https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2262410
--- Comment #18 from Oleg Oshmyan chortos@inbox.lv ---
but the problem is that Noto Sans Arabic isn't for ar only. this was why I removed it there.
FYI I believe Fontconfig allows multiple language tags to be specified per font. I suspect this is probably what should be done here: list all the system locales for which Sans Arabic should be the default.
I must also say I'm confused by the it's-Fontconfig-it's-libass back-and-forth earlier in this discussion. For a start, the lang element has been removed, so it makes no difference whether libass or Fontconfig handle it or ignore it. At the same time, if the element is restored, it's been shown that the font configuration does work as expected in libass, so this tells us that *either* (or both) Fontconfig or libass handle the tag but doesn't tell us which of the two does it. As a matter of fact, Fontconfig's pattern substitution is the one that handles the tag in this scenario, but Fontconfig doesn't remove the font from the complete font list seen by libass: it would be impossible to render Arabic subtitles if it did.