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From: alderson@netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: Arabic dots
In-Reply-To: millert@grad.csee.usf.edu's message of 26 Oct 1994 01:20:52 GMT
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Date: Wed, 26 Oct 1994 17:28:35 GMT
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In article <38katk$1gj@mother.usf.edu> millert@grad.csee.usf.edu
(Timothy Miller) writes:

[Regarding the Arabic writing system:]

>And how are b, t, and th related such that they would have the same symbol
>with different numbers of dots? 

Well, in the Latin alphabet, how are p, b, d, and q related such that they are
the same except for orientation?

Answer:  They aren't, except through the exigencies of history.  Or, "it's
conincidence."
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_
