From: Richard Wordingham (richard.wordingham@ntlworld.com)
Date: Mon Jun 20 2005 - 20:20:24 CDT
Doug Ewell wrote:
> I'd prefer to see "visual order" used to mean the direction generally
> appropriate for the script -- LTR for Latin, RTL for Hebrew -- but
> without reordering or other details that break the normal
> directionality. "Logical order" would be similar, but with these
> details added. I'm sure an expert in Bengali or Tamil or Khmer could
> come up with suitable examples.
'Logical order' is pretty much the same as phonetic order in these
languages. The only exceptions I can think of are Khmer bantoc (U+17CB) and
Khmer robat (U+17CC). Bantoc shortens the vowel of the *previous*
orthographic syllable, so /cap/ 'finish' is <ca><ba><bantoc>. Robat
represents /r/ at the start of a cluster, but in Unicode is written after
the second consonant of the cluster. Visually it appears above. (Some
would say that robat is a regrettable deviation from logical order.) It is
curious that both Bengali and Khmer can write the cluster -ry- with a
subscript ya/yo although the normal way of writing <r> at the start of
cluster is repha (U+17CC robat in Khmer).
Do such vagaries occur with Burmese nga? In a consonant cluster an initial
nga is rendered as a superscript mark called kinzi. It also occurs in Old
Tai Lue / Lanna Tai. However, I have a text book for the Lanna script that
gives an example of /ngiw/ with tone mark 2 written as what on the Burmese
model would be encoded something like <nga><virama><wa><dependent i><tone
mark 2>. Presumably a ZWNJ would be required before the virama to stop
<nga> being rendered as the kinzi-like form, though I don't believe the
kinzi form occurs word-initially. (Word initial ngw- does occur in the
Northern Thai language, but I don't have any spellings for such words.) I
must say I like the use of special Khmer character 'coeng' instead of virama
to form consonant stacks.
Richard.
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