Zero-Width Joiner U+200D

Jukka K. Korpela jukkakk at gmail.com
Tue Feb 21 03:19:13 CST 2023


Andreas Prilop via Unicode (unicode at corp.unicode.org) wrote:

I think that
>
>     U+FECC
>     medial ain
> and
>     U+200D U+0639 U+200D
>     ZWJ, ain, ZWJ
>
> should look the same, regardless of surrounding text and direction.
>

The Standard says at 23.2:
“U+200D zero width joiner is intended to produce a more connected rendering
of adjacent characters than would otherwise be the case, if possible.
[...]
In a sequence like <X, ZWJ, Y>, where a cursive form exists for X but not
for Y, the presence
of ZWJ requests a cursive form for X. Otherwise, where neither a ligature
nor a cursive connection
is available, the ZWJ has no effect.”

My interpretation of this is that ZWJ should have no effect when it does
not appear between two graphic characters.

In practice, browsers treat the use of ZWJ at the start or end of a string
in various ways. For example, Word shows U+200D U+0639 U+200D as
initial-form ain, BabelPad as medial-form. When I use Gmail on Chrome, I
get ‍ع‍, i.e. medial-form, but who knows what it will look like in other
environments.

Jukka
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