🚀 go-pugleaf

Here are the consolidated answers for the original question from
Kamran Ghane (netmail!ghane@chaph.usc.edu):

     Does anybody know why in Arabic Unicode code page the Kashida code
     is placed among the other alphabet codes and not before or after
     them? Considering the sort order, its position doesn't make any
     sense.

Jeff
INSOFT-L List Manager

*========================================================================*
 Jeff Bowyer                         EMail:
 Computing Center		     jbowyer@cis.vutbr.cz
 Technical University of Brno
 Udolni 19, 602 00 BRNO
 Czech Republic
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Sender: Glenn Adams <glenn@metis.com>
        Technical Manager, Unicode Consortium

The order and position of Arabic characters in Unicode in the range 0600-065F
are identical to their order and position in ISO 8859-6; that is, if you add
0x05C0 to an ISO 8859-6 code in rows 10-15 (A0-FF), you get the Unicode code
position.  There are three exceptions to this rule: NBSP (A0), CURRENCY
SYMBOL (A4), and SOFT HYPHEN (AD), map to 00A0, 00A4, and 00AD, respectively
in Unicode.  Although the reverse mapping holds at this time also, it may
not in the future if additional characters are assigned to other positions in
Unicode in the range 0600-065F which are currently unassigned.

As for depending on the order of elements in Unicode as far as sorting is
concerned, you should not!  The order of elements in Unicode have no bearing
on the expected sorting order.  You must employ an external sorting weight
table to give you this information.  Consider for a moment the fact that
many other languages besides Arabic will use these characters and that they
do not all share the sorting order employed for the Arabic language (e.g.,
Farsi, Sindhi, Urdu, Pashto, Turkish, Malay, etc.)


Sender: Nadine Kano <nadinek@microsoft.com>

The answer I have gotten from our Unicode consortium
representative is that  Unicode does not pretend to be
in any sorted order.


Sender: Joe Becker (Becker.OSBU_North@xerox.com)

Yes, it makes no sense ... but it's standard!  Its position is merely reflected
directly from the primary Arabic code standard ASMO 449, as also in ECMA 114
and ISO 8859-6.


And one remaining response from a previous discussion about Arabic script ...


Sender: Bill Walsh <walsh_bill@smtpmac.ads.com>

The Arabic alphabet is exactly that-- an alphabet whose 28 letters indicate
consonants (and can double as long vowels).  Most good Arabic software will
automatically contextualize characters (i.e., choose the correct form of the
letter for its position in the word).