For some of the lesser-known languages of Nepal, Devanagari script is used
but due to phonological differences it gets extended in ways not found in
the better-known languages of India that use Devanagari. There are two
specific issues that need to be addressed: (1) Limbu glottal; (2) nukta on
vowels.
(1) The first problem is the need for a glottal character for Limbu (ie,
Limbu language written in Devanagri script, as opposed to Limbu script,
which already has a symbol for glottal). The Limbu language committee has
decided that this character should be represented using what looks pretty
much like the IPA glottal symbol (U+0294), though in a Devanagari font it
would have to be designed to match Devanagari characters.
The question is whether there is any problem using U+0294, and whether
proposing a Devanagari-specific character would be a better option. One
particular problem I can think would be likely to occur would be rendering
engines such as Uniscribe or whatever is coded into host environments like
Java for "Hindi" support would not be able to cope with U+0294 occuring in
the midst of a Devanagari sequence. E.g. I could easily imagine something
like Uniscribe failing to reordering U+093F before a glottal U+0294.
Should we try to educate and convince implementers of the need to allow
U+0294 to be reckoned as part of the Devanagari script, or should we
propose a new Devanagari glottal character?
(I guess on the principle of unifying across languages but not across
scripts, it could be argued that a new character should be proposed.)
(2) The second problem involves nukta (U+093C). In better-known languages,
nukta can occur only on consonants, but for certain lesser-known
languages, it can occur on vowels as well. Yet some implementations might
not recognise a sequence like < consonant, vowel, nukta > as valid. For
instance, I understand that if Uniscribe encountered such a sequence, it
would assume you've left out a consonant immediately before the nukta,
and it would display a dotted circle to indicate where a missing base
character should go.
Our people in South Asia have told me the nukta can occur on vowels in the
range U+093e..U+094c, though my contact has told me that he himself has
only seen this on 093E, 0940, 0941 and 094B.
So, I'm curious to know what implementations people know of that *would*
or *would not* handle nukta on vowels, as is needed for such languages.
- Peter
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Peter Constable
Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
Tel: +1 972 708 7485
E-mail: <peter_constable@sil.org>
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