Transliteration problems at the Perso-Arabic/Indic interface

[Dr Anthony P Stone]

In connection with the development of a new international standard for the
transliteration of Indic scripts into Latin characters, there is a problem about
the best way to deal with modified Indic characters representing Perso-Arabic
[P-A] letters.

In Devanagari and Bengali script, five nuqta characters are relatively well
known, but there also exist schemes using up to 14 modified characters for P-A
letters.   These schemes use a variety of graphic forms, and in some schemes the
distinction between certain P-A characters is lost.

I should like to propose a simple solution, in which the transliteration of a
modified Indic character depends largely on the original P-A character.
Because an adequate discussion requires non-Latin scripts, I have put a summary
on the Web at

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/stone_catend/trliface.htm

Doubts have been expressed as to whether it is appropriate for the new
international standard to deal with more than the usual five nuqta characters.
So I should be glad to receive a personal email from anyone who actually feels
the *need* for a solution such as I have proposed.   Other comments will also be
welcome.

Tony Stone

Dr Anthony P. Stone, Project Leader, ISO/TC46/SC2/WG12 Transliteration of Indic
scripts.