[Bug 834368] [te_IN] Lohit Telugu does not have the Latin character set

[bugzilla at redhat.com]

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=834368

--- Comment #6 from Shriramana Sharma <samjnaa at gmail.com> ---
Created attachment 600461
  --> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/attachment.cgi?id=600461&action=edit
Sample of Latin script DejaVu Sans font homogenously mixed with Lohit
Devanagari and Tamil fonts

Frankly while I do not have any objection to the inclusion of script-neutral
(i.e. script=common) characters like the international numerals or punctuation
or such, I think it is inadvisable for the Lohit fonts to have Latin alphabets
i.e. characters which are script=latin. The Lohit project IMHO is for Indic
scripts and whatever script-neutral characters are part and parcel of Indic
script orthography. If we start maintaining Latin characters, we would be
over-extending our bounds IMHO. 

There would arise questions like what subset of the huge Latin repertoire are
we going to support. Just A-Za-z? But people who are working with Indic
scripts, especially scholars like me, are bound to have requirements for the
Indic transliteration letters like ĀāĪīŪū and so on. Are we going to include
them and maintain them also? And some European scholars of Indic matters will
be using their language text with Indic scripts, so should we include
c-cedilla, a-acute etc etc? What about Russian scholars?

The DejaVu fonts project is already there to provide a full extended repertoire
of Latin (and other European and non-European) script characters. DejaVu Sans
is quite homogenously mixable with Lohit fonts. I personally recommend using
DejaVu Sans for Latin/European scripts in combination with Lohit fonts for
Indic scripts.

For illustration, please find attached a document which I finished just today
in which I have used Lohit Devanagari and Lohit Tamil fonts with DejaVu Sans.
Same Sanskrit text is presented in three scripts including Latin
transliteration using diacritics in DejaVu Sans. I am personally a very picky
person as to the presentation and font stylistic intercompatibility etc, and I
myself feel that DejaVu is more than enough for using Latin (or other European)
script text along with Lohit fonts.

Please let us not over-extend our domain.

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