Re: continue: Glaring Mistake in nomenclature

On 09/14/2011 12:25 PM, delex r wrote:
> I think now naming the script as “ Bengali” that too by stealing two
> unique letters from the Assamese alphabet list and coloring them
> with Bengali hue is part of that notorious linguistic invasion.

Look -- Unicode is an international standard. English is the
international language of science and technology, whether you like it or
not. And as Michael Everson as pointed out, the script is more commonly
known in the English language as the Bengali script. That is hence the
representative name that was chosen for the script in the Unicode
standard. Technical issues of stability dictate that the name cannot be
hereafter changed. Please read the publicly available Unicode Standard
document and understand it before complaining further. Finished.

And the reasons for the script to be better known as the Bengali script
rather than Assamese are obvious. As per records
(http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=size), Bengali
is the *fifth* most widely spoken language in the world with a speaker
population of 181 million (closely following Hindi with 182). Assamese
is at place *fifty-four* with speaker population of 16.8 million, less
than *one-tenth* of that of Bengali. It is even behind Chattisgarhi
language with 17.5 million speakers, and the separate state of
Chattisgarh was only even formed recently. Given this, you should not
expect special treatment for the name "Assamese".

Be realistic and understand in what world you are living in. It is but
natural that in the absence of a pre-agreed name for a script for other
reasons (such as the Latin script), a script is better internationally
recognized by the language that it is more (in terms of sheer volume)
used for.

I feel bad when my compatriots don't even try to understand the
principles of an international technology before complaining about it.
Our great Indian intellectual tradition is not reflected in these
results of putting emotion above reason.

-- 
Shriramana Sharma