Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 May 8

= May 8 =

Are there any words in Arabic with the ے letter
Since the Arabic Unicode has ے but i never seen it in Arabic does anyone know if any words in Arabic has this letter If not does anyone know why it is included in the Arabic Unicode 🌸 1.Ayana 🌸 (talk) 10:22, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * This letter is used in Urdu, and possibly some other South Asian languages. It is never used in Arabic writing, to my knowledge. --Soman (talk) 10:32, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Explains why I never seen it in Arabic but why would Unicode put it in Arabic and not Urdu even if some of the Urdu letters are the same — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.Ayana (talk • contribs) 15:21, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm a little bit ignorant on these matters, but Unicode doesn't also create an entire new alphabet for, say, the Icelandic language, even though Icelandic uses two unique characters other Latin-based alphabets do not, the Thorn (letter) and Eth. The article Urdu alphabet states "It is a modification of the Persian alphabet, which is itself a derivative of the Arabic alphabet."  Do Urdu characters that are identical to other Arabic characters have different Unicodes?  Or are there no such identical charactes, and is the Unicode Urdu alphabet unique and distinct from the Arabic one?  -- Jayron 32 15:29, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * [Edit Conflict] There may be confusion going on between "Arabic" as a language and "Arabic" as an alphabet, in which Urdu – heavily influenced by a form of Arabic used in Persia – is usually written. I make no suggestion as to where such a confusion might have arisen. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.24.23 (talk) 15:32, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, the letter ے is called Baṛī ye and stands for word-final [eː] and [ɛː] in Urdu. --178.7.42.103 (talk) 16:32, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Oxford spelling
Is Oxford University Press no longer using Oxford spelling in recently created documents? Today at work I helped review a potential new contract with OUP, and there were several dozen appearances of "Authorised User", "unauthorised access", and other forms of "authorise"; the first time I saw one, I figured they'd made a mistake, but there weren't any "authorize" spellings at all. I couldn't find any appearances of other "ise" or "ize" words in the contract, so I wondered if somehow Oxford had an exception for this particular word, but OED gives me the entry for " authorize, v. when I search for authorise. Nyttend backup (talk) 20:19, 8 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Probably the text was drawn up by a lawyer, and the staff at OUP involved with contracts (which I suppose is disjoint from their editorial staff) either did not notice the discrepancy with the traditional OUP spelling, or decided it was best not to meddle with the text. On their website, I only see Oxford spelling. --Lambiam 22:38, 8 May 2020 (UTC)