[IAEP] Computer as a tool

[Edward Cherlin]

On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 8:21 PM, K. K. Subramaniam<subbukk at gmail.com> wrote:
> SCIM (m17n) was not stable enough when we started. Recent versions are much
> more stable and we are trying them out this year.

Good. I can't judge, but here is a Kannada Inscript keyboard layout
done in SCIM.

` ೧ ೨ ೩ ೪ ೫ ೬ ೭ ೮ ೯ ೦ - ೃ
   ೌ ೈ ಾ ೀ ೂ ಬ ಹ ಗ ದ ಜ ಡ ] \
    ೋ ೇ ್ ಿ ು ಪ ರ ಕ ತ ಚ
      ೆ ಂ ಮ ನ ವ ಲ ಸ , . ಯ

> Much text work in Kannada is still based on proprietary encodings (Baraha,
> Nudi).

Been there in several encodings such as KOI-8, which has different
versions for Russian and Ukrainian. (I sang with Slavyanka Russian
Chorus in both of those languages, and others.) And Sanskrit and Pali,
which have a multitude of encodings each. I reworked the Pali Tipitaka
(the Buddhist Canon) from one of those encodings into Unicode.

> Baraha/Nudi were designed for office documents, not school work.
> Transition to Unicode/UTF-8 for text is not yet complete.

We may be able to help. Tell us more. For example, how much secular
and religious Kannada literature is available in Unicode?

> Indic truetype fonts don't blend well with text mixing English and Math
> symbols. Kannada scripts involve double subscripts giving them a larger
> average height. Indic text will appear visually smaller in mixed context. You
> will see this effect in mailing lists like Indlinux-group. Fontography is yet
> to catch up with Typography.

All right, let's have a look. Here is some Kannada text about math in
Unicode encoding, from Wikipedia. I'm looking at it in a Free Truetype
font that comes with Ubuntu, in the ttf-kannada-fonts package. We have
Kedage, Lohit, and Malige fonts.

ನಿಷ್ಕ್ರುಷ್ಟ ಗಣಗಳ ಗಾತ್ರಗಳನ್ನು, ತಮ್ಮ ಸಂಖ್ಯತ್ವಗಳ ಮೂಲಕ ಸುಲಭವಾಗಿ
ಹೋಲಿಸಬಹುದು. ಆದರೆ, ಅನಂತ ಗಣಗಳಿಗೆ ಇದು ಅಷ್ಟು ಸುಲಭವಲ್ಲ. ಉದಾಹರಣೆಗೆ, "ನೈತಿಕ
ಸಂಖ್ಯೆ" (Natural numbers N) ನ = {೧, ೨, ೩, ...} ಮತ್ತು "ಪೂರ್ಣ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆ"
(Integers Z) ಜ಼ = {..., -೩, -೨, -೧, ೦, ೧, ೨, ೩, ...}, ಇವೆರಡೂ ಗಣಗಳ
ಗಾತ್ರವೂ ಒಂದೆ.

OK, yes the line spacing is a bit wide, but I don't see anything wrong with it.

> Subbu
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-- 
Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name
And Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination.
http://earthtreasury.org/worknet (Edward Mokurai Cherlin)