IUC 37 is in progress. Many will be attending from these lists: http://www.unicodeconference.**org/e/IUC37-2WEEK-10-09-13.htm<http://www.unicodeconference.org/e/IUC37-2WEEK-10-09-13.htm>
Happy IUC! Can the keynote address by Alolita Sharma be put on the web, e.g., in youtube, so many Wiki enthusiasts in India watch her talk? India is a country where many scripts, each script representing 50+ million speakers, are in use and have a WIki also. Typically, many Wiki articles are only few lines tho'. There is very little content in Indian scripts, at least as yet: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24279606 "Search for Google always been about all languages. Indian languages present special challenges, because there is very little content in these languages. So the biggest thing that can be done is the creation of more content." Govt. of India is declaring many languages as classical languages - first was Tamil in 2004, followed by Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, more recently Malayalam, then Oriya. More will be added in time. On November 1, Kerala state in India is celebrating Malayalam as a classical language of India (per GoI statement), http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/november-1-is-classical-language-day/article5225518.ece While major Indian scripts now have Unicode encoding, and web presence, hope in the current decade minor scripts of India get not only Unicode chart, but also display engines so users can write, start wiki-s in these scripts also. For example, Brahmi has a chart, but not in the web. If given a display engine, Indians and academics in the West and India can discuss both Aryan and Dravidian (eg., Sanskrit and Tamil resp.) in Brahmi script. Also, the Grantha script, used for writing Sanskrit and Tamil sacred texts needs support. Especially because Tamil script is only for Tamil language, and is not capable of writing other Indian classical languages such as Malayalam, Telugu, Hindi or Sanskrit. A Wiki using Grantha script to write these languages can be started if Microsoft, Google, Apple, Adobe, ... give support for the minor scripts of India. At least a selection of scripts - Brahmi, Grantha, Kaithi - to begin with. Hope a start is made in the coming years by Unicode member companies - major IT corp.s MS, Google, Apple, support Brahmi, Grantha, ... to be added to the existing scripts' of India in the web. Once a start is made, over the years, Brahmi, Grantha scripts will be fully able to write both language families - Aryan and Dravidian - in the Indian language sphere in the Web. N. Ganesan http://nganesan.blogspot.com
