RE: Tamil Sri / Shri

From: Bala (bala@cse.mrt.ac.lk)
Date: Sun Nov 04 2007 - 09:15:08 CST

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    James Kass -----------------
    This ligature shrii is the form appearing at the top of Bala's exhibit
    "1938-page1.jpg".

    It can be encoded two ways,
     0BB6 0BCD 0BB0 0BC0 - new way
     0BB8 0BCD 0BB0 0BC0 - old way
    -----------------------
    I guess it must be encoded only from the new way. Using ஶ. Please refer the text1 and text2 images. These are from two Grantha books. I guess no one has any doubts that this shri/sri from Grantha scripts.
    But I do not know whether ஶ pronounced as sa or sha. I am attaching a image (ref1) from A Primer in Grantha characters - K. Venugopalan's book which might help to identify the phonetics between ஶ and ஸ

    From the Grantha books which I have (less than 10) only this sri/shri form is available. But need more searching.

    James Kass -----------------

    Whether the first code point for representing these two ligatures
    is SHA or SA, shouldn't it be the same for both ligatures?

        U+0BB6 ஶ TAMIL LETTER SHA
        U+0BB8 ஸ TAMIL LETTER SA

    But it appears that one ligature uses RA and the other uses RRA.

        U+0BB0 ர TAMIL LETTER RA
        U+0BB1 ற TAMIL LETTER RRA

    ---------------------------
    Feel very uncomfortable when the Tamil letters were taken (ர, ற) to the discussion for the formation of sri/shri. ஶ or ஸ are Grantha letters. This is like two different scripts elements were forming a grammatical form. Still we were (Sri Lanka Tamils) not happy at all with the ksha encoding. Because the ksha is a grantha conjunct consonant not Tamil. Even the ksha has it unique shape. Please refer the image. You can see the "ka" shape is different from Tamil "ka". but when its encoded it was encoded with Tamil Ka. this implied that Tamil grammar has conjunct forms. When I write this ksha issue to unicode 3-4 months back with the same image I didn’t get any reply.

    Thank you
    Bala
            

    -----Original Message-----
    From: James Kass [mailto:thunder-bird@earthlink.net]
    Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 2:24 PM
    To: Bala; 'Unicode Mailing List'; indic@unicode.org
    Subject: Re: Tamil Sri / Shri

    Quoting Peter Constable (2006/07/26),

    > It was recently pointed out to me by some Tamil speakers that the new
    > character 0BB6 SHA should be used in forming the shrii ligature. This is
    > reflected by the provisional named sequence
    >
    > TAMIL LETTER SHRII;0BB6 0BCD 0BB0 0BC0
    >
    > This raises a question about legacy implementations and data: before the
    > SHA character was added, at least some implementations (e.g. Windows
    > from Win2K through XP SP2 and Server 2003 R2) created the shrii ligature
    > using a character sequence with 0BB8 SA. So, when people decided this
    > new character should be used for this ligature, what were they assuming
    > should be done with existing implementations and data, or new
    > implementations that might encounter legacy data?

    It should be noted that Unicode 5.0 section 9.6 gives instructions
    for forming "kssa ligature" but not for "shrii ligature".

    This ligature shrii is the form appearing at the top of Bala's exhibit
    "1938-page1.jpg".

    It can be encoded two ways,
     0BB6 0BCD 0BB0 0BC0 - new way
     0BB8 0BCD 0BB0 0BC0 - old way

    This is apparently not the same letter/ligature/conjunct which
    appears as the first letter of each line starting with the second
    line of text (in 1938-page1.jpg). This does appear to represent
    a spelling difference.

    In the attached graphic, 1938_1and2,png, the area containing
    the word "ஸ்ரீகண்டன்" is enlarged.

    Whether the first code point for representing these two ligatures
    is SHA or SA, shouldn't it be the same for both ligatures?

        U+0BB6 ஶ TAMIL LETTER SHA
        U+0BB8 ஸ TAMIL LETTER SA

    But it appears that one ligature uses RA and the other uses RRA.

        U+0BB0 ர TAMIL LETTER RA
        U+0BB1 ற TAMIL LETTER RRA

    In the proposal to encode the TAMIL LETTER SHA (N2617.PDF)
    http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n2617.pdf
    it is noted that SHA may well form conjuncts with other
    letters, "MA, YA, RA, and VA". I think that is a typo in N2617,
    and that it should read "MA, YA, RRA, and VA", because the
    conjunct formation with RA is specifically adressed in the
    text immediately before.

    Best regards,

    James Kass



    Text2.jpg
    ksha.JPG
    ref1.JPG
    Text1.jpg

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