Grantha etc.

[George Hart <ghart@socrates.berkeley.edu>]

I should like to make the point that standardizing a Tamil font and
including "grantha" characters does not mean endorsing their use.  It is
quite possible to feel that Tamil should be written in a pure style without
foreign sounds while still employing "foreign" characters to transliterate
a stray word from English or other foreign language.  I think part of the
opposition to including grantha is inspired by certain writers who seem to
use upwards of 50% of English words.  My only comment: leaving grantha out
of the standard will not deter such writers.  They'll just develop their
own fonts and use them.  Anyway, you can write quite a bit of English --
and, for that matter, Sanskrit -- even without grantha (I love you, get
out, naliniidala, etc.).  I'd hate to transliterate "strange" without them,
however!  Note that both the English and Russian alphabets include letters
for sounds that are foreign to them: English has "ph," "x," "z," (usually
used for Greek words) while Russian has "f" (used mainly for French and
Greek words).  G. Hart