[sampo]

Apparently Nastaʿlīq was (a) developed in Iran (which is not an Arab country), and although it was developed as a combination of Nasḫ (Naskh) and Taʿlīq scripts, (b) it was never really used in the Arab lands, but in the Persian, Turkic, and South Asian spheres of influence.

So if the people in Pakistan feel that Nastaʿlīq is "their own" writing system and Naskh symbolizes Arab imperialism, in my opinion they have all the rights to feel that way.

Really, even if the script evolved from Arabic script, that was 700 years ago, and what matters in this matter is how the people feel about their letters today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasta%CA%BFl%C4%ABq_script

[thaumasiotes]

> what matters in this matter is how the people feel about their letters today

Sure. It's a political decision. alieteraz even states that the reason he feels strongly about font choice is politics, and observes that current Pakistanis (overall) want to Arabize more than they already have. But for some reason, the article's arguments amount to "naskh is ugly", which is completely irrelevant to the dispute. (There's also a weird idea that nastaliq presents such insurmountable technical challenges that even if Pakistanis strongly preferred it, for example if naskh was viewed as an affront to Pakistani culture, there would still be no reliable way to type in it. And also that various organizations, from Pakistani governmental departments to Microsoft, have already implemented nastaliq fonts.)

This reminds me quite strongly of Megan McArdle's observation that when an election is actually about gentrification, the attack ads focus on ineffable concepts like "respect", because it's not felt to be workable to say "we want the whites to stop moving in, and in fact we also want the ones who are already here to get out". If you want to fight for Pakistani separation from the Arab cultural sphere, say so, and point out the problems with Arab cultural affiliation. If alieteraz is a true weirdo and Pakistan's choice of font matters more to him than its cultural orientation, he still needs to make the argument for separating from the Arab world, because, as he points out himself, what's actually happening is that the people of Pakistan want to Arabize further.

[alieteraz]

The "people of Pakistan" are not a monolith. So some of them want Arabization and some do not and some want Westernization and so forth. As for the ugliness of naskh, its not that naskh is ugly, its that the naskh based mutant on digital devices is ugly. Also angular Urdu, generally speaking, is dissonant and hard to read for Urdu speakers. Here is an email I got since last night:

Hey Ali,

I loved your essay on The Death of Urdu Script. Nastaliq was the default script when reading Urdu books in schools. Therefore, I am so used to reading Urdu in Nastaliq that I cannot read properly in Naskh. And because I am a tech entreprenuer who works online, I am forced to read Urdu in Naskh. Therefore, over years I have lost interest in the Urdu language.

If Nastaliq is revived and becomes a common script online, I will be sure to read Urdu more.

[thaumasiotes]

Psychologists in the Dark Time did experiments that showed people couldn't read ALL CAPITAL LETTERS as easily as they could read lowercase. From that, in a wild leap of imagination, they concluded that lowercase letters were easier to read than capitals.

Unsurprisingly, that was garbage. Later psychologists easily documented that the reason test subjects read lowercase text faster was because they were used to it -- the advantage of lowercase quickly erodes as the subjects gain practice reading capitalized text.

What I'm saying is, this problem:

> I am so used to reading Urdu in Nastaliq that I cannot read properly in Naskh

is imaginary, not real.

> The "people of Pakistan" are not a monolith. So some of them want Arabization and some do not and some want Westernization and so forth.

Note how I summarized you as saying "current Pakistanis (overall) want to Arabize". Who's winning? If you're angry about being on the losing side, whining about ugly fonts is misplaced. Whine about the thing you're actually upset about.

[g8oz]

>>Who's winning? If you're angry about being on the losing side, whining about ugly fonts is misplaced. Whine about the thing you're actually upset about.

Now you're just being mean. He's advocating (not whining) for a positive step forward. A step that has some political overtones, but also some cultural and artistic merit.

[thaumasiotes]

As I read it, he's not advocating for a step forward, he's advocating against taking a step backward. He wants things to stay as they are instead of shifting toward greater Arabic idenitification.

However, he's chosen to make his battle over an issue of no significance whatsoever. Because it's so insignificant, it's a proxy that reflects the issue he actually cares about, the cultural orientation of Pakistan. But the causality here is all in the other direction. Preventing people from taking umbrellas with them when they leave the house won't stop it from raining, even though people taking umbrellas with them when they leave the house reflects that it's likely to rain later. This is both dishonest and fundamentally misguided. I don't appreciate the dishonesty, so I'm taking a snappy tone. But I'm also offering what I see as good advice -- that if he actually cares about the culture issue, he shouldn't go taking dramatic stands on fatuous proxies. He should make arguments that address the culture issue. Political battles happen over innocent proxies all the time, but the proxy battle is never won on its own terms; it's won or lost based on how the issue it was a proxy for ended up.

So:

1. If alieteraz cares about the culture issue, fighting over a font won't win the battle or lose the battle. It's wasted energy, and it will anger people looking for sincerity in their position pieces. (Personally, I have no intimate connection to Pakistan, broadly but weakly believe that it would be a bad idea for it to shift towards the Arab world, and place great value on sincerity and honesty over BS.)

2. If alieteraz really, truly cares about the font, identifying font choice with Arabization is the worst thing he could possibly do, as it will likely tie the outcome to whether Pakistan decides to make the cultural shift.

Therefore, 3. In no case is this essay a good idea.

Furthermore, I don't get at all what he's trying to say about the technical difficulties of implementing a nastaliq font. He seems to contradict himself in multiple ways within the body of the essay. I don't like that either.

[sampo]

How do you know which percentage of Pakistanis want to Arabize? Do you have some sources?

[alieteraz]

Note the frowny face. He's a Pakistani.

https://twitter.com/kamilwaheed/status/481792094135009280