Dear Richard, It is true that Vowel_Independent can behave like Consonant characters. Given that consonant letters also have an inherent vowel in these scripts, IMO there is not really much to distinguish *technically*. At least in *Indian* Indic scripts we don't have Vowel_Independent letters participating in a cluster via a virama unlike the consonant letter, but possibly in the South East Asian scripts this is not guaranteed. Hence IIUC it is merely the traditional classification based on the sound value of these letters that is reflected here.
And that classification (which you probably know but just putting into writing) is: The consonant letters all denote the same inherent vowel preceded by one (or, rarely, more) consonant sounds. The independent vowel letters OTOH all denote different vowel sounds without (for the most part) any consonant sounds. HTH, Shriramana Sharma. -- Shriramana Sharma ஶ்ரீரமணஶர்மா श्रीरमणशर्मा _______________________________________________ Unicode mailing list [email protected] http://unicode.org/mailman/listinfo/unicode
