On 9/12/2011 9:13 AM, Philippe Verdy wrote:
> Well, wasn't the ISCII standard naming the script "Bengali"? It also
> gave the name "Assamese", but was it a synonym or did it require a
> separate codepage switching code ?
They were separate. Annex A of ISCII 1991 shows Bengali ("BNG") and
Assamese ("ASM") in
separate columns. *Every* character in those two columns is completely
identical, except the
entries (no surprise) in the "r" row and the "v" row. And in Annex D,
the listing of Inscript keyboards,
there is one keyboard overlay for Bengali and one for Assamese. These
again are completely
identical, except for the "B" key (where the "v" goes) and the "J" key
(where the "r") goes.
Why? Well, I presume the Bureau of Indian Standards ran into the same
linguistic political
buzzsaw that you have seen rehearsed on this thread.
> It may be interesting to reread the ISCII standard from which the UCS
> encoding of the Indian scripts came from...
Yes. it is interesting reading. I recommend it sometime.
Ultimately, however, it is not pertinent to the question here. The
distinction between
"Bengali" and "Assamese" is a matter of linguistic politics. It is not a
matter of
script or character encoding.
--Ken
Received on Mon Sep 12 2011 - 15:57:34 CDT
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