Samyuktaksaras (Was: Vital Statistics)

[Rajarshi Banerjee]

AT>To the proponents of the Roman script for S. Asian languages I would
suggest  that the conjunct forms of the consonants, although they are
not totally regular and predictable and do take time to learn either
for a native speaker or for others, once learned make for economy both
in reading and in writing by hand, and therefore in the use of the
written language once learned save effort.

RB> I agree, conjunct consonants are not that bad in fact I would go further
to point out that they are not a burden to learn at all. they are pretty
obvious and intuitive in the first place and for the few which are not
predictable its like learning a few short hand rules.

AT>problems in the design of typewriters, to be sure, but S. Asia seems
to be jumping from handwriting to computers largely skipping the
typewriter for local languages.  The conjunct consonant graphs save
the excessive use of virama/halant on the one hand and avoid the
endless writing of a graph for short a on the other.

RB> I always wonder about type-writers for hindi, how did they manage, they
must have  existed. I dont recall ever seeing one.