Chair
Unicode Technical Committee
Unicode Consortium
USA
Dear Dr. Moore,
Having retired from the Tamil Nadu
Department of Archaeology, I have for more than thirty
years of experience as an epigraphist. During all this
time I have shared my epigraphic knowledge with all
interested persons. Just last week Dr. Naga Ganesan
requested the publication reference for an inscription
at Arittapatti near Madurai and I gave him the
information.
I am writing this letter to draw your
attention to the UTC agenda item related to the encoding
of the two Tamil letters NNNA and LLLA as Grantha
characters. I would like to register my strong
objections against such a move.
I have evaluated the arguments put
forth by Dr. Naga Ganesan and Dr. S. Palaniappan
regarding this matter. Dr. S. Palaniappan has submitted
more than enough evidence in support of his arguments.
All his evidences are undeniable. On no occasion LLLA
and NNNA are used as Grantha letters in South Indian
inscriptions. These two are pure Tamil letters. For the
sake of maintaining the integrity and reliability of a
future digital epigraphic corpus, I want the
individuality of Tamil language and letters to be
maintained at all cost. The interests of millions of
Tamils who have a stake in their heritage represented by
the Tamil inscriptions should be safe guarded. So I
request the proposal to be rejected.
Sincerely,
C. Santhalingam, Ph.D.
Secretary
Pandya Nadu Centre for Historical
Research
Madurai
India