From: malek@pi.titech.ac.jp (Zidouri Abdelmalek 03/95)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic
Subject: ArabTex , why not a basis of Notation for Arabic Writing
Date: 13 Dec 92 05:51:45 GMT
Distribution: soc.culture.arabic
Organization: Tokyo Institute of Tech., Precision and Intelligence Lab., Japan

Greetings all Arabic speaking people,
 
I 'm not aware if there is any STANDARD NOTATION for writing
 Arabic in LATIN CHARACTERS or not.
 If there is would anyone be kind enough to post it here from time
 to time until everybody is familiar with it and we try to
 abide by it at least on this net.
 If not I will suggest the following:

[The correspondance used in ArabTex for those who don't
have it is: a, b, t, _t, ^g, .h, _h, d, _d, r, z, s, ^s,
.s, .d, .t, .z, c, .g, f, q, k, l, m, n, h, w, y,  and
(T) for t mrbU.tT ,(Y) for alf mq.sUrT,(') for hamza and
 A,I,U for long vowels.]
 
1*Take the correspondence between Arabic and Latin used
 in ArabTex above but with some changes especially for the letter
 -Ain- as in Abd Allah wich is taken to be the character
 -c- and does not make much sense.

2*Write like in Arabic only CONSONNANTS AND LONG VOWELS and
 use short vowels ( a, i, u) only when confusion might
 arise like it is done in Arabic books.

3*The changes I propose for no. 1 above are as follows:
 -use j for jIm instead of ^g in ArabTex.
 -use e for eyn instead of c  in ArabTex.

Because ArabTex was(is) intended to write Persian and Urdu as well
as Arabic so the Transcription is not very consistent with
the notation for example we could keep the Symbol " ^ " before 
a character to mean it is the similar character plus 
three dots example t  for tA' as in ktb  and ^t for ^tA' as 
in ^tlA^th (three).
And if we represent the letter Syn by C instead of S then it
would be more appropriate to represent Shyn by ^C and reserve 
S for SAd and .S for .SAd instead of .D for .DAd and reserve 
this notation ( .d ) for .Dal and interchange the the notations 
.h and _h so we will write m_hmd instead of m.hmd and _tbIb 
instead  of .tbIb (doctor) and .hbr (news) instead of _hbr in 
ArabTex. 
Then I think it would be easier to remember that whenever
there is a dot before a character it is a similar arabic 
character with a dot effectively.

So let me  write a sentence in ArabTex notation then in
my proposition.

hnAk nAs k_tIrUn yrIdUn 'an yktbUA b-al-crbyT bc.d al-mqA.tc 
'aw 'abyAt mn al-^scr 'aw mrA^gc yst^shdUn bhA fI mA ybc_tUn
bh 'ilY hA_dh al-^sbkT.

Now ^ = 3 dots and . = 1 dot on a similar character:

hnAk nAc k^tIrUn yrIdUn 'an yktbUA b-al-erbyT be.s al-mqA_te
'aw 'abyAt mn al-^cer 'aw mrAje yct^chdUn bhA fI mA ybe^tUn
bh 'ilY hA.dh al-^cbkT.

an other example ( don't forget that C is always C not k)
         ( S is sad, .S is .Sad, D is Dal and .D is .Dal)
h.dh lyct dewT ilY ktAbT al-erbyT b-al-_hrUf al-lAtInyT 
w lkn lA bd 'an tkUn lnA _trIqT yct_hcn 'an tkUn mw_hdT
l-lt.hA_tb hnA fI mA byn al-nA_tqIn b-al-erbyT. w al-mqsUd
lyc al-'in.glAq elY 'anfcnA w 'innmA qd ykUn .dAlk dAfeaN
l-lbe.d l-l'ijthAd fI telm al-l.gT al-erbyT.
w hA.dA aqtrA_h qd y_tr_h _htY elY al-'isdArAt al-jdIdT mn
ArabTex.
 
mAlk,
 
--
 Malek.
 
 "We cooperate in what we agree on, and forgive each other for that
  in which we disagree." Hassan El Banna.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic