Why not a definitive devnagri font

[Madhav Deshpande]

	The issue of being able to use Devanagari on a network like 
Indology carries a possible assumption that one may not only be quoting 
texts using this script, but that one may also wish to communicate by 
using those languages like Hindi which use Devanagari as their normal 
script.  While I see the merit of being able to communicate using Hindi 
or Marathi for a certain group of users of those languages, Indology as a 
group is well served by using means which are most widely available to 
all participants.  Here we are interested in discussing issues related to 
Indological matters, rather than present ourselves as users of specific 
languages or scripts.  To this extent, I would rather like to see the use 
of romanization continued.
	However, I agree with Dominik that a time has indeed come to 
start using Indian scripts in our western journals and other 
publications.  Even here, I have a feeling that we must make a 
distinction between citations or editions of texts and non-western words 
being discussed in a western language.  While the citations and editions 
should preferably be in a native script such as Devanagari, individual 
words being discussed should be romanized to make that discussion 
accessible to a wider audience.
	Some recent publications have taken the question of script to 
another possibility:  using both Devanagari and Roman transcriptions of 
citations and texts side by side.  Bob Hueckstedt's book on 'iko yaN aci' 
and Cardona's books have followed this pattern.  Personally I think this 
leads to unnecessary prolixity and destroys too many trees.  Anyone who 
can be presumed to read a book in English can be presumed to read 
Romanized Sanskrit, or one can make a judicious (?) decision to leave all 
textual citations in Nagari.  I do not see the need to put each citation 
in both the scripts.
	Hope this is some food for thought.
		All the best,

				Madhav Deshpande

On Thu, 21 Mar 1996, Dominik Wujastyk wrote:

> Birgit Kellner said:
> > 
> > [...] all sorts of systems (nobody mentioned OS/2
> > as yet, [...]
> 
> I have been using OS/2 as my main platform for several years, and I
> think it combines the very best qualities of Windows, DOS, and Unix in a
> single product.  It is very stable (never crashes) and a wonderful
> platform for communications of all sorts.  A happy customer.
> 
> Dominik Wujastyk
> 
> 
> > Hence, I would strongly suggest that, until the
> > current lcd is replaced by one which allows for Devanagari, let's stick to
> > the present conventions. 
> 
> Yes, indeed.
> 
> The issue of Devanagari representation of Sanskrit text is, in any case,
> not of great importance in contemporary indological scholarship.
> Indologists are all used to reading and writing books, journals, and
> indeed entire Sanskrit texts, in romanization.  And historically, of
> course, Devanagari is not by any means the only script that has been
> used to record Sanskrit.  It is attractive and "natural" in a way, but
> romanization also has its advantages for representing certain linguistic
> and semantic features.
> 
> I do think, however, that since Devanagari is now so easy to typeset,
> some of the journals like BSOAS, JAOS, JRAS, IIJ, etc., might consider
> admitting the use of Devanagari in some articles, if desired.
> 
> Dominik Wujastyk
> 
>