Re: Devanagri: - Vedic characters?

From: James E. Agenbroad (jage@loc.gov)
Date: Thu Dec 09 1999 - 11:19:48 EST


On Thu, 25 Nov 1999, Christopher John Fynn wrote:

> In the Devanagri block does Unicode 3.0 now include "the Extended
> Characters for Vedic" as listed in Annex G of Indian Standard
> IS 13194 : 1991 (ISCII)?
>
> In that standard these characters are named as follows:
> Visarga1, Filler, Yajurvedic Anusvara1, Yajurvedic Anusvara2, Shukla
> Yajurvedic Anusvara, Yajurvedic Anusvara3, Yajurvedic Anusvara4, Jivamuliya,
> Krishna Yajurvedic Anusvara, Krishna Yajurvedic Long Anusvara, Yajurvedic
> Anusvara5, Yajurvedic Anusvara6, Yajurvedic Anusvara7, Long Kampa, Short
> Kampa,
> Jatya Svarita-Atharvaveda, Svarita, Long Svarita, Anudatta, Jatya Svarita
> Shukla Yajurveda, Jatya Svarita, Shukla Maitrayaniya, Sentance ending
> Udatta, Jatya Svarita non-Taittirya Yajurveda, Svarita Maitrayaniya, and
> Anudatta Kathaka.
>
> These characters are outside the normal 8-bit encoding space of ISCII
> (in that standard must be accessed by use of the ISCII Extension code
> character [F0h]).
>
> -Chris
>
                                          Thursday, December 9, 1999
Chris,
    I suspect they are not in Unicode 3.0, others may have given you a
more definitive answer on that. I don't know Sanskrit.
    Do you know if these or some analogus characters are used when Vedic
Sanskrit is written in other Indic scripts?
    While they may not be Vedic, the LC transliteration tables (p.186
of 1997 edition) also list two other Sanskrit characters (not combining
characters): 1. jihvamuliya, looks like ")(" with less
space between the parens; 2. Upadmaniya, looks like ")(" rotated 90
degrees, or a smile above a frown. They may only occur in grammatical
text; the first transliterates as 'h with a macron below', the second as
'h with breve below', so I would *guesss* they represent different degrees
of aspiration.
     I will let others assess how much they're needed.

     Regards,
          Jim Agenbroad ( jage@LOC.gov )
     The above are purely personal opinions, not necessarily the official
views of any government or any agency of any.
Phone: 202 707-9612; Fax: 202 707-0955; US mail: I.T.S. Dev.Gp.4, Library
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