[OS X TeX] Typesetting classical Arabic commentary

[Musa Furber]

Perhaps an example of how it is current done in English will help. The 
current practice is this:

	(m: The author, following the traditional taxonomy begins,
	saying:) Water is divided into four types. (m: The first is)
	Pure (m: in and of itself) and purifying (m: for other
	substances): it is plain water (m: i.e., water that is free of
	any essential qualifiers).

Where commentary text is between parenthesis, with the text immediately 
following the opening parenthesis indicating its source, e.g., (m: .... 
).

In the Arabic version the basic text is between parenthesis, opposite 
of the English version. The traditional Arabic version is likely to 
appear as:

	Water is divided into four types. Pure and purifying: it is plain 
water.
	...

	The author, following the traditional taxonomy begins,
	saying: (Water is divided into four types.) The first is
	(Pure) in and of itself (and purifying) for other
	substances (: it is plain water) i.e., water that is free of
	any essential qualifiers(.)

The parenthesis format is ugly, but it at least preserves an essential 
feature of this type of commentary: it can be read aloud. Footnotes 
break the flow too much.

This works well in Arabic. I'm not sure it will work well at all in 
English.

Regards,
Musa

On 26 Aug 2004, at 16:18, William F. Adams wrote:

> On Thursday, August 26, 2004, at 04:38  AM, Musa Furber wrote:
>
>> A typical Arabic commentary is of the format
>> 	(A) abcdef (B) abcdef ...
>> where the primary text is printed within parenthesis and the 
>> commentary without.
>>
>> It is common to have the primary text printed alone in the margin and 
>> the commentary (along with the primary text) within the main text 
>> block.
>>
>> I looked at LEDMAC. From what I can tell, I could use LEDMAC for this 
>> if I can turn off line numbering, footnote reference numbers, and 
>> print the entire basic text (chunk by chunk) in the lemas.
>
> Oh.
>
> What's not working about using marginpars?
>
> Hmm, the Memoir class has a ``sidebar'' which fills from top to bottom 
> --- have you tried that?
>
> Should the text in the margin be continuous? How should paragraphs be 
> inserted?
>
> If you could post a small text sample which exhibits some of the 
> special cases it should be possible to work something up (though I 
> really think ledmac should be customizable enough).
>
> William
>
> -- 
> William Adams, publishing specialist
> voice - 717-731-6707 | Fax - 717-731-6708
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>
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