From: "Peter Jacobi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > U+0B95 U+0BCC which is canonically equivalent to > U+0B95 U+0BC7 U+0BD7 > > looks exactly the same as > > U+0B95 U+0BC7 U+0BB3 > > Isn't that a bit odd? > > Giving an analogy using Latin script, > that would be the same as if Latin y U+0079 > in vocalic and consonantic use were > mapped to two different Unicode > codepoints.
In fact this used to be also the case in the Latin script between U and V, which was historically the same letter for both its vocalic and consonnantic uses (only "V" was written, and it was up to the reader of the glyph to interpret it, according to some language-specific phonologic rules)... You'll find many monuments around the world where U and V are written the same, and even fonts that render these two letters with exactly the same glyph... They were made distinct characters only later (but this has still not happened for the similar Hebrew letter VAV, also called WAW)... May be the Tamil experts estimate that the differenciation of usage between the AU length mark and the LLA letter should be allowed to be differentiated in the written script (even if for now they are often written with the same glyph) as their usage is clear enough and there already exists phonologic rules to differentiate them.
