My responses inline. Thanks, -apurva -----Original Message----- From: Somnath Kundu [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] <snip>
Is that same for Unicode, i.e., Ta + Halant + Halant -> Khanda Ta and how Uniscribe handle this case? In other words, how can I write Khanda Ta in Unicode? <apurva:> No, it is not the same for Unicode. The display of khanda Ta is dependent on both: font as well as the sequence input. And if there are additional processing layers in between-- like a shaping engine for the script; then that needs to figure in as well. Because some shaping engines might flag and re-order parts of sequences in order for specific glyph substitution to be applied. The Bangla engine in Uniscribe is based off the recommendations in Unicode. And in case you haven't seen it, you might want to see a specification for creating OpenType fonts for Indic scripts at: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otfntdev/indicot/default.htm which also includes details of shaping engine processes in Uniscribe. If you have any feedback on it, it is very welcome. </apurva:> <snip> Yes, you are right Bangla does not have distinct half forms. What I wanted to say is that I should be able to write Khanda Ta, Ta Halant (normally not used in Bangla words), and Ta in a conjunct in Unicode text. <apurva:> Thanks for this confirmation. Below are some input sequences, and I'm assuming that the font used for displaying them will have a glyph for the khanda Ta. The sample conjunct being created is taTa i.e. the double Ta. I'm using this conjunct because it is usually diplayed as a distinct ligature. 1. To display the ligature taTa, use: Ta Halant Ta 2. To display khandaTa Ta use: Ta Halant ZWJ Ta 3. To display Ta Halant Ta use: Ta Halant ZWNJ Ta </apurva:> The reason for my posting was that I found Code2000 font some days ago and installed Bangla keyboard driver manually, found on my MSDN Win2k CD, on 2k/XP to type some Bangla letters but was not able to type Khanda Ta. (The glyph is also probably missing in that font). <apurva:> Actually, Bangla is not yet enabled on Windows. Although we do hope to do so in a future release of Windows. Win2K has Devanagari and Tamil enabled. WinXP has Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Kannada and Telugu enabled. </apurva:> It is still not clear to me why Khanda Ta was not included in Unicode as an additional consonant, like RRA, RHA, and YYA, as it is written as a distinct consonant (out of total 40 consonants) in Banagla script? <apurva:> To the best of my knowledge, khanda Ta is not a consonant (or distinct character) by itself, but the halant form of a consonant. Such alternate forms can be displayed using an OpenType font, that contains glyphs for such forms. I don't have access to a Bangla dictionary right now, but I think the khanda Ta is not sorted differently either; i.e. 'utkarsha' will be listed before 'uttam'. Although utkarsha uses the khanda Ta and uttam employs the double Ta ligature. In case this hadn't been the case, we might then have had a case that the khanda Ta might need more looking into. </apurva:> Thanks in advance for your reply, Regards, Somnath Kundu
