L2/07-034

From: Kerala Studies <keralastudies@gmail.com>
Date: 2007-01-18 06:42:41 -0800
Subject: Workshop - The Problems in Unicode Encoding of Malayalam

Mark Davis
President
Unicode Consortium

January 18, 2007

Dear Mark Davis,

Subject: Workshop - The Problems in Unicode Encoding of Malayalam

On behalf of the University of Kerala, we are pleased to announce a
two day workshop on "The Problems in Unicode Encoding of Malayalam" on
24th and 25th of January, 2007, at the Senate Chamber of the
University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram.

As you know certain issues in Malayalam Unicode have remained
unsettled, despite long discussions on various forums such as Unicode
Technical Committee meetings, Indic mailing list, etc.

It was the express opinion of UTC authorities that there should be
consensus in the user community. But unfortunately due to several
reasons, there was no opportunity to gather all stakeholders to
achieve such a consensus.

Now, as an initiative of the University of Kerala, the International
Centre for Kerala Studies is organizing a two day workshop to achieve
this consensus, in association with University departments engaged in
Malayalam language analysis, viz, Dept. of Malayalam, Dept. of
Malayalam Lexicon, Oriental Research Institute and Manuscript Library,
and Dept. of Linguistics.

The Kerala Press Academy and Kerala State IT Mission, and major
Language and IT organizations like CDAC, Rachana Akshara Vedi, C-DIT,
etc, are also participating in this workshop.

It is intended that the set of current issues in Malayalam Unicode
will be discussed by the seniormost scholars of Malayalam language and
prominent IT experts, in a series of sessions over the period. Towards
this end, the issues to be considered have already been enumerated and
will be discussed in detail.

This is not planned to be a traditional presentation with papers and
talks; rather, a small group of persons who have genuine interest and
capable of contributing either in Linguistics or Technical areas will
participate to quickly achieve an appropriate solution.

The linguistic problems will be presented, and solutions will be
offered. Then, the technical experts will consider Unicode
implementation of the requirements of the script.

We are planning to provide a corresponding solution list for the
previously mentioned enumerated issues. We are very much particular
that everything should go without any prejudice, should be very
transparent and all issues should be discussed.

The discussions will be conducted in different sessions, each will be
presided by a senior scholar, and each will create a document
outlining the issue being discussed and possible solutions.

We also welcome the participation of Unicode authorities, technical
committee members of UTC and ISO and interested parties. Please do
send your suggestions and any relevant points and documents for
consideration.

Those who cannot attend and wish to relay any relevant observations,
can do so by email to keralastudies@gmail.com.

It is our intention that at the conclusion of the meeting the document
that outlines the accepted solution, will be submitted to Govt. of
Kerala and UTC, as authoritative document for the Unicode Malayalam
encoding.


Regards,

Dr. N. Sam
Director
International Centre for Kerala Studies
University of Kerala
Thiruvananthapuram