Re: Tamil 0BB3 and 0BD7

From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Sun Nov 09 2003 - 16:36:42 EST

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    From: "Peter Jacobi" <peter_jacobi@gmx.net>
    > U+0B95 U+0BCC which is canonically equivalent to
    > U+0B95 U+0BC7 U+0BD7
    >
    > looks exactly the same as
    >
    > U+0B95 U+0BC7 U+0BB3
    >
    > Isn't that a bit odd?
    >
    > Giving an analogy using Latin script,
    > that would be the same as if Latin y U+0079
    > in vocalic and consonantic use were
    > mapped to two different Unicode
    > codepoints.

    In fact this used to be also the case in the Latin script between U and V,
    which was historically the same letter for both its vocalic and consonnantic
    uses (only "V" was written, and it was up to the reader of the glyph to
    interpret it, according to some language-specific phonologic rules)...
    You'll find many monuments around the world where U and V are written the
    same, and even fonts that render these two letters with exactly the same
    glyph...

    They were made distinct characters only later (but this has still not
    happened for the similar Hebrew letter VAV, also called WAW)... May be the
    Tamil experts estimate that the differenciation of usage between the AU
    length mark and the LLA letter should be allowed to be differentiated in the
    written script (even if for now they are often written with the same glyph)
    as their usage is clear enough and there already exists phonologic rules to
    differentiate them.



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