Attn: Unicode Inc worker Asmus Freytag
C/o Magda Danish
Sr Administrative Director
Unicode Inc
<[email protected]>,
<[email protected]>,
Neither Assam Government nor Assam Literary Society has asked Unicode
Inc to encode Assamese stuff.
Can you reply back with detailed information on what prompt Unicode
Inc to encode Assamese stuff as "Bengali"?
Thank you in advance for providing this information,
Tulasi
PS: Appended herewith for reference
From: delex r <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 4:24 AM
Subject: Glaring mistake in the code list for South Asian Script
To: [email protected]
Here I would like to point out an absurdity in the code lists that
where “Bengali” has been recorded as a South Asian script which is
actually a misnomer. In fact Bengali is a language that uses a script
that has not yet been named. The proposed name “Purvanagari” is an
invention only as there is no consensus regarding accepting that term.
The script used for writing Bengali language is also used for writing
Assamese language or you can say vice-versa. But naming it as
“Bengali” script undermines the separate existence of Standard
Assamese Alphabet List that contains special characters unique to
Assamese language only. Example, the character allotted with Hex code
09F0 is Raw {Pronounced as English ‘raw’(=uncooked)} and the
character allotted with Hex code 09F1 is Wabo { Pronounced almost same
as you would pronounce ‘Wabo’ in English}. There is nothing like 09F0
or 09F1 in Bengali language. These two characters are part of Assamese
Alphabet list!
and are used for spelling regular Assamese words. Terming these
letters as Bengali specific addition is just like copy right
violation, plagiarism, or more rudely call it a theft. One can never
find these letters in any Bengali writings, neither in ancient nor in
modern. Unicode must consider removing these letters from what it
calls the Bengali script and recognise the fact that the non-presence
of the above letters in that script makes it a phonetically deficient
one. I would rather suggest that the code range 0980 to 09FF should be
named as “Assamese” script because then only one can definitely
include 09F0 and 09F1 as part of this range. In that case the only
errata will be at the character with Hex code 09B0 which is described
as Bengali letter Ra (phonetically same as 09F0 above) and can be
resolved by aptly calling it a Bengali specific addition. The use of
character 09F0 is older than 09B0 to spell words that requires
bringing out the ‘Raw’ sound. For som!
e time in the 18th century the character 09B0 was used for writing
Assamese language as evident from some print materials at that time
but later the use of that character 09B0 was abandoned in Assamese.
This suggest that that the character 09B0 was for some time part of
the Assamese script and should have no objection by any one now to be
part of the “Assamese” script which I suggest for Unicode. One point
worth mentioned here that every word and sound pronounced in Bengali
language can be inscribed with the available standard character set
with Assamese language whereas with phonetically deficient Bengali
script one shall not be able to inscribe thousands of Assamese words.
This point alone can put the name “Assamese” script in precedence
over the “Bengali” script for the purpose of nomenclature of the
South Asian scripts.
