MathML in Arabic

Hello everybody,
Here are some comments about the previous contributions.

1. In Arabic calligraphy, there are no boldface and italic styles. In
order to make more symbols available, the basic mathematical alphabetic
letter-like symbols used in Arabic mathematical handbooks are of the six
following forms: isolated, initial, tailed, stretched, looped, and
double-struck (see
http://www.ucam.ac.ma/fssm/rydarab/doc/unicode/tabramz.pdf).

2. In Morocco, Arabic mathematical notation, where expressions flow from
right to left, has been in use some years ago. For instance, the symbol
jta was used to note cosine.
But, I think that, it’s not a particularity for Arabic to find more than
one abbreviation or symbol for the same notion. In Latin script based
languages, the abbreviation used for tangent differs from a country to
another. The notation “tg” is used in France and “tan” in English. The
mathematical notation system is note really completely unified (see
http://www.ucam.ac.ma/fssm/rydarab/doc/litterat/diff_fr_en.pdf).
 Now, in Morocco we use the French notation in all levels. It’s obviously
LTR. Arabic text is used all along the K-12 education, but not in
University.

3. There are many symbols found in Arabic script mathematical handbooks
that are not yet part of the Unicode Standard. Some of such special
characters used in mathematics written in an Arabic presentation are
submitted for inclusion into the Unicode Standard. That is necessary for
MathML in Arabic but it needs a profound discussion (see
http://www.ucam.ac.ma/fssm/rydarab/english/unicode.htm)

Hope this helps,

Azzeddine LAZREK

Received on Tuesday, 23 November 2004 08:54:27 UTC