Re: Pali in Thai Script

On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 4:15 PM, Richard Wordingham
<richard.wordingham_at_ntlworld.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 10:49:13 +0700
> Theppitak Karoonboonyanan <theppitak_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 4:48 AM, Christopher Fynn
>> <chris.fynn_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On 28/03/2014, Ed Trager <ed.trager_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> * Modern phonetically-based Lao lacks some of the traditional
>> >> letters that are still preserved in Thai and other scripts.
>> >
>> > Are there old Lao characters (once) used for writing Pāḷi?
>>
>> Historically no. But there was once an attempt to devise such
>> characters by Lao Royal Institute before being dismissed by the
>> communist revolution later. The writing principle was to use PHINTU
>> in the same manner as Thai script, and the missing characters were
>> borrowed from Tham script.
>
> An older form of the Lao script is called the Thai Noi script. That
> script has many of the characters needed. It has the characters, to
> give them their 'standard' Unicode Indic names, GHA, NYA, TTHA, NNA,
> DHA, BHA, and even has the Sanskrit-supporting characters SHA, SSA and
> Vocalic R. The lack of CHA, JHA, TTA, DDA, DDHA and LLA may be due to
> their rarity, as with the lack of Vocalic L.

I don't think so. From my studies so far, Tai Noi script (aka. Lao Buhan)
writing system was not so different from that of contemporary Lao script.
Some characters are just obsolete.

In fact, I have been drafting a summarized proposal to encode Tai Noi
script here:

  http://linux.thai.net/~thep/esaan-scripts/tn-issues/tn-encoding.html

There is also a project to revive the script in North-Eastern Thailand,
which may urge the need for contemporary usage in computers:

  http://icmrpthailand.org/

The Tai Noi version with web font hack, which should be converted
to Unicode instead if it were supported:

  http://icmrpthailand.org/is

Regards,

-- 
Theppitak Karoonboonyanan
http://linux.thai.net/~thep/
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