[Indic-computing-standards] Re: The linguistic properties of Malayalam "Chillaksharam"s?

[Mahesh T P. <pai...@ya...>]

  baiju m wrote:

>Forwarding...(please make reply to indic-computing-standards list) 
>  
>
>>
>>In the Malayalam script, a few consonants are termed as capable of "standing by themselves without a supporting vowel" .....
>>
>>My understanding is that these "cillu" forms tend to be used as the non-initial letters of written Malayalam words.
>>
Yes.  The cillus I have not come across any word with any of the cillus 
as the first character.

>>seems to indicate that decision to use a "cillu" form of a consonant is
>>purely a display/rendering one.  It ties the "cillu" consonants to the
>>"regular" consonants that are similar phonetically.
>>
No.  It is not question of mere display.  There is a difference between 
"mulla" (jasmine) and "muLL" (thorn) (also pronounced as "muLLu" -- I 
have the "muLLmuna" in mind) and "muLLa" (the muslim cleric).

>>Question:
>>
>>I'm trying to determine if the "cillu" consonants are different from the regular Malayalam consonants only in terms of presentation.  By this I mean:
>>
>>  o How do we sort a Malayalam word that has a "cillu" consonant in it?
>>
Ideally, they should come last.  But, in actual practice, .....

>>    How do Malayalam dictionaries treat a words containing "cillu"s?
>>
.... they come after the nearest sounding consonant.  That creates a 
problem.  Of the words "muNN" (used as prefix) and "munnale" 
(previously) ( Which should come first?  I will look it  up get back.

>>    Is a "cillu" treated like the its base (regular) consonant when determining ordering?  If so which `regular' consonants do the five "cillu" consonants map to respectively?
>>
That requires some detailed reply .. let me see ... 
and my reply would contain examples should be in malayalam script, but 
how do I compose unicode using mozilla 1.1? Shall I write it in iLeap, 
convert to jpeg picture, and resize it to a lower quality?   Or should I 
put up a openoffice.org document using one of the iLeap's ML-TT* fonts?

>>  o Are there Malayalam words that are identical except for the fact
>>    that one uses a "cillu" 'c' and one uses the ``regular consonant''
>>    associated with the "cillu" 'c'?  Do these words have different
>>    meanings?
>>
>>
>>Regards,
>>Koshy
>><jk...@fr...>
>>http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net/
>>    
>>
Regards,
Mahesh T Pai.




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