Requesting the UTC to Reject Proposals to Mix Tamil and Grantha

L2/11-060

Requesting the UTC to Reject Proposals to Mix Tamil and Grantha
(Proposals L2/10-426 and L2/10-447)

Hello!

I am writing on behalf of a group of activists. We have been touring the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu explaining the above proposals to the people.

Some of us have focused our effort on colleges in the state. We explain the issues to college students and faculty members. If they accept our position regarding the proposals we request them to sign the following petition and send us the completed petitions.

We began this effort in the last week of January, 2011. As and when we receive signed petitions we scan them and upload the contents to this Web site.

The table below summarizes information about the petitions. Please let us know if you have questions or need additional information.

Thank you.
Sincerely,
Ramki ( T. Ramakrishnan )

PB 21, Pasakkuttai Pudur, Sathyamangalam, Tamil Nadu 638 401, India.
mobile: +91 944 256 0429 - email : thiru.ramakrishnan@gmail.com

The Petition

From
Students and Faculty Members
College of ....................................,
Tamil Nadu, India

To
Dr. Lisa Moore,
Chair, Unicode Technical Committee,
Unicode Consortium, U.S.A.

Dear Dr. Lisa Moore,

We, the undersigned students, have learned that the Unicode Technical Committee is considering encoding the Grantha script through proposals L2/10-426 and L2/10-447. We also understand that these proposals wrongly seek the inclusion of seven Tamil characters into the Grantha block as follows:

1130E Letter E, 11312 Letter O, 11329 Letter NNNA,
11331 Letter RRA, 11334 Letter LLLA, 11346 Letter Vowel Sign E,
1134A Letter Vowel Sign O

These are purely Tamil characters and have never been a part of Grantha. Many scholars in Tamil as well as Sanskrit have attested to this.

The Indian state of Tamil Nadu has a treasure trove of centuries-old inscriptions. Numbering more than a hundred thousand, these use both Tamil and Grantha characters. But, the ancient people who engraved these have strictly maintained the separation of "Grantha as Grantha" and "Tamil Script as Tamil script". They have never confused/violated the orthographic identities of the two scripts.

Bringing the above mentioned seven Tamil characters into the Grantha block would destroy/mutilate that tradition. Consequently, the long needed study and research of these ancient documents would be permanently affected if the above proposals are accepted.

We understand that the Government of Tamil Nadu, has constituted a high level panel to investigate these proposals and make a formal recommendation on to the Government of Tamil Nadu, which would then be forwarded to the Indian government. That committee is presently deliberating.

We urge you to understand the deep time-honored tradition of the Tamil people who live in all the five continents spanning many countries and numbering approximately one hundred million.

We also urge you not to take any precipitative action on these matters and include these seven characters into Grantha. Doing so would permanently damage the Tamil script, the Tamil Language, and the glorious Tamil Tradition. Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Copy to:-

1) Honorable Mr. Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology 6 C. G. O. Complex, New Delhi - 3.
2) The Honorable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Chennai.
3) Justice Mohan, Chairman, High level Committee, Tamil Nadu.
4) Dr. Swaran Lata, Senior Director, TDIL, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Govt. of India, New Delhi 110 003