Hia,
quick response to some points.
(but you should really correspond with Dr. Pal)
comments inbetween....
On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, [iso-8859-1] moumunna Raychaudhuri wrote:
> I don't find the way latex is used to write Bangla in
> BangTeX very useful, particularly for editing. I have
<snip>
> Here is a proposal about TeX/LaTeX to write Bangla.
<snip>
>
> 1. Unlike English there should be two types of fonts
> -- Traditional (with traditional conjuncts-- so-called
> 'unclear' conjuncts) and Bangla Akademi (clear
> conjuncts, partially used by RinkyMJ fonts). These two
> can be loaded by commands like, say, \bnTr and \bnAK.
> These can be used in TeX.
That's an interesting thought. I don't know of the difference, but is the
new type the "dumbed down" type where conjuncts look more like the
components ?
>
> 2. For LaTeX there will be Bangla package which should
> be loaded by \usepackage{banglaharaf} command. This
> will define two environments {banglaTR} and
> {banglaAK}. Anything written in this environment will
> be in Bangla (traditional or Akademi)-- but not the
> bangla numerics. Font changing commands such as Large,
> Huge etc and \bf, \textbf etc. will work for bangla.
> \rm-like command will generate roman even in these
> environments.
Hmm, sounds like bangtex....
>
> 3. A font have to be developed resembling handwriting
> (standard may be that of Tagore) wich may be used for
> italics (\it or \textit or \emph etc). This is to be
> done to fill the absence of italics in Bangla. Slanted
> & wide fonts have to be generated seperately. (All
> italics fonts are actually Slanted fonts).
So you don't think the slanted fonts in bwtex or bangtex are suitable...
I mean, yes we can have dozens of fonts, what we now have is the bare
minimum for any useful work
>
> 4. To write numerics in Bangla a separate package say
> "banglanumeric" is to be loaded.
> Reason: Textbooks donot use bangla numerics! Once this
> package is loaded, equation numbers, items references
> pagenumbers will be in bangla.
Barda's bwtex package handles this, the public version of bangtex will
handle this (Dr. Pal will be able to give you the details)
>
> 5. When the environments like abstracts, references,
> captions are called within the bangla environments the
> titles will be replaced by respective bangla words.
>
Bangtex ... ?
> 6. Writing of bangla in roman scripts will be phonetic
> and simple. This process is used successfully in
> slightly different forms in iLEAP word processor (free
> limited version at www.cdac-india.com), Axar
> (www.parabaas.com) mail interfaces of
> www.banglalive.com, sify.com, rediffmail.com etc.
I'm sure there is a reson why Barda and then Dr. Pal chose the scheme they
did, perhaps some limitations in TeX ? I guess what you are refering to is
the use of the \*...* macro to do the glyph repositioning.
>
> 7. 'Ekushey' may work for generating the TeX source
> (as it is doing now for Pandey's TeX). If Possible,
> this may work in conjuction with the free TeX editor
> TeXniccenter (as it is doing for MSWord) for doing so.
> For windows,Linux StarOffice may also work. A separate
> editor (like Axar) will be good.
>
Well its beta and I'm not trying to advertise it (too much :) )but Lekho
(http://lekho.sf.net) can export unicode text to bangtex format so you can
compile it and produce .ps (And Lekho doesn't use the \*...* macro, so I
believe it can be used with barda's bwtex package too- haven't checked)
But it can't do conversions... you need to type latex
while actually seeing the bangla you are typing.
See the bangtex_example.tex file.
> 8.Professional looking Metafonts must be developed on
> the basis of available fonts. This will be standard
> like computer modern for English.
>
See the Free Bangla Fonts project, may be another branch for dev
? Syamindo, Deepayan et al ?
(Me no understand fonts. Me dummy for fonts... :) )
> 9. Ahomiya (Assamese) has two extra fonts. If they are
> defined, this can be used for Ahomiya also.
>
> 10. Same structure may be used with all brahmi based
> scripts. (Devnagari, etc.)
"Same"? dangerous word my friend, as we are finding out (for unicode...)
-kg
> --- Kaushik Ghose <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If
> you don't mind using latex the bangtex package
> > http://tnp.saha.ernet.in/~pbpal/bangtex/bangtex.html
> >
> > is nice.
> >
> > Does anyone know if latex or some variant supports
> > colours ?
> > -kg
> >
> > On Sat, 23 Nov 2002, Sonjoy Ganguly wrote:
> >
> > > Dear Fraternity,
> > > I would like to type, edit and beautify in Bengali
> > ( some thing like Ileap in
> > > windoze) scripts. I am on Man 9.0. successfully
> > running
> > > Any body , any clue. Please respond.
> > > Thanks
> > > Sonjoy.
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