Rendering of ו עם חולם
Daniel Shahaf
d.s at daniel.shahaf.name
Sat Jan 13 19:52:25 IST 2018
tl;dr: Rendering of וֹ looks wrong in LibreOffice Writer in many fonts
I was trying to print a word with niqqud in LibreOffice Writer. The word in
question has a חולם מלא. In most fonts, that holam rendered above the ו and
slightly to its left, rather than directly above it, making it look more like a
ו with חולם חסר (a /vo/ sound) than like a ו being a mater lectionis (part
of a long /o/ sound of the preceding consonant).
This happened in every font I tried except for one.¹
Looking in unicode —
$ unicode HOLAM | me
U+05B9 HEBREW POINT HOLAM
UTF-8: d6 b9 UTF-16BE: 05b9 Decimal: ֹ Octal: \02671
ֹ
Category: Mn (Mark, Non-Spacing)
Unicode block: 0590..05FF; Hebrew
Bidi: NSM (Non-Spacing Mark)
Combining: 19 (?)
U+05BA HEBREW POINT HOLAM HASER FOR VAV
UTF-8: d6 ba UTF-16BE: 05ba Decimal: ֺ Octal: \02672
ֺ
Category: Mn (Mark, Non-Spacing)
Unicode block: 0590..05FF; Hebrew
Bidi: NSM (Non-Spacing Mark)
Combining: 19 (?)
U+FB4B HEBREW LETTER VAV WITH HOLAM
UTF-8: ef ad 8b UTF-16BE: fb4b Decimal: וֹ Octal: \0175513
וֹ
Category: Lo (Letter, Other)
Unicode block: FB00..FB4F; Alphabetic Presentation Forms
Bidi: R (Right-to-Left)
Decomposition: 05D5 05B9
U+05D5 HEBREW LETTER VAV
UTF-8: d7 95 UTF-16BE: 05d5 Decimal: ו Octal: \02725
ו
Category: Lo (Letter, Other)
Unicode block: 0590..05FF; Hebrew
Bidi: R (Right-to-Left)
— I'm guessing that a וֹ (U+05D5 + U+05B9) should render with the point directly
above the letter, whereas וֺ (U+05D5 + U+05BA) should render with the point to
the north-northwest of the letter. Is that right? (If it is, then fonts that
render U+05B9 to the northwest of the letter should receive bug reports.)
Cheers,
Daniel
¹ Noto Sans Hebrew rendered it correctly. (I'm not affiliated with the makers
of that font.)
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