ISO/IEC 8859-6:1999, ''Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 6: Latin/Arabic alphabet'', is part of the
ISO/IEC 8859
ISO/IEC 8859 is a joint ISO and IEC series of standards for 8-bit character encodings. The series of standards consists of numbered parts, such as ISO/IEC 8859-1, ISO/IEC 8859-2, etc. There are 15 parts, excluding the abandoned ISO/IEC 8859-12. ...
series of ASCII-based standard
character encoding
Character encoding is the process of assigning numbers to Graphics, graphical character (computing), characters, especially the written characters of Language, human language, allowing them to be Data storage, stored, Data communication, transmi ...
s, first edition published in 1987. It is informally referred to as Latin/Arabic. It was designed to cover
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
. Only nominal letters are encoded, no preshaped forms of the letters, so shaping processing is required for display. It does not include the extra letters needed to write most Arabic-script languages other than Arabic itself (such as Persian, Urdu, etc.).
ISO-8859-6 is the
IANA
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Interne ...
preferred charset name for this standard when supplemented with the
C0 and C1 control codes
The C0 and C1 control code or control character sets define control codes for use in text by computer systems that use ASCII and derivatives of ASCII. The codes represent additional information about the text, such as the position of a cursor, ...
from
ISO/IEC 6429
ISO/IEC JTC 1, entitled "Information technology", is a joint technical committee (JTC) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Its purpose is to develop, maintain and pr ...
. The text is in logical order, so
BiDi
A bidirectional text contains two text directionalities, right-to-left (RTL) and left-to-right (LTR). It generally involves text containing different types of alphabets, but may also refer to boustrophedon, which is changing text direction in eac ...
processing is required for display. Nominally ISO-8859-6 (code page 28596) is for "visual order", and ISO-8859-6-I (code page 38596) is for logical order. But in practice, and required for HTML and XML documents, ISO-8859-6 also stands for logical order text. There is also ISO-8859-6-E which supposedly requires directionality to be explicitly specified with special control characters; this latter variant is in practice unused. IBM has assigned code page/
CCSID
A CCSID (coded character set identifier) is a 16-bit number that represents a particular encoding of a specific code page. For example, Unicode is a code page that has several encoding (so called "transformation") forms, like UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF ...
1089 to ISO 8859-6. It is an emulation for their
AIX
Aix or AIX may refer to:
Computing
* AIX, a line of IBM computer operating systems
*An Alternate Index, for a Virtual Storage Access Method Key Sequenced Data Set
*Athens Internet Exchange, a European Internet exchange point
Places Belgium
...
operating system.
ISO-8859-6 is now
technologically obsolete
Obsolescence is the state of being which occurs when an object, service, or practice is no longer maintained or required even though it may still be in good working order. It usually happens when something that is more efficient or less risky r ...
, and
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
is preferred in modern applications, especially on the Internet; meaning the dominant
UTF-8
UTF-8 is a variable-width encoding, variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit'' ...
encoding for web pages (see also
Arabic script in Unicode
Many scripts in Unicode, such as Arabic, have special orthographic rules that require certain combinations of letterforms to be combined into special ligature forms.
In English, the common ampersand (&) developed from a ligature in which the ha ...
, for complete coverage, unlike for e.g. ISO-8859-6 or
Windows 1256
Windows-1256 is a code page used under Microsoft Windows to write Arabic and other languages that use Arabic script, such as Persian and Urdu.
This code page is ''neither'' compatible with ISO-8859-6 nor the MacArabic encoding.
Windows-1256 en ...
that do not cover extras). Less than 0.0002% of all web pages use ISO-8859-6, and it isn't even the third-most popular encoding option for Arabic on the web.
History
ASMO 708 was devised by the now defunct
Arab Standardization and Metrology Organization
The Arab Organization for Standardization and Metrology (french: Organisation arabe de normalisation et de métrologie, es, Organización Arabe de Unificación de Normas y Metrologia), also known as Arab Organization for Standardization and Measur ...
[Le codage informatique de l’écriture arabe : d’ASMO 449 à Unicode et ISO/CEI 10646](_blank)
/ref> in 1986 to be the 8-bit standard to be used in Arabic-speaking countries. The design of this character set was inspired by the previous 7-bit standard — ASMO 449
ASMO 449 is a, now technologically obsolete, 7-bit coded character set to encode the Arabic language.
History
This character set was devised by the now extinct Arab Standardization and Metrology Organization in 1982 to be the 7-bit standard to be ...
— but it is not simply the 7-bit character set moved to the upper part; there are some differences.
ASMO 708 is a ''bidirectional'' character set. The lower part of the character set differs from standard ISO 646
ISO/IEC 646 is a set of ISO/IEC standards, described as ''Information technology — ISO 7-bit coded character set for information interchange'' and developed in cooperation with ASCII at least since 1964. Since its first edition in 1 ...
in the digits and in some punctuation. Depending on the context (whether the numbers are within Latin script or Arabic script), the digits are rendered either as Latin digits or Arabic digits. Also, depending on the context, symmetrical punctuation marks are reversed, i.e., whenever there is an opening punctuation mark, the shape is rendered differently according to the direction of the script.
The upper part of the character set has only the Arabic letters, Arabic punctuation that is different from Latin punctuation, plus few other characters.
ASMO 708 was designed in close cooperation with ECMA, which adopted it as its own ECMA-114 standard in 1986. It was also approved as an ISO standard
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Art ...
as ISO 8859-6. It was also registered in the International Register of Coded Character Sets
ISO/IEC 2022 ''Information technology—Character code structure and extension techniques'', is an ISO/IEC standard (equivalent to the ECMA standard ECMA-35, the ANSI standard ANSI X3.41 and the Japanese Industrial Standard JIS X 0202) in the f ...
as IR 127 in 1986.
Relationship with other character sets
Some other character sets are related to ASMO 708:
*ASMO 708/French 1 Action selection is a way of characterizing the most basic problem of intelligent systems: what to do next. In artificial intelligence and computational cognitive science, "the action selection problem" is typically associated with intelligent agen ...
[Printronix ACA Emulation Programmer’s Reference Manual](_blank)
/ref> adds French lower case characters;
*French 1/ASMO 708
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...
adds French lower case characters in their ISO 8859-1 code points and ''dislocates'' the Arabic ones;
* ISO/IR 167Arabic/French/German Set
/ref> adds French and German characters;
*Microsoft’s code page 708 Code page 708 (also known as CP 708, IBM 00708) is a code page used under DOS to write Arabic.
Character set
The following table shows code page 708.
References
{{character encoding
708
__NOTOC__
Year 708 ( DCCVIII) was a leap year star ...
, for MS-DOS, adds French characters in their typical code points from code page 437 and adds box-drawing characters;
*Both Microsoft’s code page 710
In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...
(Transparent Arabic) and Microsoft’s code page 720 Code page 720 (CCSID 720) (also known as CP 720, IBM 00720, and OEM 720) is a code page used under DOS to write Arabic in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. The Windows (ANSI) code page for Arabic is Windows-1256.
Character set
Each char ...
(Transparent ASMO), for MS-DOS, add French characters in their typical code points from code page 437 but ''dislocates'' the Arabic characters to allow the box-drawing characters from code page 437 to be in their original code points;
*Microsoft’s Windows 1256
Windows-1256 is a code page used under Microsoft Windows to write Arabic and other languages that use Arabic script, such as Persian and Urdu.
This code page is ''neither'' compatible with ISO-8859-6 nor the MacArabic encoding.
Windows-1256 en ...
adds French lower case characters in their Windows 1252
Windows-1252 or CP-1252 (code page 1252) is a single-byte character encoding of the Latin alphabet, used by default in the legacy components of Microsoft Windows for English and many European languages including Spanish, French, and German.
It i ...
code points and ''dislocates'' the Arabic ones;
Code chart
Code values 0xEB–0xF2 are assigned to combining character
In digital typography, combining characters are characters that are intended to modify other characters. The most common combining characters in the Latin script are the combining diacritical marks (including combining accents).
Unicode also ...
s.
See also
*ASMO 449
ASMO 449 is a, now technologically obsolete, 7-bit coded character set to encode the Arabic language.
History
This character set was devised by the now extinct Arab Standardization and Metrology Organization in 1982 to be the 7-bit standard to be ...
*ISO 8859
ISO/IEC 8859 is a joint ISO and IEC series of standards for 8-bit character encodings. The series of standards consists of numbered parts, such as ISO/IEC 8859-1, ISO/IEC 8859-2, etc. There are 15 parts, excluding the abandoned ISO/IEC 8859-12 ...
*Windows-1256
Windows-1256 is a code page used under Microsoft Windows to write Arabic and other languages that use Arabic script, such as Persian and Urdu.
This code page is ''neither'' compatible with ISO-8859-6 nor the MacArabic encoding.
Windows-1256 ...
(Windows Arabic codepage)
References
External links
ISO/IEC 8859-6:1999
8-Bit Single-Byte Coded Graphic Character Sets - Latin/Arabic Alphabet ''2nd edition (December 2000)''
ISO-IR 127
Right-Hand Part of Latin/Arabic Alphabet ''(November 30, 1986)''
{{DEFAULTSORT:ISO IEC 8859-6
ISO/IEC 8859
Computer-related introductions in 1987