L2/03-113

Source: Michael Everson
Date: Wednesday, March 05, 2003 16:36
Subject: Conjuncts: making sure we are right

I'd like us to make a consistency check.

In Malayalam we do the following:

NA + VIRAMA + MA --NMA (a single conjunct)
NA + VIRAMA + ZWNJ + MA --NMA (with a visible virama breve above
and between) NA + VIRAMA + ZWJ + MA --NMA (with the cillaks.aram
virama curl)

Everyone seems to be quite happy with this.
ISCII uses NA + VIRAMA + NUKTA for this, which I guess need not trouble us.

In Bengali we have the following:

RA + VIRAMA + YA (repha ya)
RA + VIRAMA + ZWNJ + YA (rya with explicit virama)

Those are completely standard-standard and not troublesome. What does
get people excited is the way we treat ya-phalaa. Currently Unicode
specifies the following:

A + VIRAMA + YA + -AA (a yaphalaa aa)
RA + VIRAMA + ZWJ + YA (ra yaphalaa)

But perhaps this is not the best way to do it.

A + VIRAMA + [ZWJ + YA] + -AA (a yaphalaa aa)
RA + VIRAMA + [ZWJ + YA] (ra yaphalaa)

would make them just the same, but

A + [ZWJ + YA] + -AA (a yaphalaa aa)
RA + VIRAMA + [ZWJ + YA] (ra yaphalaa)

would remove the objection to virama following independent vowels.
Apurva says that is what Uniscribe does.

This needs explicit decision.