Re: [WMASTERS] Re: Old Orthography, response to Kalyan

["Muthu Nedumaran (Ezil)" <muthu@murasu.com>]

Nagu,

Personally,  I do not have any objections in keeping / encoding
Tamil numerals.  As we talked before, they may just be glyphs
with no *value*.  However, it should be lower in our priority
list and *can* overload reseved characters (like (c), (r), bullet
etc).

I had sent a suggested GIF to Kalyan with the Tamil numerals *in*.

anbudan,

~ MUTHU

At 12:11 PM 9/16/97 -0400, Nagarajan Chinnasamy wrote:
>Dear Muthu,
>
>Thank you for an excellent explanation on why we are coding
>**characters**
>as much as possible. And very good points on **How a standard should
>be**.
>Thank you again.
>
>But, I have one more question. I know you would have guessed.
>
>Yes. Its about Tamil Numerals.
>
>1. Then, Are we keeping them just for Unicode compatibility?
>2. Isnt it possible to store the etext archives in Roman Numbers format?
>   ie. recognize the old format and store the equivalent new format??
>3. How good is it to have "Just for showing" glyphs in a STANDARD?
>4. Will it be enough if we code only Tamil (10), (100), (1000)???
>
>Thats all I have now :-)
>
>anbudan,
>nagu.
>
>
>Muthu Nedumaran (Ezil) wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Nagu,
>> 
>> Well said.   You are also right about us encoding *glyphs* with *as much*
>> characters.  However, I see the following as a *justification* to do so.
>> 
>> 1. Ecoding pure characters may *cut-off* hobbyists who develop fonts for
>>    Tamil without any inclination to writing codes (manipulation routines)
>> 
>> 2. Though we encode glyphs *occasionally* we are (I hope) taking steps
>>    to ensure that, under normal circumstances, it'll not make sense to
>>    encode the same *letter* with any other combination of characters.
>>    For example, we have assigned specific glyphs for all mey's (dotted's).
>>    We are also ensuring (my point at least) that we do not leave the
>>    'dot' character hanging around to cause ambiguity.  In other words,
>>    one whould not, even by accident, store 'k' as 'ka' + 'pulli' (since
>>    'pulli' does not exist as a *character*).
>> 
>> 3. Having ensured that (2) is taken care of, people in (1) can freely
>>    create fonts without messing up the *standard* format of storing
>>    Tamil etext.
>> 
>> 4. (1), (2) & (3) *are* the main reasons why I'm opposing ORNL
>> 
>> 5. We *are* thinking of alternate ways of rendering ORNL for those
>>    who need to view text in that format - though it takes special
>>    conditions, it's (IMHO) more than worth the trade-off.
>> 
>> Comments ..... ?
>> 
>> anbudan,
>> 
>> ~ MUTHU
>> 
>> At 07:15 PM 9/15/97 -0400, Nagarajan Chinnasamy wrote:
>> >Dear Bala,
>> >
>> >Unicode has the concept of ligatures. It says those old codes optionally
>> >**ligate** in old styles.
>> >
>> >So, Unicode did not leave old style **forms**. Because its a way of
>> >rendering
>> >the letters. Unicode just bothers about encoding characters not the
>> >glyphs.
>> >
>> >But the table we have is a collection of Glyphs (though we might try to
>> >keep as much **characters** as possible). Yes. We need them. Only if we
>> >are particular about showing them in Old Style.
>> >
>> >But if we keep separate codes for those old forms it will unnecessarily
>> >confuse the text processing(any application that tries to make sense out
>> >of the text!) applications.
>> >
>> >What anybody will lose if you show "a,nnn,nnnaa" as "a,nnn,nnna,kaal".
>> >Do
>> >they get any other meaning out of it???
>> >
>> >The text is Old in its content not in its Letters.
>> >
>> >NOTE: I Did Not say anything about Tamil Numerals. Will write about it
>> >latter.
>> >
>> >anbudan,
>> >nagu.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >Bala Pillai wrote:
>> >>
>> >> ________________________________________________
>> >>
>> >> This week's sponsors -The Asia Pacific Internet Company (APIC)
>> >>   @  Nothing Less Than A Tamil Digital Renaissance Now   @
>> >> <http://www.apic.net> Click now<mailto:info@apic.net> for instant info
>> >> ________________________________________________
>> >>
>> >> At 06:42 PM 9/15/97 +0000, Dr.K. Kalyanasundaram wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >Old style numerals were proposed for two reasons:
>> >> > i) to provide compatibility with UNICODE 2.0 and
>> >> >ii) for possible use in electronic archiving of
>> >> >ancient tamil literature.
>> >>
>> >> Kalyan and anybody else who may know:
>> >>
>> >> 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.
>> >>
>> >> anbudan.../bala
>> >>
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