I just read this article: The Death of the Urdu Script: Can Microsoft and Twitter save the dying Urdu nastaliq script from the hegemony of the Western alphabet and an overbearing Arab cousin?Besides the technical issues, there's an important non-technical one that the author is talking about in this article: Naskh is alien to Hindi-Urdu speakers. And, on the other hand, we know that Nasta'liq doesn't look right to Arabic speakers either.
Now, the questions important to us, Persian speakers, is: how come we get along with both styles? how we balance it out? and how that affects our typography?
To answer the first two, I think it's because we learn writing in Naskh in the first few years of school, and then grow old into Nasta'liq afterwards.
But about the typography, again, going back to one of the first typefaces, Nazanin and Titr, I think these typefaces benefit from both worlds: the alignment of the letters is simply like Naskh, but the shape of the letters are closer to Nasta'liq. This is how our handwriting is, most of the type. Not totally Naskh, not totally Nasta'liq.
And maybe it's the same for ligatures. In Perso-Arabic font families, those with many ligatures give me a non-Persian feeling. This could be because of the fact that these ligatures are based on Naskh style, and rarely appear in Nasta'liq.
Persian went to Naskh (albeit flavored our way) a while back, but Nast'aliq is still our script, I think. I remember sitting in class in Iran with the reed pens we shaved, copying out phrases in calligraphy class (not so well, in my case). And my grandparents' shekasteh looks like a lost art. It'd be nice to get Persian-flavored Nast'aliq produced more reliably on computer. Theoretically, LaTeX would be great for this, but I've never really seen it in action. Farsi Negar comes close...
I just read this article: The Death of the Urdu Script: Can Microsoft and Twitter save the dying Urdu nastaliq script from the hegemony of the Western alphabet and an overbearing Arab cousin?
Besides the technical issues, there's an important non-technical one that the author is talking about in this article: Naskh is alien to Hindi-Urdu speakers.
And, on the other hand, we know that Nasta'liq doesn't look right to Arabic speakers either.
On Monday, October 14, 2013 11:03:21 PM UTC+3:30, Behnam Esfahbod wrote:Yeah, very good article. The need for a Nastaliq style for non-arabs is real. Because best writing systems well suited for running perso-arabic text and without any need for diacritics are Nastaliq and Shikasteh style. I know that most of urdu readers use their ow Nastaliq fonts which in Iran we call it Pakistani Nastaliq. It shows their need to use nastaliq style for publishing, Yet they have newspaper hand written in Nastaliq style.I just read this article: The Death of the Urdu Script: Can Microsoft and Twitter save the dying Urdu nastaliq script from the hegemony of the Western alphabet and an overbearing Arab cousin?Besides the technical issues, there's an important non-technical one that the author is talking about in this article: Naskh is alien to Hindi-Urdu speakers. And, on the other hand, we know that Nasta'liq doesn't look right to Arabic speakers either.Now, the questions important to us, Persian speakers, is: how come we get along with both styles? how we balance it out? and how that affects our typography?We are forced to read naskh without diacritics because it has been implemented in horizontal, rigid metal typesetting environment, and nastaliq dos not fit in that environment.
To answer the first two, I think it's because we learn writing in Naskh in the first few years of school, and then grow old into Nasta'liq afterwards.There are several years in Iran that elementary school books are published in a variation of Nastaliq style (تحریری), and it might be shocking for many that the children could get accustomed to the style in a short period of time without any hassle (if you are interested i'll send some photos)
@Khaled
You pointed a very shocking news to me. I don't think there are many in Iran whom are aware that Nastaliq has been implemented in metal type setting systems. I saw some images in the typophile thread, but could you post more pictures here. I'm sure there are a lot of enthusiasts in Iran to see the publishings.
[snip]
Yeah, very good article. The need for a Nastaliq style for non-arabs is real. Because best writing systems well suited for running perso-arabic text and without any need for diacritics are Nastaliq and Shikasteh style. I know that most of urdu readers use their ow Nastaliq fonts which in Iran we call it Pakistani Nastaliq. It shows their need to use nastaliq style for publishing, Yet they have newspaper hand written in Nastaliq style.
Besides the technical issues, there's an important non-technical one that the author is talking about in this article: Naskh is alien to Hindi-Urdu speakers.
Are you sure about this? all Indian/Pakistani mushafs I have seen are written in so-called Indian Naskh (hand written, not typeset).