Re: Fwd: Malayalam & SF_PROCESS_ZWJ

["Mahesh T. Pai" <paivakil gmail com>]

This  issue is,  iMO actually  a problem  with the  unicode standards.
Read on ...

Eric Mader said on Tue, Jun 19, 2007 at 06:28:57AM -1000,:

 > I think it's important that we implement the same standard as
 > Windows.  Interoperability must be our most important
 > goal. Otherwise chaos will result. The thing I hear most often from
 > clients submitting bugs against the ICU LayoutEngine is "but it
 > works on Windows..."

Which? The one which M$ has published in their opentype documentation,
or one which they have actually implemented?

In the  context of  the five  chillu graphemes, M$  have, in  their OT
Specs, stated that the  chillus form with the C+chandrakkala sequence,
but  in  actual implementation,  require  the  zwj  too (to  form  the
chillus).

When this was pointed out in  the Unicode indic list, the response was
to  encode the chillus,  which was  opposed by  a section  of Language
experts, stating  that a ``foreign  body'' like UTC cannot  change the
Malayalam characters.

Whatever that be,  the current position is that  the chillu characters
are  in the  pipeline,  for  inclusion in  the  next (post  5.whatever
version  we have  now) revision.  Once this  is adopted  formally, our
headache would be to how to deal with legacy data.

The earlier UTS  was ambiguous on the issue of  using ZWJs, for chillu
rendering and different parties applied their own interpretations.

I have serious doubts about  use of zwj/zwnjs in non-chillu context in
Malayalam.

Can  any  body point  out  a  requirement for  use  of  zwj/zwnj in  a
non-chilu context in Malayalam (and abesnce/presence of zw[n]j causing
a meaning difference)?

-- 
 Mahesh T. Pai <<>> http://paivakil.blogspot.com/
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