Re: Tamil u,uu matra consonants - Orthographic variation

From: SS (sisrivas@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Wed Jun 09 2010 - 14:04:29 CDT

  • Next message: SS: "Re: Tamil u,uu matra consonants - Orthographic variation"

    Ganesan,

    Rather than ZWNj, it would be better to allow fonts that do not complex render so we can extend thse easily to simple devices, such as fridge/freezers and may be simple mobli phone texts.

    What we need is
    1/the removal of dotted circles
    2/ allow a complex renderd font to have fallback matras
    3/ allow non-complex rendered font to only have fallback matars.

    i'll up date the early draft, that is being worked on
    http://www.araichchi.net/kanini/unicode/unipool/Unicode%20Proposal_Ta%20i,ii,u,uu.pdf

    Sinnathurai

      ----- Original Message -----
      From: N. Ganesan
      To: Unicode Mailing List ; doug@ewellic.org
      Cc: UnicoRe Mailing List
      Sent: 09 June 2010 19:36
      Subject: Tamil u,uu matra consonants - Orthographic variation

      Doug Ewell asked:
    >>"SS" <sisrivas at blueyonder dot co dot uk> wrote:

    >> To the point, There are usage samples, there were/are
    >> publications/magazines even run by the then leader of the current
    >> chief minister of Tamil Nadu state.
    >>
    >> There are usage samples. Widespread!, this will be done eventually as
    >> with other rollbacks of the past, in a controlled manner.

    >Is this something that is proposed for the future, or it something that
    > has already been adopted now or is scheduled for adoption by a
    >siginificant proportion of Tamil speakers? Can I find out about it in
    >newspapers or periodicals, or Internet locations, other than those
    >controlled by the group(s) promoting the reform?

    >Note that the question is not "Is this a desirable reform?" nor "Will
    >this reform make the Tamil language easier to read and write?"

      Doug,

      There was a political leader called Periyar EVR:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periyar_E._V._Ramasamy
      EVR trained politicians defeated Congress party in 1967
      elections in Tamil Nadu and ever since, Dravidian
      movement parties (spun from EVR's original party) has
      ruled the Indian state until now. EVR was never
      interested in elections, but only concentrated on
      social movements.

      For 75 years, EVR's party magazines use vocalised
      consonants with u, uu matras unligated at least
      in some pages in every issue of their daily newspaper,
      Viduthalai & books they print. Recently they asked
      for the ways how to do this & who will do the fonts.
      Note that there are political parties in Tamil Nadu
      who want to give that option also for the readers
      in their magazines, official websites.

      Let me give an example. A 1982 issue of a magazine,
      called Pulavar. The editor is Secretary, Grand Council
      of Tamil Teachers, India. A 12.5 Mb file:
      http://www.naalorunool.com/ebooks/15/1472/TM1472.pdf
      (From Pollachi Nasan's library & thanks to P. Nasan
      for sending the link).
      There are many, many examples like this in Tamil script
      in the last 75 years and also in contemporary use.
      We will compile and upload in a website.

      As Universal Character set encoding, this minority
      tradition also needs to get into the Unicode Standard.
      Note the parallel in Malayalam, a close script to Tamil.
      Since both options co-exist often in the same page in magazines
      for ligate and non-ligate u, uu matra consonants,
      it's better to allow this option in fonts with ZWNJ joiner
      of u & uu matras in Tamil script for the user community.

      There is a major Classical Tamil conference happening
      in Coimbatore between June 23 - 27. Some from Unicode
      Tech Committee are attending as well. So, will work on all this
      with experts and officials some time in the future.

      (a) Tamil grammar defines from 12th century, all the
      syllables with matra signs as Dependent letters "cArbezuttu",
      much like what Unicode does. You can compare
      Unicode characters with Tamil word, ezuttu in Tamil grammar
      and sequences as cArbezuttu. To teach to students,
      the dependent nature of all the uyirmey with matra signs,
      allowing this in the Standard and fonts (from Microsoft, Apple, ...)
      will be useful.

      (b) In English, we have both Capital and Small letters
      derived from monumental and minuscule traditions.
      As the two orthographic variants, explained above, for
      Tamil u, uu matra consonants are allowed in Unicode,
      it will be useful to mix these two styles and will be useful
      in calligraphy and rich text publishing. It will break the monotony,
      for example, the headings can be in ligate forms
      but body of a text can be in unligate forms of u, uu matras.

      N. Ganesan



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