Arabic Script

Pretty simple question , why is Arabic script and any modifications of it written in such small print? It is torture to the eyes

So the disease is spreading

It's a computer font issue, not preference. In fact, each symbol is almost exactly the same size as each letter you're reading right now in English. What happens is that, unlike print English, Arabic font normally connects each letter one after the other. These extensions and ligatures are actually counted as part of the whole letter, like say a full and complex character in an East Asian language, and so it is scaled to fit these connections in each space a letter is coded to take up.

For an easy way to see what I mean, type something in an editor and then change the font to cursive. Notice how it gets smaller despite the font size option remaining the same. It's the same principal at work.

Originally Posted by Sher Khan

For an easy way to see what I mean, type something in an editor and then change the font to cursive. Notice how it gets smaller despite the font size option remaining the same. It's the same principal at work.

That's not really a good example. Fonts often have radically different sizes even in the same point, I mean not all serif fonts are the same size as each other.

Originally Posted by Ardruire Iacób

That's not really a good example. Fonts often have radically different sizes even in the same point, I mean not all serif fonts are the same size as each other.

This is because serif and sans-serif fonts aren't true cursive fonts like standard Arabic. They tend not to be in the same font family. There are a lot of cursive imitations, but these are usually serif fonts that have flourishes independent of any placement context and have a static system of ligatures connecting each letter.

Another point which makes Arabic seem smaller is the size discrepancy between two letters within the same language. A capital 'W' and a lower-case 'i' vary in size, but such extremes are rare in the Latin alphabets. Usually words in English involve size differences between an E and an a, which isn't as extreme.

Arabic however has about equal numbers of large letters and minuscule letters, but the small letters are very commonly used like English vowels are. Thus, scaling these letters tends to make large letters as big (or even bigger) as the largest English letters but the smallest ones are tiny in comparison.

I'm over-complicating the problem actually. The most basic reason why Arabic computer script is tiny compared to Latin script is simple: the entire alphabet is scaled according to Aleph, and Aleph itself is scaled according to x-height rather poorly. It's size is closer to lower-case letters when it should have been larger. The rest of the Arabic alphabet can then be scaled off of it and so appear equivalent in size to the Latin script using the same x-height. Properly scaled fonts exist but they are frankly uncommon on the Arabic market.

It appears as little blocks anyways