From: Kenneth Whistler (kenw@sybase.com)
Date: Wed Apr 06 2005 - 15:12:36 CST
Philippe responded...
> > The error in the malayalam zero sign
> > needs to be corrected.
>
> If what you say there is true, ...
[paragraphs of speculation about how to "fix" the problem omitted]
Aye, but there's the rub.
What the Unicode Standard has encoded for Malayalam zero
(and has had encoded since Unicode 1.0 in 1991) matches
exactly what is also described by the definitive article
on Malayalam writing by K. P. Mohanan, Section 38 of
Daniels and Bright, The World's Writing Systems. (1996)
It also matches the description of Nakanishi (1980).
Note also that a native speaker of Malayalam has been
sitting on the UTC for many years now, and such an obvious
"error" in the standard for his script is unlikely to have
escaped his notice.
Note also that a number of years' worth of review by
Indian script experts organized by the Government of India
have requested all kinds of changes and additions to the
Indian script encodings for the Unicode Standard, but this
particular item has not been among them.
Note also that normal usage for digits in modern Malayalam
text is ASCII 0..9, and not the traditional script digits.
There may be some contention amongst Malayalam users in Kerala as to
what the proper form for a digit zero using traditional
Malayalam script digit forms should be -- perhaps influenced
by digit zero forms in neighboring Dravidian scripts as well.
In any case, it isn't helpful to just jump to conclusions
every time an error is reported. The committees need to
consider the possibility that the report of an error is itself
in error (many such reports are), or that such a report
needs to be considered in a context that modifies its
import significantly.
I consider the chances that the UTC will start "fixing"
Malayalam digit zero along the lines that Philippe has
suggested to be, well, close to zero.
--Ken
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