In a message dated 2001-11-25 10:19:59 Pacific Standard Time,
mrasool@sancharnet.in writes:
> This time i will raise the old issue with a new perspective and with more
> practicality. The Unicode encoding is meant to help people around the world
> to use characters in their own language besides English. But ,
unfortunately
> this is not the case for Hindi , the third largest spoken language of the
> world( spoken in around 10 countries). This is so because the Unicode
> encoding for the Devnagari script has failed to do just this. The script
that
> is used for writing this language , i.e. Hindi and around 8 other
languages.
Unfortunately, Arjun has never presented any evidence that Unicode does not
properly support the Devanagari script or any languages written in it, nor
that he understands the Unicode Standard or the character-glyph model enough
to see why it does. All he has shown is that specific glyphs for half-forms
are not separately encoded, which we already know and which is a moot point.
> Is this some kind of conspiracy to keep the use of Indic scripts from the
Unicode system to the minimal.
Normally a "conspiracy theory" statement of this sort is grounds for
immediate dismissal of the author, his message and any subsequent messages on
the topic. However, in hopes that Arjun can be persuaded to consider the
facts of Unicode, I will continue to address his points.
> This is because the Unicode system does not
> provide means and ways to display and even more importantly store
characters
> for Devnagari in the way they should be(and the way in which they are used).
There is always room for different interpretations, in character encoding and
other aspects of life, of how things "should be." While it is almost
certainly true that neither ISCII nor Unicode is a perfect system --
perfection, after all, is hard to find these days -- they are both fully
capable of supporting Devanagari, given sufficient rendering technology.
> The people want a script system that they can use for every purpose (
> displaying , encoding new fonts, databases and every other purpose under
the
> sun) and not just for displaying characters (which unfortunately is left to
> the mercy of the OS manufacturers) , even this function of it being not
used
> properly.
Unicode is NOT primarily a display or font technology. To claim that it is
merely reinforces that Arjun has not bothered to learn anything about Unicode.
> If anybody wants to see how the Devnagari encoding of Unicode should
> actually look like , they can visit http://www.bharatbhasha.com and
download
> a font named Shusha .If they are not able to do this they can send me a
> private e-mail at mrasool@sancharnet.in and i will send them the font file
> for Windows in an attachment.
> The above mentioned mentioned font has not been developed by me and
> therefore should not be confused as a promotion through this forum.
Custom fonts and font switching are NOT the way to achieve interoperable
encoding. Someone who professes an interest in database storage should be
especially aware of this. The Vietnamese, who have relied for years on
specialized fonts, are moving away from them and towards Unicode, and are
experiencing significant improvements in interoperability.
Please visit www.unicode.org and read at least some of the Unicode Standard
and Technical Reports, and then come back with specific questions or concerns
about Devanagari that reference the standard or show some knowledge of it.
Please do not repeat the blanket claim that Unicode is inadequate to support
Hindi (et al.) because half forms are not separately encoded.
-Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Sun Nov 25 2001 - 16:27:26 EST