Re: conjucts beginning with independent vowel?

From: Michael Everson (everson@egt.ie)
Date: Thu Jan 18 2001 - 06:56:40 EST


Ar 11:02 -0800 2001-01-17, scríobh Peter_Constable@sil.org:

>Well, if a script had such behaviour, one possibility could be to propose a
>combining CONSONANT SIGN L for what we would be choosing to think of as a
>dependent form of the consonant.

We rejected such a model for Khmer and Myanmar in favour of the virama
model. The advantage is that it is productive. There is in principle no
reason you couldn't consider the independent vowels to function in the same
way as the consonants. Actually in Cham there is some behaviour where the
independent vowels can actually take vowel signs.

>I.e. it may not be in an existing model,
>but for a new script one could create a new model. I hear you saying,
>though, that you think it would be preferable to fit this into the existing
>model that uses a virama.

I think the virama model is easy to understand and already implemented, so
costs are lower if we stick by it. Especially for the minority scripts.

Michael Everson ** Everson Gunn Teoranta ** http://www.egt.ie
15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire/Ireland
Mob +353 86 807 9169 ** Fax +353 1 478 2597 ** Vox +353 1 478 2597
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