Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 December 7

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December 7

Islamic Font

I'd like to find, and possibly download, the font of the Arabic script in this infamous map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Jihad.svg Do you have any idea? 82.52.20.30 (talk) 00:59, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I am pretty certain this is a specimen of Islamic calligraphy whose original was handwritten by a calligrapher – or hand-produced using graphics software. Here you can see the shahada in almost identical yet subtly different lettering.  --Lambiam 02:36, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

In this case, is there a Font that looks like it? --82.52.20.30 (talk) 06:35, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

The script by itself is thuluth, a calligraphic version of naskh, which is the most commonly found digital script for Arabic, in a variety of fonts. In the font used in your browser, a text set in nashk looks like this:

لَا إِلٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّٰه مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ اللَّٰه

This is strictly right-to-left, while the distinctive look of the calligraphed text in thuluth stems from the intertwining of the characters while part of the text is split over two lines.  --Lambiam 09:08, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Interesting. Is there a way to format an Arabic text in Word (maybe using a particular font?) to have the same intertwining effect? --82.52.20.30 (talk) 13:19, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Not sure if that helps, but we have an article on kerning. From memory, MS Word has such a function, but I expect this would solely apply horizontally to characters on the same line. Vertical kerning (presumably there is a proper typological term for that) may be a bit more tricky. Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:19, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Adjusting (increasing) the space between lines is called Leading (because in letterpress days it was commonly done with long strips of lead). The effect under discussion could be called "negative leading", and would be very difficult with physical type, but is easy to do (even by mistake) with phototypesetting, was/is often done with lettering on book covers using transfer letters like Letraset, and is probably an option, if rarely used, in digital typesetting (so-called Desktop publishing) programs. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.196} 176.249.29.80 (talk) 22:15, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Not only are the relative positions of the letters affected by the intertwining, but also their shapes, to allow room for intruding strokes of other letters. Look how the body of the medial و is made to fit within the tail of the final ل. The exercise of trying to achieve this using Word is bound to be futile.  --Lambiam 21:24, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I can't read Arabic but it's obvious a lot of elements in this picture are repeated perfectly, like the little "w" letters and the two large "vw" shaped forms in the top left quarter of the flag. I'd be really surprised if this was hand drawn. 89.172.36.248 (talk) 06:23, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

It's no different than, for example, File:Coca-Cola_logo.svg. The Coca-Cola logo was created by John Pemberton's bookkeeper, Frank Mason Robinson, in 1885. Robinson came up with the name and chose the logo's distinctive cursive script. The writing style used, known as Spencerian script, was developed in the mid-19th century and was the dominant form of formal handwriting in the United States during that period. Whatever tools were used, it was crafted manually and cannot be reproduced by simple typesetting. No such user (talk) 10:58, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Obviously, whoever created the svg file currently hosted on Commons was lazy and reused the paths, rather than constructing them twice. In other versions, such as at Flags of the World, the shapes are not identical, and neither were they in an earlier version on Commons. They are also not identical in the Flag of Saudi Arabia, which, moreover, also exists on Commons in several other versions.  --Lambiam 12:42, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Writing direction

Is there any writing system which is written left to right, from bottom to top, in horizontal lines?
text.
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--40bus (talk) 17:08, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Writing system#Directionality has some information. Depending on the context, you will find English written that way; for example in some jurisdictions, road markings are written that way: [1] so that the words are read in the order they are encountered. Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts notes a similar bottom-to-top road marking system, but that is the ONLY context where it seems to be used. Other than that, no, I can't find any information on any standard writing system that does so as a matter of course. --Jayron32 17:30, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

40bus -- Egyptian hieroglyphics were pretty flexible, and could be written left-to-right in rows, right-to-left in rows, or top-to-bottom in columns, but not ordinarily bottom-to-top, as far as I know... AnonMoos (talk) 20:09, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

I have never heard of any written script that was written bottom-to-top as standard. I guess it either just doesn't feel natural to do, or that top-to-bottom writing was spread with various written scripts. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:18, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

The Republican Party is developing a bottom-up, inside-out and upside-down system that aligns more closely with their way of "thinking". It also uses white letters on a black background because, after all, black is white (and up is down). Clarityfiend (talk) 23:31, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

A similar question was asked here before: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Language/2009_May_29#reading. — Kpalion^(talk) 14:46, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

• Which implies that the spines of books are the sole instance where bottom-to-top "writing" is deployed. OR, but proven by a quick visual check of some random books next to my desk.
• Of course, this is nor a real example of writing bottom to top as the entire linear set of letters is simply rotated left and not right.
• Why some spines read downwards and others read upwards may be a mystery to me, but it results in wobbly capital exercises of customers in any bookshop.

Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 17:10, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Ogham is written vertically bottom to top, but that's not what the OP was asking for. CodeTalker (talk) 22:08, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

See book spine. In texts published or printed in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, Scandinavia and the Netherlands, the spine text, when the book is standing upright, runs from the top to the bottom.... In most of continental Europe, Latin America, and French Canada the spine text, when the book is standing upright, runs from the bottom up... Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:49, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Now, perhaps, but bottom to top used to be frequent in British books. I have a number of older British books like that. Deor (talk) 13:14, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

There must be some reason why no language has ever been written bottom-to top horizontally. But which is the reason? --40bus (talk) 18:28, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

No, there doesn't. Invent your own reason if you need that comfort, or get used to the fact that not everything that happens is planned out or has a purpose. --Jayron32 18:29, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Or, more to the point, not everything that can be conceived by the mind of Man has been tried, and not everything that has been tried has become a thing. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:39, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

If we were considering only ink-based writing, then one might conjecture that it's to avoid smearing earlier lines as you move up. But this wouldn't account for carved, chiseled, and other methods that aren't affected by where you place your hands. Mathglot (talk) 00:17, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

I'd say that it would affect carving. Imagine that you have completed one line and have moved up to the next, but your chisel slips or your hammer misses and you wind up damaging the preceding line. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:24, 13 December 2022 (UTC)