Halant (or viram) doesn't sound a reasonable candidate to me, although
creative.
In the default case it is a visible character, not a control. This case is
quite rare in Hindi or Marathi, if a decent font is used. But in Sanskrit
(for final consonants) or in a minimal font for modern languages, halant may
show its presence.
Moreover, it is not only in Devanagari: there is a different viram for each
different Indic scripts and, when visible, they have different shapes. Which
one should be exported to Europe?
And, finally, the real meaning of it is that the inherent vowel should not
be pronounced. The fact that it also determines ligatures is just accidental
(and does not happen in Tamil, for instance).
Ciao.
M.C.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: James E. Agenbroad [SMTP:jage@loc.gov]
> Sent: 1999 December 20, Monday 21.18
> To: Unicode List
> Subject: f + halant + i = ?
>
> Could the Devanagari halant be used with Latin script, runes, etc.? This
> is just a quick idea. Feel free to shoot it down. Halant then meaning
> something along the lines of: combine (ligate) the preceding and following
> characters if rendering resources permit and no ZWJ or ZWNJ is present.
>
> Regards,
> Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov )
> The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official
> views of any government or any agency of any.
> Phone: 202 707-9612; Fax: 202 707-0955; US mail: I.T.S. Dev.Gp.4, Library
> of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. SE, Washington, D.C. 20540-9334 U.S.A.
>
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