Re: lyrics for right-left writing systems such as hebrew or arabic

[Richard Schoeller]

One common approach when combining a right-to-left language with 
left-to-right musical notation is to render each syllable of the lyrics 
right-to-left but have the overall flow of the music left-to-right.  I 
haven't tried this with any of the stuff that I've done (I present the 
lyrics in transliteration).  So, I can't tell you how well this works in 
LilyPond.

address@hidden wrote:
> Dumb question, some (perverse?) writing systems are contrary to western
> music notation, assuming we allow full unicode lyrics, how does one set
> hebrew or arabic lyrics to western music?
>
> Only way I can think of is to (have the user) transliterate phonetically
> into the roman alphabet, as in -
>
>   hava nagila, hava nagila...
>
> I realize this presents certain cultural issues, but what is a music
> typesetting program to do?  I suppose it could be rewritten to set the
> music right-left, but that could be a bit challenging to the members of
> the band...
>
>