Ghost Characters Theory

Arabic script was historically a “dot lass” script. . This means that a single shape may have different sounds depending on the word. Dots were added with the purpose of the dot was to sit on a shape (some may say it basic or ghost shape or kashti) and to depict its phonetic status. After the placement of dots, non-native reader can easily understand the text without any hit and trial because dots are sufficiently depicting the exact sound of the character.

Later on, when new languages adopted Arabic script as their script of choice a new problem arose and that was un-available sounds (phonemes) For example, the Urdu has a sound exactly equal to sound of “p” in English but Arabic language has no such sound and there is no means to depict this sound. Again Nuqta comes to rescue, taking the basic shape of bay and placing three dots beneath it solved this problem.

Dr. Attash Durrani’s Ghost Characters Theory were included in the international standard of fonts/characters UNICODE but partially i.e. the dot less character set was completed by including dot less Bay, Fey and Quaff in the UNICODE Version 3.1. But there was no room for dots and no Unicode number were allotted to the dots and other atoms.

Nuqtas are also present in Quran as separate characters like 1, 2, and 3 nuqtas above & below used separately.

Ghost Characters Theory got accepted and all the proposed characters were given 08 place on UNICODE.

According to the proposal 22 additions were requested. They have taken the name and tried to align them with the notion of being spacing characters. The names are also updated to the usual style for such Characters, beginning with Arabic for the script, and then annotated where appropriate for the particular language. Unicode Consortium has allotted alphabet status to various shapes of dots on the proposal of Dr. Attash Durrani, National Language Authority of Pakistan where R&D on Urdu language is underway at the Centre of Excellence for Urdu Informatics.

This is a turning point in the history of Arabic fonts. Any character/letter for any language based on the Arabic script. There are only 44 atomized or Ghost Characters can be normalized or formed by these 43 characters, hence no need of different font for different languages. Any Pakistani language or Right to left written script's font developer or linguist can derive any character having any atom-combination.

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