Re: Offlist: complex rendering

From: Harshula <harshula_at_gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2012 14:37:14 +1000

Hi JC,

You have been making the same allegations for more than half a decade.
Now you have moved on to a new forum, the Unicode Consortium. The
reality is that all the professionals and academics that work in
computational linguistics, Sinhala localization, etc in Sri Lanka are
on-board with Unicode Sinhala. We are seeing research and applications
developed on top of Unicode Sinhala.

IIRC, back then you were unable to demonstrate the shortcomings of
Unicode Sinhala that your scheme solved. If you have complaints about
operating systems that do not implement Unicode Sinhala correctly,
please contact the specific company.

cya,
#

On Fri, 2012-06-15 at 01:45 -0500, Naena Guru wrote:
> Tom,
>
> Thank you for taking an interest in this matter.
>
> You said,
>
> Mapping multiple scripts to Latin-1 codepoints is contrary to the most
> basic principles of Unicode and represents a backwards technology leap
> of 20 years or more.
>
>
> Well, do you otherwise agree that the transliteration is good? It can
> be typed easily, and certainly not like the Unicode Indic
> transliteration that is only good for Aliens to discover some day.
>
> Unicode has a principle about shapes assigned to characters. It is the
> opposite of what you said. At the time I started this project Unicode
> version 2 specifically said that it does not define shapes. That is
> the reason I tried it.
>
> Think of it as a help for the person that types. I tested it on real
> people. They are unaware that the underlying codes are that of Latin.
> They are surprised and elated.
>
> So, if you are so averse to changing the shapes of Latin-1, what would
> you say about Fraktur and Gaelic that the standard specifically said
> are based on Latin-1 but have different shapes?
>
> You said,
> It doesn't seem realistic to me that it could ever see acceptance, and
> I'm a bit surprised that you continue to devote your talents to
> promoting it. Is there some reason you consider it to be promising
> nonetheless?
>
>
> (Thank you for calling me talented. I am not).
>
> It depends on whose acceptance you are talking about. You'll
> understand if you are a Singhalese, Tom. The leap 20 years back is
> what we need. Unicode parked us in a cul de sac. BTW, I haven't even
> started to promote it. I want the IT community to say this works, as
> it really does.
>
> Think why people Anglicize in this very popular web site:
> www.sinhalaya.com
> There are many such. (try elakiri.com)
>
> You will see some Unicode Sinhala, but most posts are written using
> hack fonts and made into graphics to post. The Lankan government is so
> worried that they have launched a program to teach English to everyone
> perhaps seeing the demise of Singhala due to digital creep. (Wisdom of
> politicians!).
>
> Also look at the web site of the IT agency of the government:
> http://www.icta.lk/
> How much prominence did they give the language of the 70%?
>
> The bureaucrats are giving themselves medals. (See the pictures). They
> are making laws forcing the government employees to use Unicode
> Singhala, because they are reluctant. It's a Third World country. The
> literacy rate is 90% plus, not a little India. But the people are
> docile. They depend on the government to tell what todo. The
> bureaucracy in return depends on the West to tell them what is right.
> The technocrats call themselves යුනිකේත (Love UNI!)
>
> Yes, Tom, I do have a very good reason. I know it because I am a
> Singhalese. It is *practical* and being accepted and commended by
> everyone that I showed it to. If English, German, Spanish, Icelandic,
> Danish etc. use Latin-1, and if Singhala *can* perfectly map to
> Latin-1, why shouldn't it? That is called transliteration. Recall that
> English fully romanized about year 600.
>
> Singhala is a minority language that is scheduled to be executed, and
> Unicode is unwittingly the reason.
>
> Brahmi probably is Old Singhala. The oldest Brahmi was found in Shree
> Langkaa (Sri Lanka) 2-3 centuries before it was seen in India. Some
> say Singhalese founded the Mayans. (What a chauvinist!). So, let's
> give it a boost before World Ends.
>
> I need the support of Unicode, which is like World Government for
> Laangkans. This is what I want Unicode to judge:
>
> * Is the transliteration practical?
> * Do I have a round trip conversion with precious Unicode
> Sinhala?
> Help us, Tom.
>
> This message is getting too long.I can list pros and cons of
> Dual-script Singhala and Unicode Sinhala to convince any techie why we
> should forget Unicode Sinhala.
>
> Let me end with a quote from SICP
> http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html
> Educators, generals, dieticians, psychologists, and parents program.
> Armies, students, and some societies are programmed. An assault on
> large problems employs a succession of programs, most of which spring
> into existence en route. These programs are rife with issues that
> appear to be particular to the problem at hand. To appreciate
> programming as an intellectual activity in its own right you must turn
> to computer programming; you must read and write computer programs --
> many of them. It doesn't matter much what the programs are about or
> what applications they serve. What does matter is how well they
> perform and how smoothly they fit with other programs in the creation
> of still greater programs. The programmer must seek both perfection of
> part and adequacy of collection.
>
>
> Do we want to be programmed or be programmers? Is the collection
> adequate?
>
> Best regards,
>
> JC
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 8:08 AM, Tom Gewecke <tom_at_bluesky.org> wrote:
> naenaguru wrote:
>
>
> > Map sounds to QWERTY extended key layouts adding non-English
> > letters ->
> > Result: strict, rule based alphabet extending from ASCII to
> > Latin-1 ->
>
>
> Mapping multiple scripts to Latin-1 codepoints is contrary to
> the most basic principles of Unicode and represents a
> backwards technology leap of 20 years or more. It doesn't
> seem realistic to me that it could ever see acceptance, and
> I'm a bit surprised that you continue to devote your talents
> to promoting it. Is there some reason you consider it to be
> promising nonetheless?
>
Received on Sun Jun 17 2012 - 23:46:35 CDT

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