Marco,
Thank you for the
input. I have altered the test page to include some of your
suggestions regarding the Unicode glyphs. You may need to refresh the page to
see them.
My main goal is to
reproduce the appearance of the card's text exactly. It's becoming apparent
that this may not be possible. At this point, whether the publisher
made the best character choices is moot. I just have to live with it,
inconsistencies and all. Completing the rest of the card's text is going to be
even more difficult. My only choice may be finding a font with all the
characters (I can't find some of them in Sanskrit 98) and using a GIF on
the site.
--Victor
Victor Campbell wrote:
> I'm looking for help
with converting the text of a Sanskrit
> trading card to
> Unicode.
I am not connected with the publisher of the card, just a
> programmer who
helps support a site for collectors.
>
> I have set up a test page
for experimenting with the
> Devanagari Unicodes at
> this
address: http://victor.flaminio.com/aa_MySanskrit.html
|| 1. This is what I want: Fungal Shambler
This is NOT
what you want! :-)
You say that you want a vocalic-L (U+090C,
decimal 2316), but the glyph I
see in the picture is a CONSONANT LA (U+0932,
decimal 2354).
The LA glyph in the Sanskrit 98 font looks different from
the LA glyph in
the Unicode charts: in your font, the right side of the
letter is rounded,
while on the charts it is straight line. But it is
nevertheless the same
letter, coming in two slight typographic
variants.
Notice that vocalic L has a "tail" under the letter: *that* is
an essential
trait, and the characteristics that distinguishes the consonant
from the
vowel.
|| . This I get instead of what I want.
||
||
pha anusvara ga la virama sha ma virama ba virama [ZWJ] vocalic-l
ra
virama
||
फंगल्शम्ब्ऌर्
||
फंगल्शम्ब्‍
;ऌर्
The
sequence <..., ba, virama, ZWJ, vocalic-l, ...> is wrong. It should
be
<..., ba, virama, la,
...>:
..., U+092C, U+094D,
U+0932, ...
Or, in decimal
HTML:
...
ब्ल ...
Apart this, the encoding is
correct. (The ZWJ is not wrong, just useless.)
|| SO HOW DO I GET IT TO
LOOK LIKE #1 WITH UNICODE?
|| (The desired form of sha, and ba joined with
the desired form of
vocalic-l.)
If you still see it incorrectly, it is
because your font or operating system
doesn't fully support Indic
rendering.
You can upgrade your PC to a different font or operating
system but,
unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to ensure that your
users will do
the same.
<OFFTOPIC>
BTW, a couple of side
notes about the transliteration:
- There is a special character to
transliterate European "f": U+095E (dec.
2398). It looks like PHA with a dot
under it.
- Using anusvara for the "n" in "fungal" and a MA for the "m"
in "shambler"
seems inconsistent. I'd either use anusvara for both or NGA
(U+0919, decimal
2329) for the first one and MA for the second one.
-
"Fungal shambler" is two words in English: why did you join them
in
Devanagari?
</OFFTOPIC>
Regards.
_
Marco
