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