Marco.Cimarosti@icl.com wrote:
>
> I am gradually developing the impression that the spelling of modern Indic
> languages occasionally needs old graphies (ligatures, etc.) in quotations
> from "classical" sources.
<explanation snipped>
I understand your point, and I certainly can understand it.
However, can we consider this is typical of a _rendering_ problem, which
can then be easily dealed with with various fonts. No?
When we were developping ISO 15924, Michael E. insisted on having a
different code for Gaelic Latin as opposed to normal Latin.
In TrueType Open / OpenType, there are different codes for Traditionnal
vs. "Reformed" Malayalam. All of these appear to me as mechanisms to
deal with that sort of problems.
Perhaps we should consider adding new codes for both forms of Tamil
and of Devanagari --this leads to a on-going discussion in the
ad hoc "UniGlyph" list-- (and perhaps also Bengali, as I understand
things); butsuich codes should be added in the relevant standards,
i.e. ISO 15924 or OpenType.
> This does not parallel with the Western usage of "classical" quotations:
> when we occasionally use Latin expressions in modern language, we write them
> in a modernized spelling. E.g., we normally write "vice versa", "jus primae
> noctis", etc., using "v", "j", "ae" in place of "u", "i", "æ"; and we
> certainly don't try and revive the hundreds ligatures of old Latin
> manuscripts and incunabula.
I think, this is only because the latter would appear as pedantic
according to our present norms. The same norms which make that Sanskrit
or Greek quotations have to appear in the original script when in scholar
works (and in translitterated rather than transcripted form in "normal"
works).
Antoine
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