Small circles should only appear below initial & medial forms of KASHMIRI YEH

[r12a]

Defect Report

Font

Noto Naskh Arabic v2.017
Noto Sans Arabic v2.011
Noto Kufi Arabic v2.108

Where the font came from, and when

https://github.com/notofonts/arabic/releases/tag/NotoKufiArabic-v2.108 etc. this week

OS name and version

MacOS Ventura 13.6

Issue

ؠ U+0620 ARABIC LETTER KASHMIRI YEH in Noto Sans Arabic, Noto Naskh Arabic, and Noto Kufi Arabic all show circles below all positional forms. Kashmiri is normally written using Nastaliq style fonts, and they only show circles below the initial and medial forms.

The other 24 non-nastaliq arabic fonts i checked only show circles below initial and medial forms (which is what i expected).

Steps to reproduce
https://r12a.github.io/pickers/arab-ks/index.html?text=%D8%A0%D8%A0%D8%A0%20%D8%A0
https://r12a.github.io/pickers/arab-ar/index.html?text=%D8%A0%D8%A0%D8%A0%20%D8%A0

Screenshot

Noto Naskh Arabic

Scheherazade New

Noto Nastaliq Urdu

[khaledhosny]

From Unicode Core Spec p. 392–393:

U+0620 ARABIC LETTER KASHMIRI YEH is used in Kashmiri text to indicate that the preceding consonantal sound is palatalized. The letter has the form of a yeh with a diacritic small circle below. It has the YEH joining group, with the shapes as shown in the fifth row of Table 9-10. However, when Kashmiri is written in Nastaliq style, the final and isolated forms of kashmiri yeh usually appear as truncated yeh shapes without the diacritic ring.

[khaledhosny]

The other 24 non-nastaliq arabic fonts i checked only show circles below initial and medial forms (which is what i expected).

Are you sure about that? It is a character most Arabic fonts do not support, so you might be getting it from a fallback font for all these fonts.

[r12a]

Thanks @khaledhosny. The app i used was indeed substituting fonts (which it's not supposed to do; i'll look into it). However, Scheherazade New does appear to render circles only in 2 positions. I'll talk to the Unicode folks about the spec text. In the meantime, i'll close this issue and reopen again if i have more information.

[r12a]

I'm reopening this issue after a lot of investigations by myself and other Unicode folks in 2024 resulted in the following changes to the text in The Unicode Standard (my emphasis):

U+0620 ARABIC LETTER KASHMIRI YEH is used in Kashmiri text to indicate that the preceding consonantal sound is palatalized. The letter has the form of a yeh with a diacritic small circle below in initial and medial forms, but its final and isolated forms appear as truncated yeh shapes (ؠ) without the diacritic ring. It has a joining group of its own, KASHMIRI YEH, with the shapes as shown in Table 9-10, as well as Table 9-7. (Prior to Version 16.0, the Unicode Standard had specified that when written in the Naskh style, the letter had different shapes than when written in Nastaliq style; that specification was erroneous.)
https://unicode.org/versions/Unicode16.0.0/core-spec/chapter-9/#G37640 (6th paragraph)

The latest versions of the following fonts still don't do the right thing:
Noto Naskh Arabic v2.019
Noto Sans Arabic v2.012
Noto Kufi Arabic v2.109
Noto Naskh Arabic UI v2.017
Noto Sans Arabic UI v2.011

Tests:
https://r12a.github.io/pickers/arab-ar/index.html?text=%D8%A0%D8%A0%D8%A0%20%D8%A0&font=Noto_Naskh_Arabic

https://r12a.github.io/pickers/arab-ar/index.html?text=%D8%A0%D8%A0%D8%A0%20%D8%A0&font=Noto_Sans_Arabic

https://r12a.github.io/pickers/arab-ar/index.html?text=%D8%A0%D8%A0%D8%A0%20%D8%A0&font=Noto_Kufi_Arabic

https://r12a.github.io/pickers/arab-ar/index.html?text=%D8%A0%D8%A0%D8%A0%20%D8%A0&font=Noto_Naskh_Arabic_UI

https://r12a.github.io/pickers/arab-ar/index.html?text=%D8%A0%D8%A0%D8%A0%20%D8%A0&font=Noto_Sans_Arabic_UI

Compare with
https://r12a.github.io/pickers/arab-ks/index.html?text=%D8%A0%D8%A0%D8%A0%20%D8%A0

Can we please remove the circles from initial and medial forms.