<div>Siavash, Daniel, </div><div> </div><div>Thank you for your clarifications, I will research both problems further. I've also contacted my former professor of linguistics to ask for her advice and guidance on terminology and available data. I hope to access some formalised knowledge on variants in different languages and scripts and will naturally share any discoveries and data with the mailing list. </div>
<div> </div><div>Regards,</div><div>Nadya<br><br><br></div><div class="gmail_quote">2011/6/23 Siavash Shahshahani <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:shahshah@irnic.ir">shahshah@irnic.ir</a>></span><br><blockquote style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid;" class="gmail_quote">
Hello Nadya,<br>
Just one remark about a part of your comments (since you asked to be<br>
corrected about this):<br>
<br>
On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 11:46:17 +0100, Nadya Morozova<br>
<<a href="mailto:nad.morozova@gmail.com">nad.morozova@gmail.com</a>><br>
wrote:<br>
<br>
> I don’t speak Arabic ...<br>
<br>
Nor do I and some 300 million other people who use the so-called Arabic<br>
script, but not the Arabic language. And that is a major part of the<br>
variant problem in Arabic script. Just as Latin script is used by a number<br>
of varied languages, so is Arabic script.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
>From what I see, most “variants” in Arabic scripts stem from the optional<br>
> tashkeel diacritics modifying consonant letters to show which vowels to<br>
</div>> read them with. ...<br>
<br>
No, there are more vital problems. There are even consonants with<br>
different Unicodes that look exactly the same when they occur in certain<br>
parts of the word (e.g., at the beginning and middle, but not at the end of<br>
a word). And what is more, some dozen country names considered as IDN TLDs<br>
contain one or more of these characters, hence the need for variant TLDs.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
<font color="#888888">Siavash<br>
</font></blockquote></div><br>