[INDOLOGY] Unicode font for ancient and modern Tamil

Fri Mar 17 08:19:43 UTC 2023

Dear Satyanad (if I may too), dear Jean-Luc,

Thanks for these further comments!!!

With very best wishes.

Manu

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*Emmanuel FRANCIS-GONZE*

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Le ven. 17 mars 2023 à 08:36, Satyanad KICHENASSAMY <
satyanad.kichenassamy at univ-reims.fr> a écrit :

> PS : regarding e and o : if the examples do refer to long e and o, then
> the line should perhaps be interpreted as a correction over an existing dot.
>
> On Thu, 16 Mar 2023 23:18:25 +0100
> Satyanad Kichenassamy <satyanad.kichenassamy at univ-reims.fr> wrote:
>
> >
> > Dear Jean-Luc, Dear Manu (if I may),
> >
> > Indeed, I was talking about all of the forms both of you mentioned,
> namely
> >
> > - long ra with a vinculum
> > - short ra with a macron. The macron may even be linked to the ra if one
> > writes very fast.
> > - line covering a puḷḷi (to correct a mistake)
> >
> > The first two enable disambiguation. It is not clear to me from a
> > historical viewpoint whether they were introduced for the purpose, or
> > whether they were natural evolutions (people do tend to link characters
> > together when they write fast). The aesthetic dimension may also be
> > relevant.
> >
> > These are forms in use in my family. I am attaching a photograph with
> > examples in my own handwriting. My parents used the same and, as I said,
> > I have encountered them in manuscripts but didn't make a special note of
> > them since these forms were familiar to me.
> >
> > The vinculum is a line to "link together" several characters;
> > mathematicians, especially British, used to write this over expressions
> > as a substitute for a parenthesis. Thus, in (self-explanatory) LaTeX
> > code, \overline{x+y} means (x+y). (This is consistent with the Latin
> > etymology: a /vinculum/ is a link, /in vincula/ means in fetters etc.)
> > The first example seemed to me to be a vinculum rather than a macron
> > since it links the two characters.
> >
> > About the examples with e and o, it may be that the additional marks are
> > sloppily written puḷḷi-s and not bars. I am referring to தொல்காப்பியம்,
> > எழுத்ததிகாரம், நூன்மரபு 15-16 that read :
> >
> > மெய்யி னியற்கை புள்ளியொடு நிலையல்
> > எகர ஒகரத் தியற்கையு மற்றே.
> >
> > (For people who do not read Tamil, this means that consonants
> > intrinsically stand with a dot, and that short e and short o have the
> > same intrinsic feature. Tolkaappiyam is the first grammar of classical
> > Tamil; it actually includes quite a bit of literary analysis in addition
> > to grammar in the narrow sense and, as we see here, treats language as
> > written as well as spoken.)
> >
> > Kind regards to both,
> >
> >          Satyanad K.
> >
> > Le 16/03/2023 à 20:12, Jean-Luc Chevillard a écrit :
> > > Dear Satyanad,
> > >
> > > as a clarification,
> > > are you talking about the special forms seen in this image,
> > > taken from a 17th cent. Goa MS
> > > in the words which would nowadays be printed as
> > > ஆரோபிக்கிறது, ஆரோகணம், ஆரோக்கியம், ஆரோசை?
> > >
> > > (I obtained those images from Cristina Muru, many years ago)
> > >
> > > Best wishes
> > >
> > > -- Jean-Luc
> > >
> > >
> > > On 16/03/2023 16:33, Satyanad KICHENASSAMY wrote:
> > >>
> > >> Dear Charles,
> > >>
> > >> Nice project. Please let us know when the revised font will be
> > >> available. Regarding the long ra, I assume you are planning to create
> > >> a glyph for the character with a vinculum? (Or is it already there?)
> > >> Similarly, the short ra is often written with a macron to avoid
> > >> confusion.
> > >>
> > >> One may want to include also the lines that are used to cover a
> > >> pu.l.li (and thus, restore the vocalization).
> > >>
> > >> Best,
> > >>
> > >>       Satyanad K.
> > >>
> > >> Le 16/03/2023 à 11:42, Charles Li via INDOLOGY a écrit :
> > >>>
> > >>> Hello,
> > >>>
> > >>> At the TST Project, where we're cataloguing Tamil manuscripts, we've
> > >>> forked Noto Tamil and started adding old ligatures, like pre-reform
> > >>> ṇā, ṟā, etc. as well as some ligatures that don't seem to have
> > >>> appeared before in print, such as the below-base "ma" ligatures. See
> > >>> this page for examples:
> > >>>
> > >>> https://tst-project.github.io/editor/entities.html
> > >>>
> > >>> It's still a work in progress!
> > >>>
> > >>> Best,
> > >>>
> > >>> Charles
> > >>>
> > >>> On 2023-03-16 11:08, Satyanad KICHENASSAMY wrote:
> > >>>> Dear All,
> > >>>>
> > >>>> To follow up on Harry Spier's query, the typesetting of the older
> > >>>> Tamil characters (as well as Tamil Grantha) is sometimes
> > >>>> problematic. I use Akshar Unicode for contemporary Tamil, which is
> > >>>> very close to the standard printed characters, but insert some
> > >>>> characters from Vaigai for the classical characters -- that were
> > >>>> actually the standard characters when I grew up. For Grantha, the
> > >>>> e-Grantamil font is nice even though less close to the characters
> > >>>> in print, but the ligatures are sometimes undone automatically, for
> > >>>> reasons that I do not understand. Also, I gather it is encoded in
> > >>>> the same segment as Bengali, which is another source of confusion.
> > >>>> The final output can be fine, though, see examples in the following
> > >>>> paper:
> > >>>>
> > >>>> https://www.persee.fr/doc/crai_0065-0536_2018_num_162_4_96658
> > >>>>
> > >>>> This being said, if there is a better solution, I would be
> interested.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> For a diplomatic edition, it would be nice to have fonts that
> > >>>> contain as many variants as possible. Similarly, Southern Sanskrit
> > >>>> manuscripts should be reproduced in their original script if
> > >>>> possible, especially in diplomatic editions. For instance, va and
> > >>>> ba in printed Grantha are easier to disinguish than in Nagari (this
> > >>>> is also true in those palm-leaf mss that I have used).
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I remember seeing proposals arguing that some characters usually
> > >>>> encoded in Unicode as ligatures in Indic language fonts should be
> > >>>> treated as stand-alone glyphs, at least in Tamil. The reason is
> > >>>> that you sometimes see letters such as "mo" rendered as
> > >>>> "kompu-(blank in a dotted circle)-lengthening mark-ma" which is of
> > >>>> course nonsense. The placement of diacritics is also misleading at
> > >>>> best, as was pointed out on this list a few days ago. This is in
> > >>>> addition to the issues raised by Jean-Luc Chevillard (for instance,
> > >>>> the ர் cannot be written without the lower diagonal stroke on some
> > >>>> fonts).
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Of course, whether one decides to overlook the differences in
> > >>>> variants of one character always involves judgment. An extreme
> > >>>> example would be the different versions of the character 之 in the
> > >>>> famous calligraphy 蘭亭集序 Lántíngjí Xù by 王羲之 Wáng Xīzhī. For
> > >>>> India, the விநாயகர் சுழி vinaayakar cu_li has slightly different
> > >>>> forms depending on writers, some of which may be worth recording
> > >>>> (recall that this symbol is a form of the pra.nava; the same issue
> > >>>> could be raised about the pra.nava in other scripts).
> > >>>>
> > >>>> Best,
> > >>>>
> > >>>>        Satyanad Kichenassamy
> > >>>>
> > >>>> On Wed, 15 Mar 2023 13:33:42 -0400
> > >>>> Harry Spier via INDOLOGY<indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> Received thanks to Victor Davella
> > >>>>> Harry Spier
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 1:21 PM Harry
> > >>>>> Spier<vasishtha.spier at gmail.com>
> > >>>>> wrote:
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>> Can someone recommend a good free unicode font for modern Tamil.
> > >>>>>> I.e.
> > >>>>>> provide a link to download this.
> > >>>>>> Thanks,
> > >>>>>> Harry Spier
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>
> > >>> _______________________________________________
> > >>> INDOLOGY mailing list
> > >>> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> > >>> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >> **********************************************
> > >> Satyanad KICHENASSAMY
> > >> Professeur des Universités
> > >> LMR (CNRS, UMR9008)
> > >> Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
> > >> F-51687 Reims Cedex 2
> > >> France
> > >> Web:http://phare.normalesup.org/~kichenassamy
> > >> *********************************************
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> INDOLOGY mailing list
> > >> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> > >> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
> >
> > --
> > **********************************************
> > Satyanad KICHENASSAMY
> > Professeur des Universités
> > Laboratoire de Mathématiques (LMR, CNRS, UMR9008)
> > Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
> > F-51687 Reims Cedex 2
> > France
> > Web:http://phare.normalesup.org/~kichenassamy
> > **********************************************
>
>
> --
> Satyanad KICHENASSAMY <satyanad.kichenassamy at univ-reims.fr>
>
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