From: Christopher John Fynn (cfynn@gmx.net)
Date: Sat Mar 01 2003 - 16:29:19 EST
Michael Everson wrote
> No. Yes. What I see is an extension of an existing system, and YES
> the virama does more than just kill the vowel. It creates conjuncts.
> It acts like a ZWJ. How the cluster is pronounced is a matter of the
> reading rules.
I think the dual purpose of the virama character in Unicode may be what is causing the confusion.
Anirban Mitra & Andy are right when they say a Virama never comes after a vowel - certainly in writing or print you should never find a virama mark (glyph) after a vowel.
But Michael only seems to be saying that you need to place a virama *character* after a vowel and before YA in order to produce the short 'Yaphalaa' form - in this case the Virama character is only being used like a ZWJ character. No virama glyph is displayed but the presence of the (invisible) virama character should affect the glyph shape of the following YA causing it to be displayed in the "squiggly ya-phalaa form" .
Of course Bengalis don't WRITE it that way - but I think Michael was talking about how ya-phalaa is encoded with Unicode characters not how it is written.
- Chris
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