Ducky's Paper for History of the Book

Assertions:

• written Arabic is different from spoken Arabic
• Arab culture discourages most art forms, leaving calligraphy as its highest(?) form
• literacy is low in Arabic-speaking countries
  • literacy went up in Turkey after switching to modified Latin alphabet
  • caveat: huge educational push at same time
• number of books published in Arabic is low
• Koran oral
• Koran not translated into vernacular
• British fired all Ottoman printers
• Lebanese civil war
• typography is a PITA (look up Thom's paper)
• Sharia is oral law (Messick?)
• typography: start and stop lines different
• type expensive
  • multiple letterforms
  • LOTS of ligatures
  • vowel points

• General paper on Arabic, lots of yummy refs, says MSA is lingua franca (local copy on slug)
• http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&q=cache:MjN_bR3LUIoJ:www.nclrc.org/nectfl04ls.pdf+written+spoken+arabic+dialect
  • strategies of learning Arabic, says MSA intelligible to most but only educated can speak it
• text-to-speech paper, lots of yummy info poorly cited http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://www.amideast.org/publications/arabic-language.pdf
• http://www.springerlink.com/(xnucyy452wc3v1fejtifig45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,5,5;journal,41,53;linkingpublicationresults,1:104271,1
  • better comprehension with vowelpoints than without -- local arabicStudentsWithVowels.pdf
• http://www.springerlink.com/(jmwvvszstby2szuxhv2dwr55)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,6,7;journal,50,53;linkingpublicationresults,1:104271,1
  • more accurate reading with vowelpoints than without -- local arabicAccuracyVowels.pdf
• reformation in Turkey (alas, wrong date) local copy

• THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN THE FORMATION OF TURKISH NATIONAL IDENTITY AND TURKISHNESS -- interesting stuff about history of language reform in Turkey

• Arabic Typography KOERNER LIBRARY stacks Z251.A6 A24 2001
• The Turkish language reform : a catastrophic success / Geoffrey Lewis. Koerner PL115 .L47 1999

Elizabeth Eisenstein recommends:

• Technology and Religious Change: Islam and the Impact of Print, Francis Robinson, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1, Special Issue: How Social, Political and Cultural Information Is Collected, Defined, Used and Analyzed. (Feb., 1993), pp. 229-251. -- local copy on slug
• Francis Robinson, "Technology and Religious Change: Islam and rhe Impact of Print," MODERN ASIAN STUDIES Vol 27 (Feb 1993) 229-251 and Juan R.I.Cole,"Printing and Urban Islam..." MODERNITY AND CULTURE ...ed. Leila Tarazi Fawaz, et.al. (Columbia U,2001) KOERNER DS57 .M63 2002