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Re: NATLANG/Learning : Sanskrit

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Saturday, August 16, 2003, 18:36
Nikhil Sinha scripsit:

> > Does someone know how I can write in Sanskrit under Windows 98 with all > > the (historic or modern) ligatures? > > You cannot use Unicode for this. You have to use standard Devanagari fonts.
The main problem is that the Win 9x/ME operating systems are based on 8-bit code pages, and there are none for Indic scripts. On Win NT/2K/XP, as well as Mac OS X, the underlying system is Unicode-based and Devanagari (as well as the other South Asian scripts) are properly supported.
> 1. Unicode (Arial Unicode MS) - In this , Devanagari letters cannot be > typed.
The other problem is that exactly which ligatures are supported in a Unicode system depends solely on the font. Modern Hindi fonts have suitable ligatures for writing Hindi, whereas specialist Skt fonts have far more. The underlying representation is always the same: consonant+virama+consonant. -- John Cowan www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com jcowan@reutershealth.com "'My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the large-pattern leather ulster' (and by this he meant the Crocodile) 'will jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson.'" --the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake