[Bug 829143] [ta_IN] Fix Rendering of Letter RA,RI,RII per GoTN standards

[bugzilla at redhat.com]

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=829143

Shriramana Sharma <samjnaa at gmail.com> changed:

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--- Comment #2 from Shriramana Sharma <samjnaa at gmail.com> ---
I can't say I agree with this bug report. The Unicode Standard's chapter on
Tamil (http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.1.0/ch09.pdf p 310 of book)
already documents the fact that in accepted orthographic styles the ர shape
changes to ா when it joins with ் ி and ீ. It also notes that various
governmental bodies recommend use of unmodified ர with these characters for
educational purposes. 

Obviously these governmental bodies are trying to simplify the learning of the
script for children. 

Maybe the TN Govt suggests use of unmodified ர. But Sri Lanka Govt suggests use
of modified ர as per TUS 6.1. TN Govt is not the only deciding body about Tamil
script because Tamil is also used in Sri Lanka and Malaysia. Therefore it is
not true that this is a "bug" or that it should be fixed. Fedora is an
international software (even though offices and Indic-related projects are
located in Pune) and need not follow the mandates of a single government
especially when other governments mandate otherwise. 

You can even see Tamil fonts released freely (but I think not under free
licence) by TN Govt:

1) http://www.tn.nic.in/tamilsw/otf.zip from
http://www.tn.nic.in/tamilsw/otf.htm

2) http://www.ildc.in/Tamil/GIST/Modular/Modular.zip from
http://www.ildc.in/Tamil/GIST/htm/modular-otfonts.htm

As far as I can see they all show this behaviour of "modified" shape of ர.

Already in other parts of the world there are special fonts for literacy
purposes i.e. specially to help teaching. For example see
http://scripts.sil.org/andika and http://scripts.sil.org/SILEntityFonts. But
these are clearly behaviours intended for specific usage contexts and not for
general use.

And when you read the TN Govt order which says that ர் ரி ரீ should be rendered
only with the / below and not without it, please also read the paragraph above
that:

"""10. Font developers working on Tamil fonts to be procured by the Government
of Tamil Nadu shall be required to follow orthographic conventions and
standards and make the following distinctions:"""

Lohit Tamil is of the community, by the community and for the community. It is
not designed specially for procurement by the TN Govt for usage in TN Govt
offices (although it may be freely used there under the OFL). So Lohit Tamil
need not comply by these rules. I already noted above that Lohit Tamil is an
internationally usable font and not subject to rules of a single regional Govt.
(Other scripts are mostly localized within India. Not Tamil. Bengali is the
only other exception, but such issues don't seem to exist there.)

Anyhow, it should be noted that in fact historically "ர" is the modified shape
and it was originally identical to ா as seen in inscriptions and manuscripts
because it is descended from Brahmi RA which looks like | which developed a
horizontal head-stroke and the left-side support stroke to become today's RA.
So it actually looked like ா. Later for disambiguation purpose they settled on
adding a / stroke at bottom for RA. (Compare எ ஏ which also were both written
as எ originally.)

I personally would like to see Lohit Tamil retain its current behaviour. I
learnt to write Tamil this way and would like to continue doing so. As noted,
Unicode also gives only this as standard behaviour. If TN Govt would like to
modify Lohit Tamil for its internal usage purpose, it may do so under the OFL.

Thank you.

P.S.: @Srikanth: Please don't take any of this personally. It is not directed
against you.

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