L2/17-230

Feedback on L2/17-207 on Malayalam Chandrakala
Shriramana Sharma, samjnaa-at-gmail-dot-com, India
2017-Jul-18

The document on p 2 says:

<quote>
The Vertical Virama appears to be used in few non-native sources. It remains
unattested in Malayalam and Sanskrit palm leaf manuscripts by as seen by
authors. It appears to be borrowed from Virama of Vatteluttu (See last page of
this document). Also Chillus are evolutionary related to ligated viramas of
Grantha and Tigalari which do not have Vertical Virama. It seems are no major
evidences that Vertical Bar Virama is the precursor in the evolution of Chillus
as explained in the proposal. Chillus are also found in manuscripts before the
introduction of Vertical Virama.
</quote>

To me, it's not very clear that the vertical virama wasn't the cause of the
chillus. While certain broad strokes of script evolution are clear over the
course of history, there are lots of minute interactions between
experimentations of new ways of writing of which some stay and some get erased.

I have seen the virama in Grantha manuscripts represented in so many styles -
like ౯ like ɤ etc - that I have no trouble in believing a vertical virama which
I have heard epigraphists say is seen in some old Tamil writings also.

Also while decrying the idea of the "introduction of the chandrakala", the
authors seem to believe in an "introduction of vertical virama". It isn't clear
how the authors can expect there to be attestations for "invention" of a
character barring someone actually proclaiming in writing or print that they
have invented such a character. If there isn't evidence for the chandrakala to
have been "introduced", there isn't any for the vertical virama to have been
"introduced" either. (And by that I am referring to the full-sized vertical
virama seen in the Hanxleden manuscript reproduced on p 4 of L2/14-015R.)

Personally I had misgivings during the encoding of the multiple old Malayalam
virama-s. A few printings seemed to me to have experimented with different signs
to differentiate the short-U vs true vowel killing and encoding characters for
such experimentations seemed to be of dubious value. I didn't make efforts to
object to the encoding since a couple of extra characters aren't going to hurt
me or anyone else.

Anyhow leaving history alone and coming to the "Action requested", I agree that
wording referring to the "introduction" of the chandrakala is better avoided. I
would suggest wording on the line of:

"Additional virama characters are provided for the representation of some
historical usages which contrast these."

-o-