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 <[email protected]> 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<[email protected]> wrote: > >>>> > >>>>> Received thanks to Victor Davella > >>>>> Harry Spier > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 1:21 PM Harry > >>>>> Spier<[email protected]> > >>>>> 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 > >>> [email protected] > >>> 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 > >> [email protected] > >> 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 <[email protected]> _______________________________________________ INDOLOGY mailing list [email protected] https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
