From: Marco Cimarosti (marco.cimarosti@essetre.it)
Date: Wed Nov 06 2002 - 05:12:31 EST
Victor Campbell wrote:
> I'm looking for help with converting the text of a Sanskrit
> trading card to
> Unicode. I am not connected with the publisher of the card, just a
> programmer who helps support a site for collectors.
>
> I have set up a test page for experimenting with the
> Devanagari Unicodes at
> this address: http://victor.flaminio.com/aa_MySanskrit.html
|| 1. This is what I want: Fungal Shambler
This is NOT what you want! :-)
You say that you want a vocalic-L (U+090C, decimal 2316), but the glyph I
see in the picture is a CONSONANT LA (U+0932, decimal 2354).
The LA glyph in the Sanskrit 98 font looks different from the LA glyph in
the Unicode charts: in your font, the right side of the letter is rounded,
while on the charts it is straight line. But it is nevertheless the same
letter, coming in two slight typographic variants.
Notice that vocalic L has a "tail" under the letter: *that* is an essential
trait, and the characteristics that distinguishes the consonant from the
vowel.
|| . This I get instead of what I want.
||
|| pha anusvara ga la virama sha ma virama ba virama [ZWJ] vocalic-l ra
virama
|| फंगल्शम्ब्ऌर्
||
फंगल्शम्ब्‍
;ऌर्
The sequence <..., ba, virama, ZWJ, vocalic-l, ...> is wrong. It should be
<..., ba, virama, la, ...>:
..., U+092C, U+094D, U+0932, ...
Or, in decimal HTML:
... ब्ल ...
Apart this, the encoding is correct. (The ZWJ is not wrong, just useless.)
|| SO HOW DO I GET IT TO LOOK LIKE #1 WITH UNICODE?
|| (The desired form of sha, and ba joined with the desired form of
vocalic-l.)
If you still see it incorrectly, it is because your font or operating system
doesn't fully support Indic rendering.
You can upgrade your PC to a different font or operating system but,
unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to ensure that your users will do
the same.
<OFFTOPIC>
BTW, a couple of side notes about the transliteration:
- There is a special character to transliterate European "f": U+095E (dec.
2398). It looks like PHA with a dot under it.
- Using anusvara for the "n" in "fungal" and a MA for the "m" in "shambler"
seems inconsistent. I'd either use anusvara for both or NGA (U+0919, decimal
2329) for the first one and MA for the second one.
- "Fungal shambler" is two words in English: why did you join them in
Devanagari?
</OFFTOPIC>
Regards.
_ Marco
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Nov 06 2002 - 05:48:40 EST