. >> Moreover, RA + VIRAMA + YA cannot represent "Ra-yaphalaa" as Ra+Virama >> is relied upon as being representative of Reph. >> For example, in the Indic OpenType secifications, you will see that a >> Ra+Virama is recognised as reph before any other processing is applied. > > If this is the case (and one would like corroboration) then simply > reverse the two. The solution is the same.
RA + VIRAMA is a pre-base substitution and pre-base stuff gets processed first. RA + ZWNJ + VIRAMA + YA might be the way to go in order to disambiguate REPH + YA from RA + YA-PHALAA. Whatever method is chosen, it will be invisible to the user. The way text is stored on computers has nothing to do with the way text is handwritten, typed, and printed or displayed. Computer characters consist of strings of ones and zeros. The binary string which is stored by a computer to represent the LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A doesn't look anything like the letter. The important matter is that each letter needs to have a unique binary string which can be stored electronically. Lengths of such strings vary. Input methods and display need to match users' expectations, but the underlying binary string encodings do not. The users never see this. Best regards, James Kass .
