Dear Members Recent (rather unfotunate) exchange of emails resurrected the name of linotype (correct spelling?) fonts. In fact linotype has a particular philosophy of design of bangla haraf which none of the available fonts follows, specially while writing "juktakkhars". As far as I know, this was designed under the leadership of brillian storyteller, lexicographer and scientist Rajsekhar Basu for Anandabazar Patrika to be used in Linotype machines (who was the editor? Sureshchandra Sarkar? I forgot). These machines had limited keys. Rajsekhar was known to bring the concept from the printed version of the Bengali grammar by Halhed (again, spelling!). Conjuncts were "clear" in that. For example, 'sa' looked same when it is joined with any letter, ka, kha, Tha, tha etc.. In sa+tha(dental) tha looked exactly like itself, not like 'ha' as it is in formal fonts! na, sha, da(dental) won't change with addition of ja-phala. sa, sha, ha won't change with u-kaar. u kaar won't change form for ra! Anandabazar rejected it at the advent of computer era of publishing. Pashimbanga bangla academy accepts it but with unnecessary modification. May I request font designers to bring that concept (it may not be the glyphs). Purest forms can be obtained in older (pre 1991 perhaps) Andanda Publishers books, or Chalantika, or Parashuram golposongroho by M.C.Sarkar, Kolkata. (Indeed, Rinky font of Mustafa Jabbar uses juktakkhars using that philosophy, but not for every conjunct, such as na+ta(dental)+u-kaar). Otherwise, a great philosophy of design will be lost.
Thanks for patient reading. Biplab
