| Abjad Hawz (ابجد هوز), an Arabic alphabet song | ابجد هوز حطي كلمن
شكل الاستاذ بقى منسجمن استاذ حمام .. نحن الزغاليل |
ابجد هوز حطي كلمن
شكل الاستاذ بقى منسجمن استاذ حمام .. نحن الزغاليل |
Overlines
[edit | edit source]
Historically, Arabic text used overlines to indicate emphasis.[2]
Slant (italic)
[edit | edit source]Some Arabic styles such as Diwani use a right-to-left downward-sloping slant.[3]
Use of right angles
[edit | edit source]Some typefaces use more right angles, for example Noto Kufi Arabic. Others, like Tahoma and Arial, have a more rounded style (see graph below). A font with tendency towards right angles is also called 'angled',[4] and rounded fonts are also called 'cursive'.[5]
See also
[edit | edit source]- Arabic calligraphy
- Naskh (script)
- Typeface anatomy
- Digital Arabic typography (on ar.wikipedia)
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ Thomas Milo, Arabic Typography, Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, Brill Publishers, 2013
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Further reading
[edit | edit source]- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
