Add Kurdish Support

dolanskurd · January 7, 2022, 4:41pm

Hello guys,

I am wonder if you could add missed Arabic-based Kurdish characters to the default charts, so the Font Designers would care about providing those characters also to support Kurdish in their fonts.

The missed characters are:

Character	Unicode	Code Point Name	Example
ڕ	U+0695	ARABIC LETTER REH WITH SMALL V BELOW	ڕووبەڕوو
ڤ	U+06A4	ARABIC LETTER VEH	ڤیان
ڵ	U+06B5	ARABIC LETTER LAM WITH SMALL V	پڵاو
ۆ	U+06C6	ARABIC LETTER OE	دۆلان
ێ	U+06CE	ARABIC LETTER YEH WITH SMALL V	پێرێ
ە	U+06D5	ARABIC LETTER AE	بەهرەمەند

NOTE:
The complete details can be found here:

If there is any more question or needed to check something with Kurdish characters, I will be available to help.

Thank you.

Tosche · January 7, 2022, 6:16pm

I’m not a Glyphs dev but interested in the topic. Just to check what positional variants and components are needed, I typed the following:
ڕ ـڕ
ڤ ڤڤڤ
ڵ ڵڵڵ
ۆ ـۆ
ێ ێێێ
ە ەەە

YEH seems to take dots in the initial and medial positions; is that correct?
Does AE only exist in the isolated form?
I also noticed that PEH should be in Kurdish (not part of the Arabic language) and is being left out. Could you expand the list to include all the missing letters?

As a side note, I’m all for adding more language options to the side menu, but this discussion opens up a discussion of other 30+ languages that could be considered. Pashto speakers seem to be twice to thrice larger in number than Kurdish, for example.

mekkablue · January 7, 2022, 6:18pm

Also checking in for the positional variants. This is what I have based on our existing glyph data. Can you copy this list and paste it in Glyph > Add Glyphs… (Cmd-Shift-G), and see if something is missing?

yehHamzaabove-ar
yehHamzaabove-ar.medi
yehHamzaabove-ar.init
yehHamzaabove-ar.fina
alef-ar
alef-ar.fina
beh-ar
beh-ar.medi
beh-ar.init
beh-ar.fina
teh-ar
teh-ar.medi
teh-ar.init
teh-ar.fina
jeem-ar
jeem-ar.medi
jeem-ar.init
jeem-ar.fina
hah-ar
hah-ar.medi
hah-ar.init
hah-ar.fina
khah-ar
khah-ar.medi
khah-ar.init
khah-ar.fina
dal-ar
dal-ar.fina
reh-ar
reh-ar.fina
zain-ar
zain-ar.fina
seen-ar
seen-ar.medi
seen-ar.init
seen-ar.fina
sheen-ar
sheen-ar.medi
sheen-ar.init
sheen-ar.fina
ain-ar
ain-ar.medi
ain-ar.init
ain-ar.fina
ghain-ar
ghain-ar.medi
ghain-ar.init
ghain-ar.fina
feh-ar
feh-ar.medi
feh-ar.init
feh-ar.fina
qaf-ar
qaf-ar.medi
qaf-ar.init
qaf-ar.fina
lam-ar
lam-ar.medi
lam-ar.init
lam-ar.fina
meem-ar
meem-ar.medi
meem-ar.init
meem-ar.fina
noon-ar
noon-ar.medi
noon-ar.init
noon-ar.fina
heh-ar
heh-ar.medi
heh-ar.init
heh-ar.fina
waw-ar
waw-ar.fina
peh-ar
peh-ar.medi
peh-ar.init
peh-ar.fina
tcheh-ar
tcheh-ar.medi
tcheh-ar.init
tcheh-ar.fina
rehVbelow-ar
jeh-ar
jeh-ar.fina
veh-ar
veh-ar.medi
veh-ar.init
veh-ar.fina
keheh-ar
keheh-ar.medi
keheh-ar.init
keheh-ar.fina
gaf-ar
gaf-ar.medi
gaf-ar.init
gaf-ar.fina
lamVabove-ar
oe-ar
oe-ar.fina
yeh-farsi
yeh-farsi.medi
yeh-farsi.init
yeh-farsi.fina
yehVabove-ar
yehVabove-ar.medi
yehVabove-ar.init
yehVabove-ar.fina
ae-ar
ae-ar.fina

dolanskurd · January 7, 2022, 7:39pm

Regarding your questions, respectively:

No, In Arabic, the characters have dots above and below on some of their characters. In Kurdish, we have inverted circumflex/diacritic, something like [ ◌̌ ].
Again, No. AE, has the ISOLATED and FINAL forms.
For PEH, you are right, but as far as Arabic and Persian characters mostly are supported, that’s why I only mentioned those not in Kurdish. Most of the Persian and Kurdish characters are the same. Here is a complete list of Kurdish characters:

Character	Unicode	Code Point Name	example
ئ	U+0626	ARABIC LETTER YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE	ئێستا
ا	U+0627	ARABIC LETTER ALEF	دار
ب	U+0628	ARABIC LETTER BEH	باران
ت	U+062A	ARABIC LETTER TEH	تەماتە
ج	U+062C	ARABIC LETTER JEEM	جوان
ح	U+062D	ARABIC LETTER HAH	حەوت
خ	U+062E	ARABIC LETTER KHAH	خاتوون
د	U+062F	ARABIC LETTER DAL	دابان
ر	U+0631	ARABIC LETTER REH	کورد
ز	U+0632	ARABIC LETTER ZAIN	زین
س	U+0633	ARABIC LETTER SEEN	سیمین
ش	U+0634	ARABIC LETTER SHEEN	شیاو
ع	U+0639	ARABIC LETTER AIN	عەرەبی
غ	U+063A	ARABIC LETTER GHAIN	غوربەت
ف	U+0641	ARABIC LETTER FEH	فەڕش
ق	U+0642	ARABIC LETTER QAF	قیست
ل	U+0644	ARABIC LETTER LAM	لێوانلێو
م	U+0645	ARABIC LETTER MEEM	مەم
ن	U+0646	ARABIC LETTER NOON	نێوان
ه	U+0647	ARABIC LETTER HEH	هاوار
و	U+0648	ARABIC LETTER WAW	وریا
پ	U+067E	ARABIC LETTER PEH	پیتۆڵ
چ	U+0686	ARABIC LETTER TCHEH	چوارچێوە
ڕ	U+0695	ARABIC LETTER REH WITH SMALL V BELOW	ڕووبەڕوو
ژ	U+0698	ARABIC LETTER JEH	ژیان
ڤ	U+06A4	ARABIC LETTER VEH	ڤیان
ک	U+06A9	ARABIC LETTER KEHEH	کەرکووک
گ	U+06AF	ARABIC LETTER GAF	گورگ
ڵ	U+06B5	ARABIC LETTER LAM WITH SMALL V	پڵاو
ۆ	U+06C6	ARABIC LETTER OE	دۆلان
ی	U+06CC	ARABIC LETTER FARSI YEH	سیر
ێ	U+06CE	ARABIC LETTER YEH WITH SMALL V	پێرێ
ە	U+06D5	ARABIC LETTER AE	بەهرەمەند

If Arabic and Persian characters are supported, only these six characters needed to be added for Kurdish to be supported:

Character	Unicode	Code Point Name	Example
ڕ	U+0695	ARABIC LETTER REH WITH SMALL V BELOW	ڕووبەڕوو
ڤ	U+06A4	ARABIC LETTER VEH	ڤیان
ڵ	U+06B5	ARABIC LETTER LAM WITH SMALL V	پڵاو
ۆ	U+06C6	ARABIC LETTER OE	دۆلان
ێ	U+06CE	ARABIC LETTER YEH WITH SMALL V	پێرێ
ە	U+06D5	ARABIC LETTER AE	بەهرەمەند

dolanskurd · January 7, 2022, 7:48pm

I’ll try to check and let you know ASAP.

GeorgSeifert · January 7, 2022, 10:00pm

I would put all glyphs that are not in the basic Arabic lists into each language subgroup. This will produce some overlap but that is not a problem.

dolanskurd · January 8, 2022, 9:07am

If the provided list of Arabic range is including the Persian characters also, we need only 6 more characters to support Kurdish as well.

dolanskurd · January 8, 2022, 9:20am

As far as I don’t have a Mac at the moment, I asked a friend to install glyphsapp and check these characters if all the characters included or not. Based on the above screenshot I have got, no. Some characters such as [ ڵ ], has all four different shapes exactly like [ ل ]. Or for [ ڕ ] we need both ISOLATED and FINAL exactly such as characters [ ر ] or [ ژ ] or [ ز ]. For [ ە ] (U+06D5) we have only two possible shapes. ISOLATED and FINAL. In both of them, the following character should NOT join to the next character. only it should be close to it. Some examples: [ بەهار - فەڕەنسا - هەولێر ]. It is different from [ ه / U+0647 ]. HEH will join the the characters after it. But AE should NOT.

Here in this image, I have tried to show all the possible shapes which might have.

If need more clarification, I will try to be available until all misunderstandings will be sorted out.

Thank you all for your efforts and kind assistance in adding support to Kurdish.

dolanskurd · January 8, 2022, 9:52am

General Unicode	ISOLATED	INITIAL	MEDIAL	FINAL
0695	ڕ	-	-	ـڕ
06A4	ڤ	ڤـ	ـڤـ	ـڤ
06B5	ڵ	ڵـ	ـڵـ	ـڵ
06C6	ۆ	-	-	ـۆ
06CE	ێ	ێـ	ـێـ	ـێ
06D5	ە	-	-	ـە

Note that I have used (‎U+0640 - ARABIC TATWEEL) for making INITIAL, MEDIAL, FINAL like for characters.

mekkablue · January 9, 2022, 12:34pm

So, what was missing was:

rehVbelow-ar.fina
lamVabove-ar.init
lamVabove-ar.medi
lamVabove-ar.fina

They will be in the next update.

The image shows initial shapes for rehVbelow-ar (0695) and oe-ar (06C6), but I assume that is a mistake.

dolanskurd · January 9, 2022, 5:48pm

what is wrong with them (0695 and 06C6)? In initial position, they are not join to any character.
The missed ones in your list were:

wrong list of [ ێ ] in all four shapes. they should be exactly like [ ی ] in shape, the difference will be that inverted circumflex.
final [ ڕ ] is not included. YOU MENTIONED IT!
final [ ە ] should be like final [ HEH - ه ] in shape.
Not all four shapes of [ ڵ ] included. This one also is exactly like [ ل ] in shape. the only difference is the inverted circumflex. YOU MENTIONED IT!

mekkablue · January 9, 2022, 7:04pm

I think I have that in my list. Yeh with V above appears as isolated, initial, medial, final:

Same for ae:

Do not trust the preview in the screenshot too much. This is just the representation of the system font, which may not be accurate. Better to look at the names: the suffixes .init, .medi and .fina indicate the position. Isolated is the default (no suffix).

dolanskurd · January 9, 2022, 7:39pm

Oh! thus, everything will be fine with next update. Thank you for your kind efforts.