Dictionary of Meaning

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Complex Text Layout languages

*** Shopping-Tip: Complex Text Layout languages
'''Complex Text Layout languages''' (frequently referred to as '''CTL languages''') are languages whose writing systems require complex transformations between text input and text display for proper rendering on the screen or the printed page. In other words, for these languages there may be a difference between the way text is stored and the way it is displayed. The term is used in the field of software internationalization. Examples of CTL languages are Arabic language Arabic, Hebrew language Hebrew, Hindi language Hindi, and Thai language Thai. The main characteristics of CTL language complexity are: * Bi-directional text, where characters may be written from either right-to-left or left-to-right direction. * Context-sensitive shaping, where character may changes its shape, depends on its location and/or surrounding characters. For example, a character in Arabic script can have four different shape forms, depending on context. * Ordering, the displayed order of the characters is not the same as the logical order. For example, in Hindi, which is written from left to right, the matra for "short i" appears to the left ("before") the preceding vowels. To translate this effect into Roman characters, it is as if "hindi" was written "ihndi" but still alphabetized with other words beginning with "h".

See also
* CJK * Unicode * Typography

External links

- Examples of complex rendering — SIL International's examples of complex writing systems around the world
- Complex Text Layout — The Open Group's Desktop Technologies
- Supporting Indic Scripts in Mozilla — also other CTL scripts
- Project SILA — Graphite (SIL) Graphite and Mozilla intergration project
- CTL Architecture in Solaris — Solaris Globalization Whitepapers
- Complex Scripts — Microsoft Global Development and Computing Portal
- Theppitak's Homepage — information about Thai language processing Category:Computational linguistics Category:graphical user interface th:Complex Text Layout