Right-to-Left Hebrew Fonts for the Amiga
by Simcha Kuritzky

This disk contains two sets of right-to-left fonts:  Hebrew (including
Yiddish and Judeo-Arabic), and Torah (including Modern printed 
Hebrew, Medieval Hebrew, and Paleo-Hebrew).  These fonts were 
created using Calligraphy, and were made to go from right to left by 
making the kerning negative.  They can be viewed but not edited  
successfully using Fed.  They will not be visible in NotePad, but will 
work in ProWrite, with the caveat that you must have something to 
type over.  This means that you must first enter spaces or tabs before 
attempting to type anything in a right-to-left font.  For your 
convenience, the space character (alt-space or alt-b in the Torah 
fonts) has been redefined as being an average word-length left-to-
right space.  This enables you to insert right-to-left text in a left-to-
right document by simply switching fonts, typing a space, and then
typing the right-to-left word.  The right-to-left space is available as 
the alt-space.

The other major limitation to these fonts is that they will not line  
wrap.  Hence, they are most useful for inserting a word here and 
there as versus actual Hebrew or Yiddish word processing (right-to-
left word processors are available on both the PC and Macintosh,
but I have been  unable to find one on the Amiga).  I have 
successfully printed out text using ProWrite on an HP Laserjet.  I do 
not know how other word processors or printers react to the fonts.

The characters are designed to be entered using map usa0.  Because 
this map does not properly handle the keypad keys, I have created a 
new map called usa00, which has been included on this disk.  It 
should be copied to the devs:keymaps directory.  It is invoked by 
going to the System: directory and typing Setmap usa00 (you may 
wish to include this in your start-up sequence).

The Hebrew fonts were designed to fit the Israeli keyboard as 
implemented by MegaWriter on the PC.  That is, the 22 standard 
Hebrew letters plus 5 finals are the unshifted characters, the dagesh 
(pointed) forms are the shifted characters, and the nekudot (vowel 
points) are alternate characters.  Unlike MegaWriter, however, this 
font comes with a full complement of numerals, punctuation, and 
special characters, for Hebrew, Yiddish (Judeo-German) and Judeo-
Arabic.  Also, the characters come in two widths:  regular and narrow.  
Narrow is approximately half the width of regular.  The vowel points 
for the regular characters use alternate characters, while the same 
vowel points for the narrow characters use shifted alternate characters.

The vowels are designed to overstrike the last entered character, except 
for the holem which follows a lamed, which appears after the lamed.  
The "shtrikl" or over-line is also entered after the letter.  There are 
three styles of quotation marks:  the single quote, which can be used to 
indicate a numeral in Hebrew or to create foreign-equivalent letters; 
the high double quote, which can also be used to indicate a numeral in 
Hebrew or it can be used as an ending quote; and the low double quote, 
which is a beginning quote.  In the RtoL-Hebrew fonts, the space 
character is a 5 character-wide left-to-right space, giving space to 
overtype; and the alt-space or alt-b is the right-to-left space.  Micro-
adjustment characters are the alternate `, 1, 2, and 3, which are right-
to-left 1, 2, 4, and 8 pixels, respectively.  The alternate shifted forms 
are left-to-right micro-adjustment characters.  In the Torah fonts, alt-b 
is the left-to-right space which is almost 40 characters wide, and there 
are no micro-adjustment characters (see File_Formats for more details 
on the Torah fonts).

Below is a chart showing all of the letters in this font, grouped 
alphabetically.  The letters are written right to left, but their 
descriptions are left to right (i.e., 3 2 1 1 2 3).  Also shown are a small 
number of characters which must be generated by typing two 
characters.  The Yiddish characters' names are shown in italics.  If the 
dagesh form changes the sound of the letter, then that letter's name is 
given, otherwise the word "(dagesh)" appears, indicating that the letter 
is simply pronounced as both the ending to one syllable and the 
beginning of the next.  To see the keyboard equivalents of these letters, 
simply change the font on the desired letter(s) to an English font.   
Letters have the sound of the first letter of their name; vowels have the 
sound of the underlined vowel in their name.

   t�T�t��t�       Aleph, Aleph-Lamed, Pasekh-Aleph, Kawmetz-Aleph
   C�c�c_    Beyt, Veyt, Veyt
   d�D�d'    gimmel, (dagesh), foreign "j"
   s�S�s'�sza       dalet, (dagesh), Judeo-Arabic "dh", "j"
1   v�V�v'       heh, (dagesh), abbreviation for God's Name
   u�U�O��       vov, (dagesh) or melupn vov, holem vov, tzvey vovn
   z�Z�z'�za       zayin, (dagesh), foreign "zh", "zh"
   j�j'    khet, Judeo-Arabic aspirated "h"
   y�Y�y'�ya       tet, (dagesh), Judeo-Arabic "tz", "tch"
   h�H�h�����     yod, (dagesh), hiriq yod, tzvey yodn, pasekh tzvey yodn
   F�f�f_�l�L     kaf, khaf, khaf, final khaf, final kaf (rare)
   [�{      final khaf with shva, and with kawmetz
   k�K��    lamed, (dagesh), Slavic "ly"
   n�N�o    mem, (dagesh), final mem
   b�B�i    nun, (dagesh), final nun
   x�X      samekh, (dagesh)
   g���g'      'ayin (glottal stop), disappearing "e", Judeo-Arabic "gh"
   P�p�p_�;�:      pey, fey, fey, final fey, final pey (rare)
   m�M�m'      tzadi, (dagesh), foreign "ch" or Judeo-Arabic "dz"
   e�E      kuf, (dagesh) [usually transliterated "q"]
   r�R      resh, (dagesh)
   aA�wW�qQ      shin, (dagesh), shin, (dagesh), sin, sin (dagesh)
   <�,�,_�,'      tof, sof (in Israel tof), sof, Judeo-Arabic "th"

Vowel signs (shown with aleph and nun)

   t��b�      pasekh "ah"
   t��b�      hataf pasekh "ah" (syllable not emphasized)
   t��b�      kometz "aw" (in Israel, often pronounced "ah")
   t��b�      hataf kometz "aw" (syllable not emphasized)
   t��kt��kb�      holem "oh" (in Israel, pronounced "aw")
   t��b�      hiriq "ee"
   t��b�      shva (silent or very short "i")
   t��b�      tzere "ey" (in Israel, pronounced "eh")
   t��b�      segol "eh"
   t��b�      hataf segol "eh" (syllable not emphasized)
   t��b�      kubutz "oo"