Ah, it can be hard to tell. Hebrew can look different: there's the 'script' version and the 'printed' version, and oftentimes they leave the vowels markers out completely (as in your t-shirt). Apparently, if you know the language well enough you can deduce the vowels from the consonent order.
It doesn't help that Israelis love to mess with fonts. There's a Pizza Hut in Tel Aviv with a logo so fucked up that I don't think it's legible in English or in Hebrew.
The main thing to look for is flow: even in the script version of Hebrew, the characters are not connected and they're blockier. Arabic looks more like cursive.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2009-01-07 02:00 am (UTC)Ah, it can be hard to tell. Hebrew can look different: there's the 'script' version and the 'printed' version, and oftentimes they leave the vowels markers out completely (as in your t-shirt). Apparently, if you know the language well enough you can deduce the vowels from the consonent order.
It doesn't help that Israelis love to mess with fonts. There's a Pizza Hut in Tel Aviv with a logo so fucked up that I don't think it's legible in English or in Hebrew.
The main thing to look for is flow: even in the script version of Hebrew, the characters are not connected and they're blockier. Arabic looks more like cursive.
-- JF