From: SS (sisrivas@blueyonder.co.uk)
Date: Wed Jun 09 2010 - 14:10:47 CDT
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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