[Wylug-help] Urdu Support

[Aaron Crane]

david powell writes:
> On Saturday 14 January 2006 11:21 pm, Thomas Porteus wrote:
> > have just started learning Urdu at school and want to be able to
> > type it on linux. Ive had a google but nothing jumps out. Im using
> > Ubuntu 5.10 and ive installed all the correct fonts (i think).

This might help:

  http://www.urduweb.org/wiki/UbuntuLinux

> if i recall correctly urdu is written back to front form the way
> english is written or is that just chinese and arabic ?

The Urdu script is ultimately based on the Arabic script (via the
Persian script), so, yes, it's written right-to-left.

Chinese was traditionally written vertically rather than horizontally,
with the columns arranged right-to-left (top-right first, then
top-to-bottom).  Most modern usage writes Chinese top-left first then
left-to-right, same as the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, and Devanagari
scripts.  Japanese and Korean are like Chinese: traditionally top-right
then top-to-bottom, but nowadays usually top-left then left-to-right.

Arabic, Hebrew, and other Semitic scripts are top-right first, then
right-to-left.

Mongolian and Phags-Pa are top-left first, then top-to-bottom.

Bottom-to-top scripts seem extremely rare; apparently the ancient Berber
script is one example.

A number of ancient languages (notably early Semitic ones including
Phoenician, as well as Hungarian runes) were typically written
boustrophedon: alternating lines of left-to-right and right-to-left,
like inkjet printers.  Many of the boustrophedon scripts also reversed
the shape of the letters on alternate lines.  The term "boustrophedon"
comes from Greek for "as the ox turns"; it's the same way an ox would
pull a plough through a field.  Many early Greek inscriptions are
boustrophedon.

-- 
Aaron Crane