South East Asian Scripts

[cardona at unagi.cis.upenn.edu]

>As Grantha script has been mentioned, I would like to side-track for a
>moment and ask if anyone knows a good source book for learning this script
>(preferably one available outside of India). All suggestions are welcome.
>
>Thanks in advance,
>Martin Gansten

There is a short work that you might find useful: A Primer in Grantha
Characters by K. Venugopalam of Deccan College, published by James H. Nye,
319 West Swift Street, St. Peter, Minnesota 56082 USA (1983).  The
publisher's address may well have changed since the date of publication,
but you might be able to get a copy from a bookseller in India.  George
Cardona




> From 101621.104 at CompuServe.COM 28 96 Aug EDT 12:25:45
Date: 28 Aug 96 12:25:45 EDT
From: Anthony P Stone <101621.104 at CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Re: typing Sanskrit

On 8 August 1996, Leslaw Borowski wrote : 

> For additional Hindi "letters" I would suggest q, x, z and f.

If I am right in thinking that  x represents the modified kh in words like
xudaa, xaakii, then it seems we need another letter for the modified g (say g_
for the sake of discussion) in words like kaag_az.   (Or is there perhaps a
tendency to omit this modification?) 

> I think both proposals by A.P Stone and J.E. Agenbroad are more or less
>acceptable and if they did not write them I would suggest something  similar
say >a-a or a_a. Personally, I think a_a is better (no problems with
>hyphenation).  I don't >think a.a would make computers crazy but I think we
should keep number of >additional marks minimal (have some reminiscences).
Besides, I think _ and - are >even more convenient to type than . (but this may
be only my impression). 

Fine! - whatever is best to separate the letters.

On 25 August 1996,  S . Kalyanaraman wrote:

>This is fine for classical Sanskrit. But, wouldn't the problem get compounded
when >there is a demand to include vedic accents and the typical (1) Mundarica,
(2) Tamil >or (3) Persian sounds such (absorbed into later-day repertoire of the
languages) >as the following required for comparative linguistic or Praakrt
studies: (1) ng; (2) n >and n- (vallina na-karam); Z (ZZHA); L; R; (3) f? 

It would be very valuable to have a consolidated scheme of typing for all Indian
languages.   As well as the problem of consonants, there is also the question of
how to type the short vowels e, o of Dravidian languages where the long vowels
are the ones in Sanskrit (also Malayalam half short-u).   What about using  e",
o", (and u") for these short vowels (or will some computers have problems)?

Regards,  Tony Stone