Artwork by Noureddine Daifallah

London has a sizeable Arabic population, and a few areas of high density (the area around Edgware Road is the best known, with a long established Arabic community). So it’s surprising to find out that the Shubbak festival this month is London’s first ever Arabic arts festival.

The festival of contemporary Arabic arts will take place in 30 different venues across the city, and encompass literature, film, visual art, music, performance and discussions – and promises to be a fascinating window onto Arabic culture for all Londoners, Arabs and non-Arabs alike.

As London-based journalist Nahla Al-Ageli puts it:

London has for many years been fully engaged with the deeper exchange of cultural, artistic and sometimes even political understanding between the Arab world and Britain… [Shubbak] is an opportunity not just for the Middle Eastern curious, but for resident Arabs keen to learn more about their own region and share in its accomplishments.

At WorldAccent, the manager of our typesetting studio told me that he was interested in seeing Khatt, an exhibition of contemporary Arabic calligraphy by Moroccan Noureddine Daifallah, and a double-bill of modern Arabic dance at the Lilian Baylis Theatre. “I’m interested in calligraphy and choreography,” he explained, “so those were the events I homed in on.”

Calligraphy and choreography? At first I thought: that’s an unusual combination. But then he went on to explain: the cursive, fluid letterforms of Arabic calligraphy seem almost to be in motion – they make you think of rhythm, stress and flow. For him, Arabic calligraphy seems to have the spirit of dance within it.

Flow and continuity seem inherent in Arabic script – and of course, that has made the development of Arabic typesetting systems much more difficult that for scripts based on separate letterforms. But these qualities are integral to the beauty of the script.

• Shubbak: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture takes place at various locations across London from 4 July until 24 July 2011. TimeOut London have produced a handy guide to the festival [PDF]

As Slate notes, in an interesting explanatory article on this, “A variety of systems exist to Romanize Arabic letters and words, but there is no dominant one.” Almost a decade ago, Brian Whitaker writing on the transliteration of Arabic in the Guardian pointed out many competing systems exist, and predicted that the spread of the internet and databases would only make matters worse:

This leaves plenty of scope for scholarly debate, with the result that there are now many supposedly international standards.

One of the earliest was that adopted by the International Convention of Orientalist Scholars in 1936. Another was agreed in 1971 at a conference of Arab experts in Beirut and accepted – at least in theory – by the countries of the Arab League.

Besides these, there is ISO 233, DIN 31635 and even a British standard, BS 4280… Slightly more successfully, the US Library of Congress and the American Library Association have issued “Romanisation tables” covering more than 150 languages and dialects (including Arabic) that are written in non-Roman scripts.

All of this tends to explain the variations in the transliteration of Gaddafi’s name. In fact, one website lists some 32 different versions. As an excellent blog by the editor of the Middle East Journal points out, due to regional pronunciation variations:

Tripoli sounds more like Tunis, Benghazi sounds more like Alexandria; the area in between, where Brother Colonel was born, sounds more like the Sahara. Libyans don’t even agree on how to pronounce their leader’s name, let alone spell it in Roman character.

Differences in pronunciation help to explain some of the other variation seen in the romanised spellings of Gadhafi. A clue as to why the AFP version is so different lies in their full unabreviated name: Agence France-Presse. Their romanisation actually rests on a francophone pronunciation.

An interesting problem this sometimes raises in our Arabic translation of business cards and the like is the lack of reversibility. Having the transliteration of a name does not always allow you to recreate the correct spelling in the original language. This can be an issue for multinational companies: one possible scenario being a UK office producing bilingual business cards for several people with a mixture of English and Arabic names. In this case, it becomes crucial to have the name in its native language as well as any pre-existing transliteration.

Of course, this is in no way a new problem. One famous exchange on Arabic transliteration between T.E. Lawrence and his proofreaders in 1926, begins:

Publisher: I attach a list of queries raised by F. who is reading the proofs. He finds these very clean, but full of inconsistencies in the spelling of proper names, a point which reviewers often take up. Will you annotate it in the margin, so that I can get the proofs straightened?

Lawrence: Annotated: not very helpfully perhaps. Arabic names won’t go into English, exactly, for their consonants are not the same as ours, and their vowels, like ours, vary from district to district. There are some ‘scientific systems’ of transliteration, helpful to people who know enough Arabic not to need helping, but a wash-out for the world. I spell my names anyhow, to show what rot the systems are.

The business demand for any particular language can ebb and flow but, perhaps not surprisingly, one that’s busier than ever is Arabic. After all, Arabic is the official language of 26 countries, the first language of nearly 300 million people and a second language of nearly 280 million more. Our studio often find themselves working away on several Arabic typesetting projects at any given time. Given this expertise, I’ve been reflecting on the broader history, my pick of professional Arabic fonts and how the field is developing.

First, the present day. An interesting current trend is the design of Arabic fonts tailored to match an existing English typeface. These create powerful fonts which can be used to set both Arabic and English in harmony. So, for instance, Lucas Fonts have developed “TheSans Arabic” as part of their Thesis project, or font “superfamily”.

Meanwhile Linotype have developed one Arabic font around Neue Helvetica, and a second around Frutiger. These modern Arabic fonts follow the harsh geometries of their Roman equivalents. They have a corporate feel, and would make a great choice for signage.

The fonts also include support for Farsi and Urdu (although Urdu only in the form of Naskh rather than the more reader friendly Nastaliq – a distinction I’ll elaborate on at another time).

Arabic typesetting font
Of course, Linotype have also developed some excellent uniquely Arabic fonts, such as the Lotus, Badr and the ever-popular Yakout. I should add – before this starts sounding like an advert for Linotype – there are several great Arabic font designers and foundries working away. In fact, we are luckly enough to have hundreds of their creations.

For those thinking about dipping their toes in the waters of Arabic design or DTP, it’s worth pointing out that these fonts will not work correctly in the English versions of InDesign or Quark out of the box. You need to gain access to the World Ready Composer, and be able to access some specific Arabic features. Adobe has licensed the creation of InDesign ME (Middle East), a special version to deal with the additional demands and complexities of Arabic typesetting, which is always recommended for large projects. This is one of the reasons why many designers chose to get someone else to do their Arabic typesetting, receiving back outlined Arabic text within Indesign.

Traditional Arabic?
If that’s a glimpse of the future, what about the past? Those who are interested in the development of Arabic typefaces and calligraphy should definitely settle down to read the excellent article on ilovetypography.com, “Arabic calligraphy as a typographic exercise”. Although as the article points out in its introduction, “Arabic calligraphy” is a hybrid term more suited to English.

The article outlines some of the considerable history behind Arabic styles of script such as Kufic, Naskh, Thuluth and Diwanii. Of these, Naskh is the most widely used style of Arabic script in newspapers, magazines, promotional materials and adverts while Thuluth remains important as an ornamental scripts, used for calligraphic titles and inscriptions.

For even more on the history of Arabic typesetting, I enjoyed reading about one of the first books printed in the Middle East with an Arabic typeface. A fascinating historical read, the article identifies why Gutenberg’s press was not widely adopted in the Middle East:

“Arabic letters are generally not written separately but joined to each other in groups or entire words, like a script typeface in English. And though the Arabic alphabet has only 28 letters, most letters have four forms, depending on whether they occur at the beginning of the word, in the middle of the word, at the end of the word, or stand alone.

Furthermore, each combination of letters is unique, creating a typographic challenge greater than Chinese. Because all letters connect dynamically with the preceding one, and most also with the following one, the number of unique combinations is almost astronomical.”

Of course, none of this background reading is strictly necessary but by understanding the history of Arabic typesetting I believe we can strive to make our work of today that bit better and more sympathetic. What’s more, I think it’s fascinating stuff and hope you enjoy it too!

As the originator of the collection, translator Denys Johnson-Davies, explains
“people who live there now … should know that there was something there before – that people didn’t really have enough to eat et cetera et cetera, but that they had their own culture.”

Many of the contributors were already well known in other roles, including a vice chairman of the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority, a former editor of Emirati newspaper Al-Ittihad and the editor of Gulf News. Equally many of the stories were written by previously unknown authors. As the collection’s compiler, Johnson-Davies hunted this latter group down through the internet and word of mouth.

He describes the book’s Arabic stories as:

“I was looking for stories about the sea. I knew that these people were pearl fishers, they were making a living out of ordinary fishing and so on and so forth. That they had their birds, their hawks and all this, and that this was their traditional life. And I found it very attractive…”

Johnson-Davies himself has had an interesting career as an Arabic to English translator. In fact, he was described by the late Edward Said as “the leading Arabic-English translator of our time”.

Born in Canada, Johnson-Davies split his childhood between Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and English public school. In a bizarre story, he left boarding school at age fourteen because they didn’t allow him to play squash, and instead took the entrance exam for Cambridge University which he went up to aged only 16. This story and more are detailed in his memoir, “Memories in Translation: A Life between the Lines of Arabic Literature”. In fact, this book is more than an entertaining account of an unusual life, having also been described as a “a useful introduction to modern Arabic literature”.

To sum up, for those interested in Arabic literature or Arabic to English translation, this seems an interesting collection from a fascinating character – well worth a look.

Followers of the Eton Institute will get a daily lesson, containing an English transliteration of an Arabic phrase. Starting with simple words such as “hello” and “goodbye”, the lessons purport to develop into more advanced real world scenarios including work, school, travel and so on.

The institute’s Managing Director added: “Learning the Arabic language doesn’t have to be a chore. By offering short and easy to remember lessons on Twitter we hope to make the learning process as simple as a ‘tweet’ which can be followed on a daily basis.”

Some may have their doubts about learning even the most rudimentary knowledge of a foreign language in such a simplified way. Combined with other resources on the internet to aid with pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, however, it may be an interesting way for a complete novice to dip their toe in the Arabic water.

The lessons start on 1 September. If you want to see how it works out, simply follow EtonInstitute on Twitter.

In the end the deal did not go through as Zabeel are looking to concentrate on investing in property and tourism nearer home. It all made me think about how, in this time of world economic gloom, oil rich Middle East companies look set to try to diversify.

In the United Arab Emirates alone, there is currently around £200 billion worth of active construction projects while the Dubai International Financial Centre aims to massively expand the financial sector with tax, rent and regulatory breaks. Meanwhile the Palm Islands are a massive real estate and tourism development – the largest land reclamation project in the world, increasing Dubai’s shoreline by 520 km. All of this has made the United Arab Emirates one of the fastest growing economies in the world, with some estimates putting GDP growth in 2006 at a staggering 35 percent.

The vast sums of money are not restricted to the Arab world as business opportunities are sought out around the world. So we see Barclays bank raising £7.3 billion from Middle East investors. Other famous names that have seen an influx of Arabic capital include P&O, Aston Martin and Madame Tussauds.

In these times of doom and gloom news stories, it’s no wonder that such growth, investment and let’s face it, plain cash, is catching people’s attention and many other companies have their eyes set on pulling in some of that investment.

All of which probably goes to explain why we have been inundated with Arabic translation and typesetting over the last few weeks!