Fresh Fonts 1/freshfonts1.bin/programs/amiga/hebrewbible/documents/rtol_hebrew.ascii

Text File | 1992-05-17 | 6KB | 116 lines

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.

   tâTâtäâtá       Aleph, Aleph-Lamed, Pasekh-Aleph, Kawmetz-Aleph
   Câcâc_    Beyt, Veyt, Veyt
   dâDâd'    gimmel, (dagesh), foreign "j"
   sâSâs'âsza       dalet, (dagesh), Judeo-Arabic "dh", "j"
1   vâVâv'       heh, (dagesh), abbreviation for God's Name
   uâUâOâõ       vov, (dagesh) or melupn vov, holem vov, tzvey vovn
   zâZâz'âza       zayin, (dagesh), foreign "zh", "zh"
   jâj'    khet, Judeo-Arabic aspirated "h"
   yâYây'âya       tet, (dagesh), Judeo-Arabic "tz", "tch"
   hâHâhÚâèâÈ     yod, (dagesh), hiriq yod, tzvey yodn, pasekh tzvey yodn
   Fâfâf_âlâL     kaf, khaf, khaf, final khaf, final kaf (rare)
   [â{      final khaf with shva, and with kawmetz
   kâKâë    lamed, (dagesh), Slavic "ly"
   nâNâo    mem, (dagesh), final mem
   bâBâi    nun, (dagesh), final nun
   xâX      samekh, (dagesh)
   gâçâg'      'ayin (glottal stop), disappearing "e", Judeo-Arabic "gh"
   Pâpâp_â;â:      pey, fey, fey, final fey, final pey (rare)
   mâMâm'      tzadi, (dagesh), foreign "ch" or Judeo-Arabic "dz"
   eâE      kuf, (dagesh) [usually transliterated "q"]
   râR      resh, (dagesh)
   aAâwWâqQ      shin, (dagesh), shin, (dagesh), sin, sin (dagesh)
   <â,â,_â,'      tof, sof (in Israel tof), sof, Judeo-Arabic "th"

Vowel signs (shown with aleph and nun)

   täâbÄ      pasekh "ah"
   tæâbÆ      hataf pasekh "ah" (syllable not emphasized)
   táâbÁ      kometz "aw" (in Israel, often pronounced "ah")
   tóâbÓ      hataf kometz "aw" (syllable not emphasized)
   tñâkt÷âkb×      holem "oh" (in Israel, pronounced "aw")
   túâbÚ      hiriq "ee"
   tøâbØ      shva (silent or very short "i")
   tôâbÔ      tzere "ey" (in Israel, pronounced "eh")
   tåâbÅ      segol "eh"
   tòâbÒ      hataf segol "eh" (syllable not emphasized)
   tãâbà      kubutz "oo"