Fwd: Malayalam splitting and 'VATTU'

[Eric Mader <mader jtcsv com>]

Hello,

Here is a message I've just received from an expert on the Malayalam 
script. (There's a typo in the second paragraph; the code in question is 
U+0D4C) I will check with the Unicode consortium about the status of the 
proposed change. The actual code change is trivial.

Regards,
Eric

> Delivered-To: jtcsv com-mader jtcsv com
> Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 04:51:51 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Baiju M <malayalamlinux yahoo com>
> Subject: Malayalam splitting and 'VATTU'
> To: mader jtcsv com
> Cc: malayalamlinux yahoogroups com
>
> Helo Eric Mader,
>                 First of all thanks for adding Malayalam support
> in pango module. Here I wish to piont out some mistakes in the
> code.
>
> The spliting for U+0D0C (Malayalam Vovel sign AU) is not
> required.
> I know the current unicode document clearly written like :
>
> * pieces on both sides of the consonant.
> = U+0D46 (consonat) U+0D57
>
> But now we are not using taht shape.
>
> Ministry of IT (Govt. of india), a member of Unicode consortium
> has prosed for a change in Malayalam. They suggested to change
> the shape of U+0D4C (no backward compatibility problem) as
> U+0D57
> Please see this document :
>
> http://tdil.mit.gov.in/tdil-april-2002.pdf
>
> In the GPLed OTF font available at :
> http://malayalamlinux.sf.net/downloads
> I changed the shape of U+0D4C
>
> So if you are removing the splitting of that character, no
> compatibiity problem will arise. Otherwise unicode support for
> Malayalam will be useless.
>
> <snip>
>
> /*
>  * FIXME: post 'GSUB' reordering of MATRA_PRE's for Malayalam
> and Tamil
>  * FIXME: reformed Malayalam needs to reorder VATTU to before
> base glyph...
>  * FIXME: eyelash RA only for Devanagari??
>  */
>
> </snip>
>
> Don't reorder it like that, because the 'VATTU' formation is
> different for different consonats. Most of that will be
> (consonat) + U+0D31 (Dravida 'Madyamam')  (Sometime in future,
> this only will be existing as our language eveloves)
> And some consonats will be joining only with U+0D30 (A 'Madyamam
> ' derived from Sanscrit)
> All Malayalam 'mrithus' are like this
> eg:- U+0D17,U+0D1C,U+0D26 etc.
>
> So this instruction can be given in GSUB tables using 'pres'
> feature. (ofcource this will be a big table)
>
> I am thinking about writing an input checker also for avoing
> most of the errors.
>
> Now I have given the instructions for five 'chillus' like :
> (consonant) + (virama) + (ZWJ) in the font. And I have submitted
> XKB and Compose file to Xfree86 for easy inputting of chillus as
> per the keyboard layout prosed by kerala govt.
> http://malayalamlinux.sourceforge.net/downloads/
> Malayalam LC_COLLATE is also based on this.
>
> If our proposal is going to be accepted by Unicode consortium,
> all these problems will be solved. But we can't wait till that,
> we want to solve these problems with backward and forward
> compatibility.
>
> With thanks and regards,
> Baiju M
> P.S: I CC'ed this mail to malayalamlinux yahoogroups com (Our
> project mailing list)