From: N. Ganesan (naa.ganesan@gmail.com)
Date: Mon Jun 27 2005 - 13:40:11 CDT
James Kass wrote:
>The proposal to add U+0BB6 to Unicode
>originated from INFITT. Proposal to add Tamil SHA:
http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2617.pdf
>Some comments on proposal to add Tamil SHA:
http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2618.pdf
Thanks for giving the links on 0bb6 in Tamil.
Tamil script actively uses U+0BB6.
The details are in the first mesage of this
list for the month of May, 2005 as well.
http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2005-m06/0327.html
>Suppose international bodies responsible for computer
>text encoding told you that a certain string in their code
>would represent a segment of the text of your own name in
>your own script.
>Then suppose the international bodies added a new
>character to the standard, and told you that a new string
>in their code should represent that portion of your own
>name in your own script. And, that the
>strings already existing would now be invalid.
Tamil dictionaries define Sri conjunct as using U+0BB6.
Madras Tamil lexicon (in 7 volumes - published by
Madras University, equivalent of Oxford English dictionary)
records that. So, International bodies for computer text
encoding merely follow and implement the info from
Tamil sources.
Sri conjunct <U+0BB6, U+0BCD, U+0BB0, U+0BC0> ,
and all Indic scripts these equivalents
(eg. Last month or so, M. Davis gave a transliterator
URL, I tried Devanagari Sri and in Tamil
it becomes <U+0BB6, U+0BCD, U+0BB0, U+0BC0>.
Uniscribe should be updated to Tamil Sri thus.
The WG02 document (n2618) clearly specifies why
sha (0bb6) is needed for Tamil:
"ISCII included letters for {Ss}, {s}, {h}
but left out the letter for {sh} in Tamil. This
resulted in a major deficiency in the code
- for instance, there is no way of representing
the backing string of a very important 'akshara' in
the language viz., {SRI}".
N. Ganesan
>That's exactly what happened to Srivas
>with the addition of U+0BB6.
>The issue is not the addition of the SHA letter
>itself as much as it is the conjunct encoding rules
>which were changed. The impact of this change on
>existing data may have been considered by the
>authorities prior to the official change, but considering
>an impact doesn't lessen it.
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