TeX for Indology

[kichenas at math.umn.edu]

A question related to Minoura Akio's, and which may 
interest people working with other languages, is as
follows: Is there a (La)TeX style file which enables
the input of Romanized text? All the tools for this are
present in TeX (macrons, dots over and under letters,...)
and all that is needed is the definition of an 
environment which would enable the user to input
\begin{tamil}
kaNTanen kaRpinuk k-aNiyai
\end{tamil}
and produce the output corresponding to
{\em ka\d n{}\d t{}a\b n{}e\b n kaRpi\b n{}uk k-a\d n{}iyai}

The user would only need to update the transliteration
table to suit his/her needs. Such a system
is implicit in ITRANS, but I do not know of any 
language-independent, easily customized, set of macros
for this purpose. This might be combined
with other useful commands for scholarly articles,
such as variations on the \footnote command 
(one such macro has, I think, been written by D. Wujastyk).

Further information on this issue would be useful, and would 
help separate the issue of fonts from that of transliteration,
at least as far as TeX users are concerned. Indeed, TeX input
uses nothing but ASCII characters, and is eminently suitable
for electronic communication.



                                Satyanad Kichenassamy
                                School of Mathematics
                                University of Minnesota
                                kichenas at math.umn.edu