Re: NUKTA

From: Jaap Pranger (yaap@xs4all.nl)
Date: Wed Aug 23 2000 - 22:29:10 EDT


At 18:05 +0200 2000.08.23, James E. Agenbroad wrote:

>In a list of Devanagari conjuncts if compiled a while ago there are at
>least two cases of conjuncts in which both consonants have a nukta:
>1. Ka + nukta + halant + ka + nukta = qqa
>2. Ka + nukta + hanant + pha + nukta = qfa
>
>I think:
> 1. Any consonant can have a nukta. But if a Unicode character includes a
>precomposed nukta, U+0929, 0931, 0934 and 0958 through 095F, and has a
>another nukta, U+093C, following it, I'd ignore the second nukta during
>rendering.

Mac typing behaviour (as far as I can see) is a bit different in that you
can't type the precomposed nuqta characters with a single keystroke,
and when you type a nuqta where you should not (e.g. as a second nuqta,
or after a base character that shouldn't have a nuqta), the rendering
translates your (faulty) typing into a clearly visible spacing character.
(This spacing char is also a nuqta, but down below the baseline.)

I think ignoring an erroneously typed char during rendering is not
a good thing. Is rendering faulty data correctly not *as* bad as
rendering correct data incorrectly?

>Whether a vowel or vowel sign can have a nukta I do not know.

Don't think so.

> 2. A nukta should immediately follow a consonant--before a halant or
>vowel sign or 'various signs' = candrabindu, anusvara, visarga = U+901 to
>U+903 only.
> 3. These 'various signs' should follow a nukta, vowel sign (or
>halant?). I'm unsure if one of these 'various signs' after a halant
>would be valid; I doubt if 'various sign' followed by halant is.

No 'various signs' after halant, and no 'various signs' followed by
halant, I would say.

'Nuktated' consonants always (?) belong to Urdu words, and visarga
"occurs almost exclusively in Sanskrit loanwords", thus the occurce
of nuqta followed by visarga is highly unlikely, or non-existent.
(I don't consider U+095C, U+095D and U+095F as nuktated; should I?)

> 6. [...........] a vowel sign immediately after a vowel is unlikely.

Yess, there is a reason for U+0906, the <0905><093E> sequence for
instance is invalid I guess.

> 7. Unicode 3.0 fig. 9-3 (4) to the contrary notwithstanding, halant
>immediately followed by a vowel sign or an independent vowel is highly
>questionable--just consonant + vowel sign would seem preferable.

I would like to know in which word(s) this 'rare' sequence occurs,
in Sanskrit?

Also, the explanatory text: "When an independent vowel appears ... ...
... ..., the indepent vowel should not be depicted as a dependent vowel
sign, but as an independent vowel letterform", is a bit beyond me.

>All the above IMHO.

the same for me,

Jaap

-- 



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