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(Notice to Mr. Mitra: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" is only an archive copy of the Unicode List. To join the real list, see "http://www.unicode.org/unicode/consortium/distlist.html";). _ Marco -----Original Message----- Message: 15 Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 06:10:16 -0000 From: "Anirban Mitra" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Errors in the Indic FAQ All these problems of A-Jophola-Aakaar and Ra-Japhalaa-Aakaar could have been avoided had Unicode Consortium agreed to code A-Jophola- Aakaar as a seperate letter corrosponding to candra-E in Devanagari Japhalaa-Aakaar as its matra equivalent. They are used for identical sounds and Devanagari Chandra-E is always translitterated as Japhalaa- Aakaar in Bengali. Although ISCII-91 did not code this letter, but implementers of ISCII, lilke iLeap of C-DAC considered A-Japhalaa- Aakaar as a separate Modern Bengali Vowel and placed it in Bengali Insript Keyboard corrosponding to the position of Candra-E of Devanagari. E-Japhalaa-Aakaar is merely an typographical alternate form soetimes used interchangably. Regarding considering Khandata, I would like to inform that in ISCII compatible programs (like Apex Language Processor or iLeap) it is considered as explicit halant form of ta, which is equivalent of ta-hasanta-zwnj in Unicode. As Unicode claims to superset ISCII, considering khandata as halant form of ta will be logical allowing backward compatibility with ISCII. Moreover words like akassmaat ("suddenly") in which Khandata is used as the terminal letter corrosponding to halant-ta in Devanagari shows its actual status. It is very ridiculous to think that a word ends with a half form (which the present Unicode recomendations make us believe). In rare cases when we need to show ta-hasanta as a isolated form within a word we can use Ta-Virama-zwj-zwnj combination. (see graphical illustration at www.geocities.com/mitra_anirban/khandata.jpg ) Another problem area in ISCII-Unicode conversion in Bengali (as well as Oriya) is Ya-nukta. ISCII-91 says Ya (U+092F) in Devanagari is equivalent to Ontostho-A (YYA U+09DF) and Ya-nukta in (U+095F) Devanagari is equivalent to Ontostho-Ja (coded as YA 09AF in Unicode) in Begali. So while tranliterating Devnagari text to Bengali through ISCII-91 (that is one of the stated purpose of the code) the letters get interchanged causing improper rendering.
