[Fwd: [Fwd: Vedic Characters & Unicode]]

Katharina Kupfer k.kupfer at EM.UNI-FRANKFURT.DE
Wed Apr 12 10:51:26 UTC 2000


Jost Gippert wrote:

> Christopher Fynn wrote:
>
> > > The Vedic signs (double udatta etc.), currently have no representation in the
> > > Unicode and ISO 10646 standards - though several people have mentioned to me at
> > > various times that there is a real need for these characters in order to
> > > represent Vedic texts.
>
> It is not clear to me whether Chris Fynn means original (Devanagari) script or
> transcription here.
> In the first case:
> Unicode in its present state (3.0) does contain the Vedic accentuation marks (Svarita
> and Udaatta) that are necessary (U+0951 and U+0952). I do not see any need for a
> "double udaatta". Perhaps "double ANudaatta" is meant here? This might be the symbol
> invented by A. Weber for his edition of Satapathabrahmana. It is highly questionable,
> though, whether such an invention which has no manuscript basis should be incorporated
> in a standardized encoding. The same holds true for, e.g., for the hacek-like mark
> used by L.v. Schroeder in his editions of Kathaka-Samhita and Maitrayani-Samhita.
>
> > >
> > > The only way to see these characters encoded in the Unicode and ISO 10646
> > > standards is for a formal proposal to encode these characters put forward to the
> > > Unicode Consortium and/or to ISO/IEC 10646 JTC1/SC2/WG2.  For information on how
> > > to make such a proposal to the Unicode Consortium see:
> > > http://www.unicode.org/pending/proposals.html . Making such a proposal to
> > > ISO/IEC 10646 JTC1/SC2/WG2 should be done through your national standards body.
> > >
> > > If  no one else wants to volunteer to do the work of making such a proposal,
> > > I'm willing to it myself since I'm familiar with the process and am a member of
> > > BSI IST2, the UK committee represented on ISO/IEC 10646 JTC1/SC2/WG2.  However
>
> > > I'm not a Sanskritist and don't have any information on these characters. If any
>
> > > subscribers to this list know of source(s) where these characters and their use
> > > is thoroughly documented (pref. in English) perhaps you could let me know. (A
> > > photocopy or PDF file of such a source or sources would be even more helpful).
> > >
> > > Unless and until these characters are included in the Unicode and ISO 10646
> > > standards there will be no proper support for them in the Unicode based Indic
> > > language systems currently being implemented in Windows 2000, Mac OS, X-Windows
> > > and other operating environments - nor will there be a proper, standards based,
> > > way of representing such characters in HTML, XML etc.
>
> It is true that preparing "official" proposals is the only way to extend the existing
> standards, and Chris Fynn's offer is highly welcome. On the other hand, lots of
> preparatory work has already been done in this respect in the course of the TITUS
> project which aims at preparing a complete collection of Vedic (and other) texts for
> online retrieval. Cf.
> http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/texte2.htm#ved
> where the texts that are presently available in HTML format (in Latin transcription)
> are listed.
>
> As we cannot expect browsers yet to handle the Unicode-inherent specifics of
> Devanagari script (block U+0900-7F) correctly, esp. with respect to the production of
> ligatures and to the positioning of diacritics such as Svarita or Udaatta, one block
> of the "Private Use Area" of Unicode (U+E900-FF) has been assigned to special
> Devanagari characters within the TITUS project. Several sample HTML pages of Vedic
> texts in Devanagari script in Unicode format that use this extension are available
> under
> http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/unicode/alphabet/devatest.htm#links
> for viewing.
> To be able to display these texts, a special font is necessary which will be freely
> downloadable soon (for the time being, please refer to
> http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/unicode/unitest2.htm#TITUUT
> for details).
> I should strongly recommend not to hurry with a standardization proposal until the
> text collection of Vedic texts has been finished and until the requirements of
> handling Devanagari in Unicode have been met by the browser producing industry. Only
> then we will be able to decide what additonal characters are really necessary to
> prepare correct web pages containing Vedic texts in Devanagari script in Unicode
> encoding.
> Best regards,
> J.G.
> --
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>                          Prof.Dr. Jost Gippert
>
>  Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft  |      tel.     +49- 69- 798 2 8591
>  Universitaet Frankfurt            |      (sekr.)  +49- 69- 798 2 3139
>  Postfach 11 19 32                 |      fax.     +49- 69- 798 2 2873
>  D-60054 Frankfurt                 |       gippert at em.uni-frankfurt.de
>                      http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------





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