Thank you Dominik for the history and clarity. Can someone give me an actual example of where in a document, or a publication the ISO-15919 standard has been used for Sanskrit? Harry Spier
On Sun, Jun 11, 2023 at 9:41 AM Dominik Wujastyk via INDOLOGY < [email protected]> wrote: > Perhaps the way forward is in Dániel's phrase "permitted optional variant > of ISO15919". If we had a few more permitted variants in ISO15919, maybe > we could all get on with our real work. > > I may be wrong, but my earliest memory of the institutional promotion of > the under-*circle* for ऋ etc. in romanized Sanskrit was from the Library > of Congress in the context of 8-bit MARC cataloguing. See here > <https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/sanskrit.pdf> for Sanskrit, > and ALA-LC romanization <https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html> > generally. > > I don't think under-circle is specifically "European" in any measurable > sense. As far as I know, underdot for anusvāra and vowels, i.e., IAST, has > been the most widespread convention at least since the nineteenth century. > See, e.g., the World Congress of Orientalists (Berlin 1881, Geneva, 1894) > that MW referred to in his introduction (1899: xxix-xxx). See also., > > Plunckett, G. T. (1895) “Tenth International Congress of Orientalists Held > at Geneva: Report of the Transliteration Committee,” Journal of the Royal > Asiatic Society 879–892. Available at: > https://bahai-library.com/plunkett_transliteration_congress_orientalists. > > Monier-Williams referred several times, in 1899, to what we today call > IAST as being "German". > > I don't actually know who formalized IAST, but it does an excellent job of > recording what most indologists, publishers and journals actually do, in my > view. Yes, it could do with cleaning up around the edges and a bit of > extension perhaps (remember CS, CSX, CSX+). But so can all the other > standards, formal or informal. As a workaday description of what almost > everyone does in practice, it's valuable. I wish it were a formal > standard, or had been used by the authors of ISO15919; I think they were > listening to the library community, not research scholars and professors. > > As for ISO standards becoming freely available, I doubt that that will > happen any time soon. This is a scandalous situation, and it applies also > to national standards. We taxpayers pay committees to work stuff out for > us, and then we have to buy the results at exorbitant prices. Better > people than me have fought this battle and lost. > > Best, > Dominik > > > > > _______________________________________________ > INDOLOGY mailing list > [email protected] > https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology >
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