[Lohit-devel-list] Need information regarding Samvruthokaram ligature in Malayalam fonts

[Cibu Johny (സിബു)]

I totally agree with Shriramana. I just want to reiterate that this is an
invented glyph and there is no public consensus on this. In fact, public is
not even aware of this. Probably because, they don't notice the small
circle attached to the Chandrakkala at small point sizes or they may not be
using Lohit. also, this Samvruthokaram sequence (-u sign + virama) is used
only for traditional spelling and most users go with modern spelling for
those words.


2013/9/30 Shriramana Sharma <samjnaa at gmail.com>

> On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 12:24 PM, Rahul Bhalerao <b.rahul.pm at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > The original issue was as follows:
> >  - The 'samvruthokaram' syllable in malayalam is actually a half vowel
> which
> > is formed by vowel 'U' (Unicode 0D41) followed by the halanth character
> in
> > malayalam.
> >  - Since halanth is by default allowed only after a consonant, the
> sequence
> > for samvruthokaram was yielding a dotted circle in between
> >  - Hence it was necessary to amend the rendering engine to allow this
> > sequence
>
> Yeah but there is no justification for inventing a new ligature.
> Inventing new written forms as part of script should not be done by
> font makers/maintainers. The user community as per guidance of
> scholars should invent these and if officially/widely accepted then
> font makers should update their font
>
> > There is a long discussion on this and few other issues on the old bug
> at:
> > https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=242016
>
> I don't seem to find any detail there on this particular issue.
>
> > As far the shape of the glyph in Lohit font is concerned, once the
> rendering
> > engine issue of dotted circle was resolved, the shape of the ligature for
> > samvruthokaram was changed on the request of Ani Peter. I am not able to
> > find the old bug in bugzilla but remember that the particular ligature
> was
> > added on request from Ani. May be Ani can give some linguistic
> justification
> > for the particular shape which I am not aware of.
>
> If there is any attestation for the use and acceptance of this
> ligature in the script as seen in books/newspapers etc, I'd like to
> see that. I feel Lohit is NOT the platform for glyph inventions...
>
> --
> Shriramana Sharma ஶ்ரீரமணஶர்மா श्रीरमणशर्मा
>
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