OT: Arabic and IE (Re: Re: Weekly Vocab #2)

----- Original Message -----
From: Robert B Wilson
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
Sent: Sunday, April 06, 2003 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: Weekly Vocab #2

<completely unrelated question>
why the heck is IE's find dialog box giving me options like 'Match kashida'
and 'Match alef hamza'???
</question>

<answer>
That means your browser is ready for Arabic webpages! You can search for the
kashida (or tatweel), which is an extension of the written Arabic word which
is used for spacing and has no phonetic value (it's a connecting underscore,
basically), and alef hamza is the letter alef with the hamza (the
non-connecting vertical stroke with a value of either /?/ or /a:/), or
glottal stop sign, either above or below the alef.
</answer>