Re: [WMASTERS] UNICODE 2.0 - How Hard & Fast Is It?

[Nagarajan Chinnasamy <nagu@ncms1.cb.lucent.com>]

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Dear Bala,

I've one Basic comment on Unicode.

First of all its approach is not really right(atleast about indic
languages).
It hides behind a Government Standard. So, whats the point in looking at
Unicode. We might as well try to influence the ISCII.

Next, a language standard should be specific to a language. It should
not
be generalized under some "one" umbrella. Its as bad as reforming the
language in the name of standardization.(Note: I've my own reservations
on "whether removing Ksha is a reform or not":-))

Going by that, when we standardize a language, we should, in addition to
its scripts, look at its grammar. When a language has a sound grammar
for its letters (I mean ezuththilakkaNam) it should be OBEYED by the
standard.

That way, our grammar says:

    "mey"+"uyir"=uyir mey.

This strongly dictates the way we should represent our basic character
set.

So, I dont see any reason why Unicode has one set of "akaram ERiya uyir
mey"
characters in it.

We should just have,

   "mey" - 18+4, "uyir" - 12, aaytham - 1, Numbers-12.

Regarding target that you have mentioned, I think first we should make
clear, whether we are developing a "Futuristic Standard" (which is
nothing but the "mey"+"uyir" standard that is independent input/output)
or something useful now!!!! Lets not go in cycles!!!!

anbudan,
nagu.

 

Bala Pillai wrote:
> 
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> 
> This week's sponsors -The Asia Pacific Internet Company (APIC)
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> ________________________________________________
> 
> Dear Tamil lovers of all kinds,
> 
> This is Jochen Leidner's response to my message on how hard and fast
> UNICODE 2.0 is, what the expertise of the contributors of the Tamil
> language components to it were, and whether it can be amended to reflect a
> consensus of Tamilians that's about to be available now.
> 
> It appears to me that there was very little Tamil expertise that went into
> UNICODE 2.0. This is not a great state of affairs, but it is by no means
> fatal.
> 
> What this suggests to me is that we can submit the consensus we reach here
> to the UNICODE consortium *and* our submission will have very strong
> weight. A weak standard simply does not get implemented (remember software
> makers do not typically implement all of UNICODE, only parts of it that's
> in line with their commercial aspirations) or fails during implementation.
> 
> In short, let's take it as our target to come up with a consensus that will
> have more weight than any other extant Tamil computing standards in
> influencing the various standards bodies.
> 
> cheers../bala
> bala@tamil.net
> 
> **forwarded message**
> 
> Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 16:51:25 +0200 (METDST)
> From: Jochen Leidner <leidner@linguistik.uni-erlangen.de>
> To: Bala Pillai <bala@tamil.net>
> Subject: Re: [WMASTERS] Re: Old Orthography, response to Kalyan
> 
> Dear Bala,
> 
> >How cast in stone is UNICODE 2.0 as it applies to Tamil script? Is it not
> >possible that our discussions would affect a revised version of UNICODE 2.X
> >? My limited knowledge of UNICODE Tamil deliberations suggest that it did
> >not get much (not anybody's fault mind you) airing.
> >
> 
> I'm afraid I do not know much about the Tamil script, and even less
> about the stability of Tamil wrt UNICODE 2.0; I can only say that
> everybody can suggest new characters to the committee, and acceptance
> is dependent on the criteria specified on the Unicode web server.
> 
> Kindest regards,
> Jochen
> 
> --
> Jochen Leidner            leidner@linguistik.uni-erlangen.de
> CLUE                      http://www.linguistik.uni-erlangen.de/~leidner/
> 
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