I very much suspect you are mistaken in those assumptions. Nevertheless, whether Tamil uses more sounds than this or that other language is immaterial. What matters is _in what ways is Tamil script adapted in actual usage_ to write other languages: if there is physical evidence that people have innovated certain additional written letters or marks for writing another language, then it really isn’t relevant whether those letters and marks were used to represent speech sounds already used for Tamil language. The fact that there is existing usage of characters makes them potential candidates for encoding, whatever their origin or the level of prestige (or lack thereof) attributed to them.
Peter From: Sinnathurai Srivas [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 11:35 AM To: Pavanaja U B; Indic Discussion List; Unicode Mailing List; UnicoRe Mailing List; N. Ganesan; Peter Constable Cc: wg02infitt; [email protected] Subject: Re: [indic] Re: Tamil Anusvara (U+0B82) glyph shape [ Re: Dot position in Gurmukhi character U+0A33] Dear All, There is a misunderstanding about Tamil here. To my knowledge, in day to day usage Tamil uses far more sounds than any language in the world. This is because Tamil alphabet represents places of articulation and it is scalable. Alphabet that represent sound is not scalable but straight jacketed. So Tamil uses far more phoneme for any language. Most importantly to my knowledge, only Tamil grammar that defines what is alphabet and how to use them. This originate from original writing analysis/originally scientific analysis of Lumer/sumer/Tamil system. This got missinterpreted is another story. It is not easy to understand when one has no grammar that defines alphabet. Because Tamil has grammar the writing need to follow that. So transliteration should follow Tamil rules to represent expressions, such as anusvara. On the other hand never think about creating alphabet to represent any sound. this will contradict 100% with Tamil alphabet. It represent poA and then each PoA represent all possible sounds that human can generate from each of that poAs. Indic is different. Tamil is different. Tamil knows how to transliterate. Do not impose additional alien system. [http://mail.blueyonder.co.uk/mail/images/cleardot.gif] Sinnathurai --- On Thu, 9/2/12, Peter Constable <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: From: Peter Constable <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: [indic] Re: Tamil Anusvara (U+0B82) glyph shape [ Re: Dot position in Gurmukhi character U+0A33] To: "Sinnathurai Srivas" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, "Pavanaja U B" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, "Indic Discussion List" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, "Unicode Mailing List" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, "UnicoRe Mailing List" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, "N. Ganesan" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Cc: "wg02infitt" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Thursday, 9 February, 2012, 18:52 Srivas: You shouldn’t take a narrow view of the impact of the Tamil script. Apparently, there are people that embrace it even when trying to write text in languages other than the primary one it was associated with. This is not unlike people using Hangul script for phonetic transcription of other languages—which also does happen. In such cases, it is not uncommon that the script gets extended with additional characters or marks to accommodate sounds not used in the original language. This has happened for many of the world’s other major scripts, including Latin, Arabic, Cyrillic and others. Peter From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]]<mailto:[mailto:[email protected]]> On Behalf Of Sinnathurai Srivas Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2012 2:01 AM To: Pavanaja U B; Indic Discussion List; Unicode Mailing List; UnicoRe Mailing List; N. Ganesan Cc: wg02infitt Subject: [indic] Re: Tamil Anusvara (U+0B82) glyph shape [ Re: Dot position in Gurmukhi character U+0A33] Dear All, Anusvara and Visarga are not required for Tamil. Tamil Grammar (first chapter) deals with writing system. Tamil writing system is different to mostly other Indic system. primarily, Tamil alphabet does not represent sounds, but represents Places of articulation. Most Indic alphabet represent sound. This is distinct phenomenon. beside, there are rules to achieve what ever Anusvara and Visarga are doing. Unicode should not attempt to fix Tamil language to accommodate a different writing system, even for transliteration. Tamil has it's own transliteration methods. As tamil is classical, ancient, current and scientific, there should not be an attempt to destroy the system. please leave it alone. tamil alphabet and it's interpretations/usage is scientifically defined. Sinnathurai --- On Thu, 9/2/12, N. Ganesan <[email protected]</mc/[email protected]>> wrote: From: N. Ganesan <[email protected]</mc/[email protected]>> Subject: [indic] Tamil Anusvara (U+0B82) glyph shape [ Re: Dot position in Gurmukhi character U+0A33] To: "Pavanaja U B" <[email protected]</mc/[email protected]>>, "Indic Discussion List" <[email protected]</mc/[email protected]>>, "Unicode Mailing List" <[email protected]</mc/[email protected]>>, "UnicoRe Mailing List" <[email protected]</mc/[email protected]>> Date: Thursday, 9 February, 2012, 2:45 On Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 6:29 PM, Pavanaja U B <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > Unicode’s policy is not delete any character once encoded. You just don’t use > it. That’s all. > > On another thinking, I feel it will be even better to add more characters to > Tamil to help in transliterating from other Indian languages. > > Regards, > Pavanaja > Yes. Anusvara and Visarga are core characters needed for transliteration in Tamil script. The Indic, non-Tamil languages' rendition to Tamil script uses them extensively. Regards N. Ganesan
