Add Kurdish Support

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.

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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.

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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
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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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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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.

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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!

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).

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

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