L2/09-298 Subject: Request change name of (as yet unpublished) VEDIC SIGN NIHSHVASA Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:06:53 +0530 From: Shriramana Sharma Dear sir, I wish to place my request for changing the name of the sign 1CD3 from VEDIC SIGN NIHSHVASA to something more appropriate. It is currently placed in Unicode 5.2.0 beta and I thought I should make an attempt before Unicode 5.2.0 officially becomes a standard. I do not know from what source you got the suggestion of the name, but it is misleading, as "nihshvasa" means "breathing out" and the description you have given fits that: "a spacing character used to indicate to the performer where a breath can be conveniently taken". This is quite misleading, because this mark always occurs in the middle of a phrase within which there should occur no breath-out. Please see the following: In rituals, each Sama mantra is sung in either five or seven sections called bhakti-s. There are ritualistic specifications as to which of many persons participating in the rituals should sing which bhakti. To denote the end of a bhakti, the double danda is used. Within each bhakti, there are groups of syllables (let us call them 'phrases') which are to be sung with a single breath and without pausing in between. The single danda marks the end of each such phrase where a pause is made and one may take breath. Where the end of a phrase coincides with the end of a bhakti, the pause is indicated by the double danda terminating the bhakti, and so no single danda is added for that purpose. Normally phrases are totally contained within bhakti-s. Sometimes, however, phrases will cross bhakti boundaries. One syllable of a phrase will be in one bhakti and the next will be in the next. In such cases, it is necessary for the person(s) who are responsible for singing the next bhakti to start precisely at the end of the first syllable pronounced by the person(s) singing the previous bhakti. At this point, if a normal double danda is placed to mark the end of the first bhakti in the midst of a phrase, it causes the erroneous impression that a pause can be made at that point, since that is how it is used everywhere else. To avoid this error, a double danda is inserted **in superscript** between the two syllables at the precise border of the bhakti. Therefore I suggest changing the same of the character to something more meaningful and appropriate like VEDIC SIGN NON-BREAKING SECTION SEPARATOR. Shriramana Sharma.