Re: Tamil 0B83: Tamil Aytham and Devanagari VisargaL

From: Michael Everson (everson@evertype.com)
Date: Fri Apr 01 2005 - 05:14:55 CST

  • Next message: Michael Everson: "Re: U+0023"

    At 07:05 +0100 2005-04-01, Sinnathurai Srivas wrote:

    >Visarga's properties are vastly or totally different to the
    >functions of Aytham.

    Hardly.

    >Also please see below, a simple abstract of what Aytham is.
    >
    >1/ The main function of Aytham: (Here h=Aytham, q=Aytham, x=any
    >consonant) It modulates consonants to give Ahenumised and Aqenumised
    >conconants.

    (These terms are not English.)

    >such as: kh, mh, ... xh, kq, mq, ... xq
    >(Note: In Devanagari these are individual letters and in Unicode
    >these are Devanagari Characters (such as kh, mh, ...xh) such as: hk,
    >hm, ... hx, qk, qm, ....qx (I do not know about the equivalant in
    >Devanagari.)

    Yes. Aytham is used to show aspirate consonants because the Tamil
    script lost these.

    Aytham has three circles. Tamil Grantha Visarga has two circles. The
    visarga indicates an aspiration of a vowel, specifically, an original
    Sanskrit -s which became -h.

    It is improbable that the Aytham is unrelated to the Tamil Grantha
    Visarga. Or to put it positively, it is probable that the Aytham is
    related to the Tamil Grantha Visarga.

    >Character names are very respectable and has immense value. Grammar
    >is something passionate to mostly all languages. Character names are
    >very important.

    I like character names a lot, as many readers of this list will know.
    Nevertheless, they are not intended to be encyclopaedic, and it is
    known that many are imperfect.

    -- 
    Michael Everson * * Everson Typography *  * http://www.evertype.com
    


    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Apr 01 2005 - 05:17:03 CST