Re: [Indic-computing-devel] [review-request] Indic computing handbook: devanagari

[Krishnamurthy N. <kn...@ya...>]

reposting some of my comments to
indic-computing-devel:

> Nature of script
> ================
> Syllabic, though some words are now pronounced > >
differently from the way they are

Well, do we say it is 'phonetic' or syllabic ? I
thought it's called phonetic. Anyway, it's the users
of
the script (for various languages such as Hindi,
Marathi and so on) who have been deciding the
'pronunciation' of the syllables.

About 'phonetic' representation of letters of the
script : though there is no 'standard' to express
Indian languages/scripts in Roman phonetic script,
several developers/apps have been following some
'unwritten' standards (itrans, varamozhi, baraha etc
etc). Just check out those and attempt to synch up
with sync up with the current 'unwritten' stds (like
giving alternate representations).  
             
What is vowel #8 (ee) ? It's just after 'e', so I am
assuming it's the elongated version of 'e', but I am
not sure if it exists in the languages that use
Devanagari (AFAIK, only South Indian languages have
it). Same Q with vowel #10 ('oo'). Actually 'oo' is a
nice representation for the elongated version of 'u'
(like in moong dal). Can't understand vowels 11 and
12.    

Several consonants (mostly represented by the original
consonant with a 'dot' below) have been added for
Urdu. Pls mention them. 

Consonant list - 'ksha', 'tra' and 'Gna' are missing
(actually I prefer the Roman phonetic equivalent
'thra' instead of 'tra').

Pls mention that 'mathras' - that is half-consonants -
are graphically 'partial' consonants and they add on
before/below the 'base' consonant to generate
'samyukthaaksharas'.  

Conjuncts with multiple combinations (C*V) - you have
shown theoritical possibilities, but just about a few
thousands are practically legal/valid. Would be better
to mention it.

Specials - in addition to anuswar, I think visarg
(like the ':' symbol) needs to be mentioned.

Double vertical bar - one of the vedic specials (e.g
used at the end of a shlok)

Will get back if I have more comments  

Nagarajan

--- Alok Kumar <alo...@so...> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>
http://www.geocities.com/alkuma/devanagari/en/index.html
> is supposed to contain material that is suitable for
>
http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net/handbook/script-devanagari.html
> ie the devanagari script section for the Indic
> computing handbook.


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