RE: Bengali script - where is "khanda ta"?

From: Apurva Joshi (apurvaj@microsoft.com)
Date: Sun May 19 2002 - 18:29:58 EDT


I don't consider myself an expert on Indic scripts, but here is what I
know related to the half vs halant forms being discussed.

ISCII expects an 'Explicit Halant' to be used to display the halant
forms of consonants. Sample sequence that is expected to display the
first consonant in its halant form:
Ka Halant Halant Ta -> KaHalant Ta

While to retain the half form of a consonant, a 'Soft Halant' is
expected, thus:
Ka Halant Nukta Ta -> KaHalf Ta

Somnath Kundu-ji,
Would you please give an example in Bangla (a conjunct, or a word that
contains this conjunct) where the 'half' form of Ta is used, and how
this half form is expected to be displayed?
I believe Bangla does not have distinct half forms (as in
Devanagari/Gujarati); and that halant forms are hence also considered
half forms. The khanda Ta is used in both cases as shown by words like:
mahotsav (where the khanda Ta is used as half form), vidyut (where the
khanda Ta is used as a halant form) etc.
Also, Bangla is known to have continued its use of the traditionally
rich conjunct ligatures it shapes into. So the use of such halant forms
(as half forms) is limited to displaying conjuncts that are not natively
used by the Bangla language.

Thanks, -apurva

-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Ewell [mailto:dewell@adelphia.net]
Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 4:12 PM
To: Unicode List
Cc: Somnath Kundu
Subject: Re: Bengali script - where is "khanda ta"?

<snip>

This mailing list gets a LOT of questions asking why Indic
half-consonants and other forms (such as khanda-ta) aren't separately
encoded in Unicode. The Unicode model for Indic scripts is supposedly
based on ISCII-1988. How were these problems handled in ISCII? Do
users of ISCII have the same problems? Are there significant
differences between the ISCII and Unicode approach to these issues, and
if so, should Unicode spell out more explicitly what those differences
are? (The FAQ talks rather generally about "in some cases" and "in
other cases.") Or are these questions being asked by people who have
previously used ASCII-hacked font solutions instead of ISCII?

-Doug Ewell
 Fullerton, California



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