Omniglot - the blog

Name the style of calligraphy

Simon on 01 Oct 2006

Language and Quiz questions | Comments (15)

15 Responses to “Name the style of calligraphy”

1. gee on 01 Oct 2006 at 1:28 pm #

   Looks like Arabic. Diwani style?

2. Ramses on 01 Oct 2006 at 1:39 pm #

   Or Persian, of course…

3. AR on 01 Oct 2006 at 4:17 pm #

   I think it is Diwani, the Turkish calligraphy. Since it is round, it might be the Moorish kind too. There is the letter “heh” in the middle and “hah” at the outside. It also looks like it could have the letter “sin” and maybe “beh”.

4. AR on 01 Oct 2006 at 4:21 pm #

   Just a hunch—Could it say “Shah Abbas”? I think the letters areشحابپهس .

5. Ben L. on 01 Oct 2006 at 5:17 pm #

   I believe it might be simply Arabic “Allah”. The style doesn’t seem much different than standard Arabic calligraphy, for one. A few points:

   1) Alif is not a connecting letter (i.e. it will have no ligature to the following letter), which might ake you think the first letter couldn’t be alif. Alif must, however, connect at the bottom, which this initial doesn’t do, reopening the possibility that it is in fact alif. The ligature we do see, in that case, would be purely decorative.

   2) Instead of sin, look at the long and short lines around the center and imagine them as two lams. Note they both have bottom ligatures on either side.

   3) Notice the sheddah slightly above left of center. This indicates a double lam, as in “Allah”.

   4) Finally, ha is often written cursively without a distinct loop, much like the “camel hump” we see. I admit it might look like ra or even sin’s loop, I think though that in this case “Allah” is the best guess.

6. TJ on 01 Oct 2006 at 8:54 pm #

   Ben L. got it! :)
   it is “Allah”
   and the style is as gee said! ….. it is Diwani! :)

   What do you think Simon? To whom the gift now shall be going!????

7. TJ on 02 Oct 2006 at 2:52 am #

   By the way I should thank my brother for writing this piece!
   he also wrote for me the word Allah in other styles like: tholoth, and Farsi (or what’s also called Nasta`liq) … and also another one in Diwani other than this one! :)

8. Simon on 02 Oct 2006 at 9:17 am #

   No gifts are on offer here I’m afraid, but would gee or Ben L. like to come up with a question for this week’s quiz?

9. TJ on 02 Oct 2006 at 12:59 pm #

   Oh by the way, the small “H” and the “V” like shape in the picture are actually for ornamentation, but sometimes they can be used as a guide to identify the letters in the main piece itself … like the small “H” is written under the last “H” in Allah to make the viewer identify that letter in the main word.
   The “V” is not a real guide, but someone told me before that it used to have a meaning but I don’t know what is that!
   If the style was “Diwani Jaley” you would see lot of V’s and small dots and also a 6-like shaped ornamentations! … which makes the reading even harder if you’re eyes are not trained. We could have hard time reading a word if it is written in such styles and our eyes are not trained on the general shape of the word or the sentence they are written in!

10. Laci the Hun on 02 Oct 2006 at 6:23 pm #

    oh it was fairly easy :D
    by the way ramaDaan kariim :D (for those muslimuun who are fasting like me)

11. TJ on 02 Oct 2006 at 7:18 pm #

    >> Luci: Mubarak `Alayki Al-Shahr (Blesses of the month may fall upon you!) :)

12. Laci the Hun on 03 Oct 2006 at 8:03 pm #

    shukran :) afhamt klamek, liish atkallam °arabii :D (qliilan)

13. TJ on 03 Oct 2006 at 11:15 pm #

    haha!
    وأنا كذلك فهمتك

    can you read this?? :D

14. Laci the Hun on 04 Oct 2006 at 6:17 pm #

    aiwa! mashii mushkil yaa ekhii :) ( walaakin Hruuf Sghiira jiddan)
    qult: wa ana kedhaalik fahamtek :D (=and I understand you)

    ash hadha “haha”? °alaash ka-tDHiksh?

15. parkbench on 04 Oct 2006 at 11:59 pm #

    Ah, damn my behindednessitude on the omniglot blog! I recognised this the moment I saw it.

    Al kham du li-llah!

    (ps: is there an arabic IME? i need it.)