User:Pelagic/sandbox/punctuation

Arabic Punctuation

 * http://www.saaid.net/mktarat/alalm/3.htm
 * http://www.almeshkat.net/vb/showthread.php?t=62313

The usage advocated on these pages is very similar to that in English. Discussed are period (.), comma (،), semicolon (؛), colon, exclamation mark (!), question mark (؟), dash (–), ellipsis (...), round brackets , square brackets [] and quotes " ".

Comma and semicolon are turned, and question mark is mirrored. An interesting item is the "continuation mark", a double dash that looks like an equals sign (=), said to be used for continuing a footnote from one page to the next.

Babelpad reveals that the expected characters were used for comma, semicolon, and question (، U+060C ARABIC COMMA – ؛ U+061B ARABIC SEMICOLON – ؟ U+061F ARABIC QUESTION MARK). The dash shows as a hyphen-minus when pasted, its extra length in the originals might be a feature of the Arabic fonts used. Similarly, standard western/ASCII code points seem to be used for the other puncts ( . : ! = ).

Note the use of European digits for numbered points; and alif, bet, gimel, dalet, etc. equivalent to our a, b, c, d lettering for sub-items. Whereas we would use
 * 1. a point,
 * 2) brackets
 * a) one bracket,
 * (b) or two brackets

to separate the numbering from the content, they use dashes.


 * 1– point one
 * a– sub-point
 * b– sub-point
 * 2– point two
 * – sub-point
 * – sub-point

In one document, use of naked dashes as bullets for sub-items is discussed; round bullets (•) are also used but not discussed.

The list of misuses at almeshkat is telling. For example the use of U+0660 ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT ZERO (٠) instead of U+2022 BULLET (•).

To Do: look at Crown Letters and Punctuation and Their Placements and http://www.scribd.com/doc/207119358/%D8%AD%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%81-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%AC-%D9%88-%D8%B9%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B1%D9%82%D9%8A%D9%85


 * Note, for example, the use of curly quotes and non-mirrored question mark.