Thanks for all the interest and suggestions. I'm gradually trying to follow up on them.
Here are screen shots of the same screen in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. The xterm window used to do the captures covers only a non-text area of the screen. The buttons at the bottom have 2-line text.
<<english.png>> <<hebrew.png>> <<arabic.png>>
I don't read Arabic or Hebrew. While we're at it, could someone confirm whether the Arabic and Hebrew lines go properly RTL?
I tried fc-list with several of its options on my system and got no output at all. I'll continue with some of the other suggestions next.
Attachment:
english.png
Description: english.png
Attachment:
hebrew.png
Description: hebrew.png
Attachment:
arabic.png
Description: arabic.png