Is there anything wrong with Sinhala Unicode?
Posted by Ajith on May 8, 2008
Election campaigning was over midnight yesterday. Gives me a break to focus on an entirely different topic.
I know little about Unicode or even Sinhala usage in computers. I am a mere user, not a developer. But sometime back one of my unrelated posts caused a stir.(See comments on අලියට ගහමු කතිරය තුටු කඳුළු පිස!)
It looks like a new debate has started with the response Mr. Donald Gaminitilake got from the President’s office, assuring him time with the President’s Secretary.
I have no idea what sort of technical knowledge President’s Secretary has and what sort of intervention he could make. My opinion is this is an issue taken by the experts and not politicians or bureaucrats, on behalf of them. There is a danger that this issue is being politicized.
Having said that I wish someone could explain to me and others like me in plain language why we still face problems in using Sinhala in computers if we already have a standard.
1. When I type Sinhala it appears perfectly well in my PC, but users complain they cannot read it from their PCs. Guess this is because they do not have the fonts. Why it takes so long to address this issue?
2. I can read Lankaenews, Lankadeepa, Ethalaya and Lakmiba without having any fonts installed in my computer but not Divaina. Sometimes I see even Lankadeepa with garbage. (See below) What makes it appear okay sometimes and not other times? Does this too have to do with standards or lack of them?
3. Are these issues limited to Sinhala only? Do Tamils users too face similar problems?
4. I understand President has ordered every government organization to use Sinhala fonts. Why not this is applicable for Central Bank of Sri Lanka? Why Central Bank uses its own fonts than following the standard ordered by the President? What can we gather from the garbage we see from its site? Is this how this government organization treats the non English reading public of Sri Lanka? Or is Mr. Ajith Nivard Cabral piggybacking on this issue not to release the unfavorable information (like 30% inflation rate) to the public?
Though more technical than political, I see this is an issue relevant for most of us. So please feel free to use this space to discuss, debate, agree or disagree.
May 8, 2008 at 4:41 am
ඩොනල්ඩ් ගාමිණීතිලක කියන දේවල් අපි ඉතාමත් ඉවසීමෙන් හා උනන්දුවෙන් අධ්යනය කලා. ඔබට උදාහරණ ඕනෑ නම් පහත සබැඳියට ගිහිල්ලා කියවලා බලන්න. http://www.sayura.net/anuradha/sinhala/akuru.org/ මෙය පටන්ගැන්මක් පමණයි. ඔහු සමඟ අප මෙම සමූහයේ කල සාකච්ඡා රාශියක් ඔබට සමූහයේ අතීත ලිපි සොයාබැලීමෙන් ලබාගත හැකියි. (http://groups.google.com/group/Sinhala-Unicode?hl=si ට ගොස් donald කියා search කරන්න) එහිදී ඔහු අන් අයව නොමඟ යවමින් කිසිදු අවංක චේතනාවකින් තොරව, ද්වේශ සහගත හා නිර්දය ලෙස තමාගේ හිස් මනස්ගාත බලෙන් අන් අයට පෙවීමට උත්සාහ දැරූ සැටි ඔබට පැහැදිලි වේවි. එනිසා මොහුගේ ක්රියාකලාපය හා අතීතය නොදන්නා අයකුට මුලින්ම සිතෙන්නේ ඔහු නිවැරදි බවත් අන් අය ඔහුව ගැරහීමට ලක්කරනා සැටියකුයි. එනිසා ඔහු ඔහුගේ මේ හානිකර ක්රියාදාමය දිගටම පවත්වාගෙන යනතාක් දුරට අපටත් මෙම සාකච්ඡාවට අලුත් අයව මේ ලෙස දැනුවත් කරන්නට සිදුවේවි.
සිංහල භාෂා ප්රවීණයන් බහුතරයක් තාක්ෂණික වශයෙන් ප්රවීණයන් නොවීමත් තාක්ෂණික ප්රවීණයන් බහුතරයක් සිංහල භාෂා ප්රවීණයන් නොවීමත් අපට ඇති ගැටලුවක්. මේ දෙගොල්ලෝ අතර සම්බන්ධතාවයත් අවශ්ය ප්රමාණයට නැති බවයි මගේ හැඟීම. මෙම අඩුපාඩුව පුරවගන්න පුලුවන්වුනොත් නම් ලොකු දෙයක්.
සැරදේවා,
සපුමල්.
May 8, 2008 at 4:56 am
There are claims that Sinhala text cannot be copied from Internet Explorer web browser and pasted into MS Word correctly (Copy from IE to MS Word). This is false. See how I have copied some Sinhala text from IE to MS Word.
However there are some speculations saying that there are ulterior motives and hidden agendas behind these claims. I’m not discussing those here or I’m not targeting anyone. But when there are things that mislead people, someone should correct it.
Listed below are some more valuable posts from Anuradha containing technical details with good arguments regarding the same issue.
http://anuradha.sayura.net/2006/03/is-sinhala-unicode-incomplete.html
http://anuradha.sayura.net/2008/05/mr-donald-please-correct-alphabet-first.html
http://anuradha.sayura.net/2007/05/unicode-and-sinhala-alphabet.html
May 8, 2008 at 9:37 am
Do you know that Everson is proposing new numbers for Sinhala? Whose language is Sinhala, Harsha?
http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n3195.pdf
What do you have to say about it?
Your SLSI was not proposed by your VKS or any one but by a foreigner. you guys just copied and trying to implement the type writer concept
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 8, 2008 at 9:41 am
Quote from unicode
http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr2.html
“There is a standard extant for Sinhala described in A Standard Code for
Information Interchange in Sinhalese by V.K. Samaranayake and S.T. Nandasara
(ISO-IEC JTC1/SCL/WG2 N 673, Oct. 1990). The coding proposed in it was found
to be an inadequate basis for a modern, computer-based interchange code,
though it is adequate to handle the capabilities of a Sinhala typewriter for
representing contemporary colloquial Sinhala. ”
Unquote
your system is just a typewriter. as I have clearly proved that the Sinhala unicode registration was done by a person who was not gone to a school in sri lanka nor have ever been to Sri Lanka. Worship the white skin.
Listen to me and correct the language issue.
I have copyrights because you guys made a wrong format. Sinhala is not correctly registered or represented in the SLSI 1134 nor in Unicode Consortium.
Also see
http://www.akuru.org/images/differentbrowser.jpg
same text seen on different browsers read different
donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 8, 2008 at 9:51 am
ඩොනඩ් මහත්මයානෙනි
ඔබේ වෙබ් අඩවියත් එහි ඇති හරයත් වටහා ගත් මට වැටහුනේ සිංහල යුනිකේත වල වැරද්දක් නැති බවයි. නවතම සිංහල යුනිකේත බාවිතා කර බලන්න http://www.fonts.lk
ඔබගේ somagiri බංගලාවට මේ දවස් වල වැඩ තියේද? ඔබගේ ප්රවර්ධන ව්යාපාරය සාර්ථක අයුරින් කෙරෙනවාද. මේ පිළිබඳවත් ලියන්න. මොකද මීට පෙරද ඔබ ලියු දේ ඔබට මෙහිදී දැක ගත හැක.
ඔබට යාමට ඇත්තේ ඉතා කෙටි දුරකි. තවත් නම් රැසක් බාව්ත කරමින් ඔබ ගැන තොරතුරු එක් කරන්න. ඔබට නිසැකවම එම තනතුර ලැබෙනු ඇත (to view this content plz download the sinhala unicode) http://www.fonts.lk
May 8, 2008 at 10:06 am
මම ඔය විදිහට කිසිම මනුස්සයකුට ගරහනවට කැමති නෑ සිද්ධ වියයුත්තතේ බැනීම නොවේ. ඒ මනුස්සයාගේ සුදුසු කම්වත් මෙයට අදාල නොවේ. කලයුත්තේ සාවදානව එම පුද්ගලයා කියනදේ අහගෙන ඒකියනදේ ඇත්තක් තිබේද යන්නයි. එමගින් ඔහු මෙහා ඇති අඩුපාඩුවක්නම් එය පෙන්වාදීම වැදගත්. මේ තුලින් අප කලයුත්තේ එවන් අඩුපාඩුවක් මෙහි තිබෙනවානම් එය නිවැරදි කරගැනීමයි. ඒ සියල්ලටම කලින් ඔහුගේ ඒ ප්රකාශය හොදින් අධ්යනය කලයුතුයි. ඉන්පසුවයි අපට යම් සම්මුතියකට පන් අදහසකට පැමිණිය හැක්කේ. ඒවගේම අද සිංහල භාෂාව පිරිහීමට බලපාන කරුණක් නම් තාක්ෂණය දියුණු වන වේගයට භාෂාව ඊට අදාලව දියුණු නොවීම. මෙකට කාටවත් දොස්කියල හරියන්නේ නෑ කරන්න ඔනේ සිංහල භාෂාව හොදින් ප්රගණ කරගත් පුද්ගලයෙකු සමග එකතුවී සිංහල භාෂාව ඉදිරියට ගෙනාමයි. එහෙම කලොත් පමණයි මේ මව් භාෂාවට අනාගතයක් තියෙන්නේ. බලන්න මේ වගේ ප්රකාශවලින් සිදුවන්නේ මෙහි ඇති අඩුපාඩුකම් පෙන් වාදීමට ඇති ඉඩ නැතිවීමයි. මේනිසා මේක අවබෝද කරගන්න!
May 8, 2008 at 10:13 am
Bhathiya koluvo,
How much Donald uncle pay you to run errands?
You surely have no idea about the mental condition of Donald uncle. I heard late Prof. V K Samaranayake always refer to this guy as a ‘Mad Hatter’.
Cant agree more.
May 8, 2008 at 11:00 am
The latest proposal is
http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/n3195.pdf
Above is the proposal for unicode not fontsdotlk
open the above document and read the text and answer the contents. These are done by people who have not been to sri lanka or ever studied in sinhala.
So Sinhalaya is a person who worship the white skin and pray for them.
Thank you Bahtiya for correct comments. Sit back and just observe the each and each sinhala character that is seen on the screen. Is it correct or not. I see more garbage sinhala characters in sinhalaya’s comments. If unicode sinhala is the correct solution we cannot see different different characters of sinhala on screen.
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
Doanld Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 9, 2008 at 1:32 am
ඔය ඩොනල්ඩ් කියන්නේ කතා කරලා බේරගන්න පුලුවන් මනුස්සයෙක් නෙමෙයි. උදව් කරන්න ගියත් මාර ලනු තමයි දෙන්නේ. එයාට තියෙන්නේ අපිට විසඳන්න පුලුවන් ප්රශ්න නෙමෙයි. ඔහු සිංහල යුනිකේතයට විරුද්ධව ගෙනයන ප්රචාරයට තියන ප්රතිකාරය තමයි ඔහුගේ මතවාදයට විරුද්ධ සත්යය ප්රචාරය කිරීම. එම ඇත්ත නම් අපි කිසිම ප්රශ්නයක් නැතිව සිංහල යුනිකේතය පාවිච්චි කරන බවයි.
May 9, 2008 at 1:58 am
Vishva kumara
Can you visit the following link and answer why some see sinhala similar to what I see in excel
http://www.rotarycolombocentral.org/web-data/Components/Private/index.html
Do you think the sinhala listed in that table is complete sinhala?
That is the table of sinhala that you should be using. That is the Sinhala that has been approved legally in sri Lanka by SLSI 1134 or ISO or Unicode
When did you ever try to help me or meet me?
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 9, 2008 at 3:21 am
Donald Gaminitillake has an amateur website at http://www.akuru.org/ He was a little known man but declaring war against Sinhala Unicode has made him a hero to a few and a villain to many. He was almost forgotten but suddenly this man again is in the limelight because of a letter he has got from the President’s Office. See http://www.flickr.com/photos/8503406@N05/2461712604/
Now what we see is that Sinhala Unicode supporters have started an all-out attack on Gaminitillake. Why the Unicode supporters panic? If Unicode is a perfect solution or at least a decent solution, they do not have to panic.
ICTA is under the President’s Office and if the Preident is convinced that Unicode is not the right solution there is a good chance of trying out Gaminitillake’s solution. With all what I have seen on the net about Sinhala Unicode issue is that Sinhala Unicode supporters are very protective and they are scared of a fair trial. Why???? There are some ‘hardcore supporters’ to Sinhala Unicode too. They will even die for Unicode. Nothing wrong. You have a right to admire what you love. All the same, Gaminitillake has a right to critisice it.
I see this issue like Microsoft vs Apple issue. Microsoft is widely used, popular, easily accessible to all walks of people even for a mere 100 rupee note from the software pirates. So, people love it. Take Apple. It is scarecely used, less accessible, and expensive. But we all know it is good in quality. So, someday, can’t Gaminitillake’s solution beat Sinhala Unicode?? Let the time decide.
So, my dear Unicode supporters, let Sinhala Unicode have a fair trial. Let the intelligent people llisten to Gaminitillake and then take a decision. You don’t have a right to mount Taleban-like attacks on this man. After all, he is a single man without no political influance (as far as I know) and he tries to prove a point. Let us listen.
I am neither a Gaminitillake sympethizer nor a Sinhala Unicode supporter. We want to see is a fair trial. Even criminals deserve a fair trial. Gaminitillake cannot be a crimanal by opposing Sinhala Unicode.
Some accuse him saying he is trying to make money out of his solution. So, what! He has all rights to make money if he can come up with a superior solution. If you try to deprive him of a fair trial, that indicates you have a inferior solution. I could be wrong. What I don’t understand is why you all are scared of a letter from the President’s Office to this lonely man.
May 9, 2008 at 3:35 am
Mr. Donald,
My guess is that you haven’t set up Unicode in your computer deliberately, so that it won’t work. Or else is it that you don’t know how to set it up? - It is hard to believe that a person who doesn’t understand to get a simple screen shot can understand how to set up even a simple thing as Unicode but I am sure that one of us will be able to help you to set it up properly.
Please ask us to display any character you want. We will show and prove it to you, that Unicode can display it correctly.
And maybe it is your right to “enjoy” commercial benefits from your so called correct standard. But it is not ethical to “sell” your language for your own benefit. All of the people who are popularizing Unicode because they want to help their language into the modern age. Pebbles like you will not stop them in their journey towards their goal.
Maybe “you” set the standard But it is us who use it!! you and your standard can rot in garbage bins while, Unicode is used everywhere including Google services, Wikipedia, Sri Lankan Government, and many other state/private organizations!! No one can stop Unicode in the internet, as well as in other places.. Please give up your lost battle, and enjoy Unicode! It will open the gates for a Sinhala Internet / Sinhala Language Information, by amounts you haven’t ever seen before!!
P.S. - Taking a photo of a computer screen is equal to photocopying a computer monitor
May 9, 2008 at 6:02 am
Ranjit
the code point for ayanna is specified in unicode consortium as
01 CODE POINT VALUE: : : : : 0D85
02 NAME (UNICODE NAME) : : : SINHALA LETTER AYANNA
03 GENERAL CATEGORY: : : : : Letter, Other
04 COMBINING CLASS : : : : : Spacing, split, enclosing, reordrant, and Tibetan subjoined
05 BIDIRECTIONAL CATEGORY: : Left-to-Right
06 DECOMPOSITION MAPPING : : -
07 DECIMAL DIGIT VALUE : : : -
08 DIGIT VALUE : : : : : : : -
09 NUMERIC VALUE : : : : : : -
10 MIRRORED: : : : : : : : : No
11 UNICODE 1.0 NAME: : : : : SINHALA LETTER AYANNA
12 ISO 10646 COMMENT FIELD : -
13 UPPERCASE MAPPING : : : : -
14 LOWERCASE MAPPING : : : : -
15 TITLECASE MAPPING : : : : -
16 DECIMAL VALUE : : : : : : 3461
17 UTF-8 HEX VALUE : : : : : 0xE0B685
18 UTF-16 HEX VALUE: : : : : 0×0D85
19 UTF-32 HEX VALUE: : : : : 0×00000D85
20 XHTML : : : : : : : : : : අ
21 BLOCK : : : : : : : : : : Sinhala
22 PLANE : : : : : : : : : : Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP)
23 STROKE NUMBER : : : : : : -
24 RADICAL : : : : : : : : : -
Like wise give me the registered location for
“ksha” (Rajapaksha)
list the values
16 DECIMAL VALUE : : : : : :
17 UTF-8 HEX VALUE : : : : :
18 UTF-16 HEX VALUE: : : : :
19 UTF-32 HEX VALUE: : : : :
20 XHTML : : : : : : : : : :
21 BLOCK : : : : : : : : : :
You will have to give all the values as given above in the unicode consortium not just a screen print or a photocopy.
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 9, 2008 at 6:16 am
I know nothing about Unicode but the way the Unicode mafia attacks Mr. Donald Gaminitilake is simply unacceptable. Guys are you being paid for attacking Mr. Donald?
I have never seen Mr. Donald Gaminitilake going in to low levels like calling names. He is always up to the point and technically present his views in a gentlemanly manner. But on the other hands people like Wasantha Deshapriya, Anuradha Ratnaweera and now Harshadeva, Sapumal and Rajith go too low in personally attacking him. I have seen once Mr. Wasantha Deshapriya a government official paid by public money calling Mr. Donald ‘Madavia’. Is this how senior public officials behave in Internet domain? Are these the people who are supposed to guide the younger generation into ICTs?
I also observe that Anuradha Ratnaweera denies his comments on this site saying he does not want to argues on this isue anymore. If so what he is doing now? Why he wants to change his words? Does some one pays this guy Anuradha for attacking Mr. Gaminitialake?
Those who waste public money at ICTA should know.
May 9, 2008 at 6:21 am
Rajith
Why dont you come over and show me how to take a screen shot using iMAC on XP mode without using any additional software.
In apple OS I can do it not in XP windows.
My system using my digital camera is a faster way for me.
Donald
May 9, 2008 at 8:09 am
Danushka it is good to read about unicode consortium and its implementation.
Only I am exposing the truth. Computer runs as 010100110 not with characters what we are writing. SO EVERY CHARACTER HAVE A CODE POINT VALUE.
for letter “A”
01 CODE POINT VALUE: : : : : 0041
02 NAME (UNICODE NAME) : : : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A
For Sinhala Ayanna
01 CODE POINT VALUE: : : : : 0D85
02 NAME (UNICODE NAME) : : : SINHALA LETTER AYANNA
Now I talk of Sinahla Ayanna
The Sinhala Unicode standard was not developed in Sri Lanka. It was designed by an American called Daniels and then picked up by a font maker called Everson. The proposal of the Unicode standard for Sri Lanka was proposed by Everson and endorsed by Camillus Jayewardena Ven. Mettavihari who is a Dane.
Then VKS group got hold of this and made his proposal in 1992 which was rejected.
http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr2.html
quote
There is a standard extant for Sinhala described in A Standard Code for
Information Interchange in Sinhalese by V.K. Samaranayake and S.T. Nandasara
(ISO-IEC JTC1/SCL/WG2 N 673, Oct. 1990). The coding proposed in it was found
to be an inadequate basis for a modern, computer-based interchange code,
though it is adequate to handle the capabilities of a Sinhala typewriter for
representing contemporary colloquial Sinhala. In addition, the document is
ambiguous as to coding order — presumably, given the graphic decomposition
in the code set, the text stream is to be coded in visual, not phonetic order.
An additional problem is that there is no provision to handle exceptional
cases.
unqoute
At this time the location for ayanna has been decided as
0D82 SINHALA LETTER A
the 0D85 was
0D85 SINHALA LETTER EE
Because they started with
0D80 SINHALA SIGN ANUSVARA
But this was moved to
0D82 later leaving 80 and 81 as empty for future use.
The Sinhala proposal was written by Andy Daniels. NOt by VKS or any Sri Lankan or by any one who has gone to grade one in Sri Lanka. Our guys always worship foreigners and accept their views kicking off the local talent.
Because accepting a incomplete solution we are having problem after problem. I have exposed these from the day one.
That is why Ranjith who boasted writing that he can give any sinhala character unable to give the unicode registered value for “ksha”
Donald gaminitillake
May 9, 2008 at 10:14 am
Danushka,
Are you mad? Why respect a pig? Wasantha Deshapriya should be commended for calling spade a spade. (or pig a pig)
I tell you Donald should be in a mental hospital. Not in web domain. It is surprising how some people still take him seriously.
May 9, 2008 at 10:18 am
Danushka,
I’m very much agreeing with your standpoint and I’m on the same position as you are. I have seen we Sinhalese quite brutally insult on that gentleman on net and even talk about things like his religious faith and his age. But then again, that sort of personal insults has been part of our heritage, there is nothing surprising. But been fair to those people who has been insulting Mr. Gaminitillake, it is not their fault they communicate in such a way - it is the education they received in our universities, where we start been disrespected in the first year and disrespecting others since second year. But fortunately since some of us are not that way, and we have things like blogger right now, things may change eventually and everyone will fair have chance to talk without been bullied, including Mr. Gaminitillake.
Even though I don’t have worthy knowledge about Unicode, I quite like the gentlemen’s idea that every sound been a single character. And I think if we are able to receive large space from Unicode, it would be great. Like I said in http://anuradha.sayura.net/2008/05/mr-donald-please-correct-alphabet-first.html, that way we can SMS cheaper without filling up the expensive character spaces with flags, shoes and caps that we use around letters.
May 9, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Dear Sam
When you encode it becomes very small. We have japanese , korean on mobiles. Sinhala is a fraction of this 1660 plus.Tamil is 247 plus (plus is the extra characters I will put in to assist better writing)
So it is no big deal. ICTA guys had missed the bus and now justifing that the path they took is correct. unable to give the code point values for “KSHA” (UTF) We need these values to represent sinhala in unicode consortium. No utf value means not a registered character in unicode.
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 15, 2008 at 7:48 am
Very interesting comment on fonts in parliament web site
For every borwser you need this pack to see sinhala unicode. This contradicts the terms of unicode consortium
Also this prove my comments that the unicode sinhala cannot be represented correctly without additional plaster software.
Kinldy voice to change and SAVE SINHALA AKURU from THE Vultures.
http://www.fonts.lk/download/SinhalaIE.html
Quote
Sinhala for Internet Explorer 6
This pack enables Sinhala in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.
It does not work with older versions of Internet Explorer, or with other browsers.
Download the software by selecting the link below, and then run the file with Administrator privileges.
If a page does not display properly in IE6, select:
View -> Encoding -> Unicode (UTF-
You can select your default font by going to:
Tools -> Internet Options -> Fonts
selecting “Language Script” as Sinhala, and then clicking on the font you want to use as default.
Once you have installed this pack, you may download additional Unicode Sinhala fonts which will work with any Unicode Sinhala web page.
Download Sinhala for IE 6
——————————————————————————–
If you do not have Internet Explorer 6, you can download it from Microsoft.
ICTA Language Group - 041113
May 19, 2008 at 9:21 am
Mr Ajith, the sites that you cannot view are not using Unicode. You seem to be able to read Unicode compliant sites like ethalaya.
For those who claim Mr Donald is a gentlemen, please check his site http://www.akuru.org. It has a prominent link to http://www.vksamaranayake.blogspot.com, a blog ran by someone as a plain personal mudslinging campaign against Prof Samaranayaka. Just after Prof died, its owner deleted all its posts.
I have had my share of disagreements with Prof Sam, and I am sure many others have, too. But promoting a mudslinging campaign like the above is something too low in my opinion.
But, to be consistent with what I am saying below on diversity of good-bad norms, I respect Mr Donald’s right to do so!
Those who were molded with Victorian views of ethics have certain norms of mannerism, and they think that the whole world should behave like they expect to.
However, it is not the only norm of mannerism. World is a diverse place, and good and bad is always relative.
If you have read “Milinda Prashnaya”, a book that has very witty logic similar to Alice in Wonderland, but written long time before that, gives another norm of how intellects argue. I have removed the first part of Ven Nagasena’s answer - which is about intellects talk with logic etc, and kept the relevant one:
“Ven Nagasena tells the king, ‘Oh king, if you talk like a King, I will not talk to you, but if you talk like an intellect, I will!’
“The King asks ven Nagasena, ‘Ven Nagasena, how do intellects talk?’
“Ven Nagasena replies, ‘…, and sometimes insult the opponents as well.’”
I am sure “insult” (”නිග්රහත ද කෙරෙති”
means non-personal insults similar to what we see in a court of law. And such witty discussions are not rare in Parliaments all over the world either. Some like it, some hate it, some enjoy it, some don’t care; diverse the world is.
So there you are, norms of intellectual conversation differs in different cultures. Accepting one standard and expecting everyone to adhere to it if too narrow thinking IMHO.
However, those who expect me not to “call names” on Mr Donald seem to be perfectly alright about Mr Donald using words like “dirty old man”.
My “calling name” was always “Mr Donald”, except a witty example of using a “Donald Duck” cartoon!
Anyway, I don’t like to get involved in these debates. As someone pointed out, why panic? I write these replies from time to time only for the benefit of newcomers who may be confused otherwise.
May 21, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Welcome Anuradha to this site
When we had gone up to 100 comments in
http://harshadewa.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/sinhala-unicode-a-real-problem-or-just-fabrications/
I was blocked by you.
You could not answer the simple question the UTF value of Joint “KSHA” or “DU” of Dumriya or “KU” kumana.
You are not aware that most of the sinhala characters ar not having UTF values.
Those who are not aware of UTF values
I give this example
LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A
16 DECIMAL VALUE : : : : : : 65
17 UTF-8 HEX VALUE : : : : : 0×41
18 UTF-16 HEX VALUE: : : : : 0×0041
19 UTF-32 HEX VALUE: : : : : 0×00000041
20 XHTML : : : : : : : : : : A
For Sinhala letter Ayanna
01 CODE POINT VALUE: : : : : 0D85
02 NAME (UNICODE NAME) : : : SINHALA LETTER AYANNA
16 DECIMAL VALUE : : : : : : 3461
17 UTF-8 HEX VALUE : : : : : 0xE0B685
18 UTF-16 HEX VALUE: : : : : 0×0D85
19 UTF-32 HEX VALUE: : : : : 0×00000D85
20 XHTML : : : : : : : : : : අ
Likewise please give these values for the three examples given by me Anuradha without giving excuses.
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 21, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Mr Donald,
I have given the Unicode sequences for “du” and “ksha” many times over. Asking a SINGLE value instead of a sequence is your rule. Implementers are happy with a sequence.
My implementers, I mean us for GNU/Linux platform, Microsoft for Windows, Xenotype for Apple, University of Colombo, University of Moratuwa among others.
This is my last post on this topic here. Instead, I have decided to answer these questions in a better way. Please expect more in my unofficial Unicode FAQ. Right now, I have put only one question, but it’s a matter of finding time to answer others.
http://www.sayura.net/anuradha/sinhala/unicode/faq/
Your “du” and “ksha” question will also be answered there, for one last time.
Anuradha
May 21, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I am not asking this”Unicode sequences”
It is not my question
I am asking the UTF value since all unicode registered characters do have a UTF value.
“Implementers are happy with a sequence.” Yes but the answer has to be in UTF value. I have never challenged the typewriter input sequence It can be anything. may be a “qwerty” solution. irrespective to the input sequence the output value has to be a fixed UTF value.
How do you input Ü
different OS do have different input sequence
BUT Ü do have a UTF value
01 CODE POINT VALUE: : : : : 00DC
02 NAME (UNICODE NAME) : : : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH DIAERESIS
16 DECIMAL VALUE : : : : : : 220
17 UTF-8 HEX VALUE : : : : : 0xC39C
18 UTF-16 HEX VALUE: : : : : 0×00DC
19 UTF-32 HEX VALUE: : : : : 0×000000DC
20 XHTML : : : : : : : : : : Ü
Until you show me the UTF values you are running away from the problem
You cannot give UTF values because these characters are not registered in the Unicode consortium
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 21, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I quote from
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2781.html
for the new comers re UTF 16
1. Introduction
This document describes the UTF-16 encoding of Unicode/ISO-10646,
addresses the issues of serializing UTF-16 as an octet stream for
transmission over the Internet, discusses MIME charset naming as
described in [CHARSET-REG], and contains the registration for three
MIME charset parameter values: UTF-16BE (big-endian), UTF-16LE
(little-endian), and UTF-16.
1.1 Background and motivation
The Unicode Standard [UNICODE] and ISO/IEC 10646 [ISO-10646] jointly
define a coded character set (CCS), hereafter referred to as Unicode,
which encompasses most of the world’s writing systems [WORKSHOP].
UTF-16, the object of this specification, is one of the standard ways
of encoding Unicode character data; it has the characteristics of
encoding all currently defined characters (in plane 0, the BMP) in
exactly two octets and of being able to encode all other characters
likely to be defined (the next 16 planes) in exactly four octets.
The Unicode Standard further defines additional character properties
and other application details of great interest to implementors. Up
to the present time, changes in Unicode and amendments to ISO/IEC
10646 have tracked each other, so that the character repertoires and
code point assignments have remained in sync. The relevant
standardization committees have committed to maintain this very
useful synchronism, as well as not to assign characters outside of
the 17 planes accessible to UTF-16.
The IETF policy on character sets and languages [CHARPOLICY] says
that IETF protocols MUST be able to use the UTF-8 character encoding
scheme [UTF-8]. Some products and network standards already specify
UTF-16, making it an important encoding for the Internet. This
document is not an update to the [CHARPOLICY] document, only a
description of the UTF-16 encoding.
unquote
You have these values for all unicode registered characters
If anyone is unable to give these values it not a unicode registered character.
Do simple letters like “KU” “DU” “ksha joint” ” “RI”RU” or “GU” or any sinhala you can think name it I will tell you the UTF value if registered in unicode. Above sinhala are not in the unicode register
Voice to save SInhala Akuru from vultures
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 22, 2008 at 1:27 am
Please children, keep me out of this debate.
I am now busy preparing a Unicode chart for ‘Yama Lova’. I hope Donald will never come here because if he does it will be a big problem for me.
Now I have to go to take my daily ‘Lodiya’ dosage. Afterwards I have to climb ‘Katu Imbula’ A busy day.
V K Sam
from Yama Lova
May 22, 2008 at 3:47 am
My dear Prof!
I am so glad to see your message. All these days I was wondering what had happened to you. We are glad to know that at least you are in ‘Yama Lova’
Prof, in your absence we are continuing the good work you did. Donald makes a big noise as usual but we will not let him change anything. Now I have a battalion of errand boys to fight. Anuradha is leading them. Kaputa is also there. There are also lots of people at Sinhala Unicode group. We can easily fight Donald now, no matter how insistent he is.
Prof, we are also working on LGN, but I should not talk in public. As expected it is now a mess. Samsung has disappeared after taking money. Bettre you are not here, because otherwise you would have been in big trouble. I pray thrice everyday that press (especially Sunday Leader and Ravaya) would not find about this. Otherwise I too will be in a soup.
Bye for now.
May 22, 2008 at 5:55 am
ලෝදිය බොමි
ඉඹුලේ යමි
ලද ඉසඹුවෙ
බ්ලොග් කියවමි
මං නැතිදා
අනුරාධා
යුනිකෝඩේ
රකිනු සොඳා
බුල් කෙළිනා
පිස්සු ඩොනා
අතේ දුරින්
තියනු මැනා
වසත් පුතා
නැණැති වෙතා
මගෙ නම රැක
ගන්න පුතා
සමරෙ සීයා
යමලොව
May 22, 2008 at 1:00 pm
It is nice to have some humour in this blog. I thank those who contribute from yamalova. Need more of it sir/madam
********************************
I quote from
http://harshadewa.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/sinhala-unicode-a-real-problem-or-just-fabrications/
Quote from number 103
103
Dharma Gamage said,
May 21, 2008 at 2:14 pm
I do not agree with Donald that we should give up Unicode and adopt his CAT, but simultaneously I do not think Unicode at its present state is complete. We talk about a standard here, not a fonts set. There are people who do not know the difference.
I have been a part of the ‘Sinhala Unicode’ debate long back, and thought I would keep out of it because both parties are too adamant to admit their own mistakes. At least if one party listens we can think of moving forward.
It is pity that even seemingly reasonable people like Anuradha ask compares Sinhala hodiya with Unicode chart. There is no one to one correlation between Sinhala hodiya and Unicode chart. Assuming both to be same is the fundamental mistake done by Prof. J. B. Disanayake and pathetic that we continue that mistake.
Also what Anuradha refers as ‘hodiya’ is not the correct and complete Sinhala hodiya, but a chart used to teach basic Sinhala. Not all Sinhala letters appear in hodiya.
Finally, I think moderating Donald is not fair, specially he represents one party in discussion. Why shut others mouths if you are so sure what you say is correct?
Unquote
Thank you Sir you have at least understood what I had written for a longtime
We got to correct the present SLSI1134 or Sinhala representation at unicode consortium.
If you do not agree on my CAT why not propose your one. Or keep my one as the base and amend it. I welcome any corrections or additions not to delete anything.
The case is proved that the present sinhala unicode is incomplete.
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 22, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Firstly, I’d like to say that I do not benefit from any party, organization or team for DISCUSSING about these fabrications on Sinhala Unicode. But I honestly do not know who you are and whether you benefit from anyone.
I’m not fear of anyone’s standards or patents. I don’t simply care. But what I care is a sound debate where actual practical problems are seen as they are. I’m not a Worshiper or a Blind Believer.
Secondly this post was written by me only to raise the awareness of people about the speculations. I suggest you to “first read the post” before reading and posting comments.
See the 2 texts quoted from above post.
“This is an EXPLANATION and/or CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM on some claims made on the already standardized Sinhala Unicode system.”
“However there are some speculations saying that there are ulterior motives and hidden agendas behind these claims. I’m not discussing those here or I’m not targeting anyone. But when there are things that mislead people, someone should correct it.”
Anyway it’s up to you to decide or understand whether we tried to start a DECENT DEBATE or ATTACK him like you say about the issues only Mr. Donald raised.
As far as we know, we never tried to attack him. May be people who couldn’t control their emotions commented in some rough way.
But if one can go through the comments made here, I think no one can come to a conclusion like you said. I suspect that it’s you who do blind unfair judgments.
One would even see you as a sypothizer of Mr. Donald depite your proactive denial.
If you honestly practically face problems with Sinhala Unicode, please discuss them here.
Many thanks,
Harshadewa Ariyasinghe.
May 22, 2008 at 1:41 pm
“Every sinhala character needs registration in unicode for it to be called a unicode
sinhala.”
Ok! That’s it! Ultimately this is your RULE! It is neither a LAW nor RULE written in a book or set by a government.
Anyone can tell such things but who cares? We don’t care! and neither people with little upstairs.
Again.. If one says
“Every number in the world needs a KEY in the CALCULATOR!”
I don’t know how to call the person or that theory.
What you say is crystal clear Mr. Donald. We can understand your suggestion. But when we can put up 10 by pressing 1 + 0 why the heck we need all characters to be individually registered?
And we don’t need to accept each and every damn way that others have implemented their languages. We have to invent our own way. It has been invented and implemented successfully.
Your Excel and Sorting examples have been proved wrong here and Please use the latest correct software to enable sinhala 100%.
Problems shown in your screenshots are arising not because of a Sinhala Unicode problem but because of your inability to setup/use/implement software applications.
Talk wisely and choose honestly!
Thank you,
Harshadewa Ariyainghe
May 22, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Could not resist noticing!
The posts 26 and 27 posted as “V K Sam” and “W Deshapriya” have two sentences with missing ending full stop.
There is one more person here who seems to forget full stops at the end of sentences!
Anuradha
May 22, 2008 at 5:29 pm
We have 0 to 9 in all calculators and limits of 8 digits or 12 digits in the led etc.
calculator is repetition of 0 to 9 up to nth value
If you avoid taking of unicode then your argument is correct. To represent sinhala we need plater software made by others.
If you talk of Sinhala unicode and slsi 1134 both need extra software to represent sinhala.Therefore Sinhala solution relative to Standards is incomplete and incorrect.
If you talk of unicode we need utf values to represent all sinhala characters.
The choice is yours!!!
Either you have tell the public that you are having your own solution name it “” “”
And it is not unicode sinhala
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 22, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Quote
we don’t need to accept each and every damn way that others have implemented their languages.
Unquote
You have just copied the andy daneils unicode registrations. Now telling the public it is your own system. You are lying through your own teeth.
http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr2.html
quote
The Sinhala proposal was written by Andy Daniels.
There is a standard extant for Sinhala described in A Standard Code for
Information Interchange in Sinhalese by V.K. Samaranayake and S.T. Nandasara
(ISO-IEC JTC1/SCL/WG2 N 673, Oct. 1990). The coding proposed in it was found
to be an inadequate basis for a modern, computer-based interchange code,
though it is adequate to handle the capabilities of a Sinhala typewriter for
representing contemporary colloquial Sinhala. In addition, the document is
ambiguous as to coding order — presumably, given the graphic decomposition
in the code set, the text stream is to be coded in visual, not phonetic order.
An additional problem is that there is no provision to handle exceptional
cases.
And his coding was
DRAFT 03 Nov 1992
SINHALA DRAFT CHARACTER NAMES
@ Vowel modifiers
0D80 SINHALA SIGN ANUSVARA
0D81 SINHALA SIGN VISARGA
@ Independent Vowels
0D82 SINHALA LETTER A
0D83 SINHALA LETTER AA
0D84 SINHALA LETTER E
0D85 SINHALA LETTER EE
0D86 SINHALA LETTER I
0D87 SINHALA LETTER II
0D88 SINHALA LETTER U
0D89 SINHALA LETTER UU
0D8A SINHALA LETTER RI
……
@ Virama
0DCD SINHALA SIGN VIRAMA
0DCE
0DCF
@ Numerals
0DD0 SINHALA DIGIT ONE
0DD1 SINHALA DIGIT TWO
0DD2 SINHALA DIGIT THREE
0DD3 SINHALA DIGIT FOUR
0DD4 SINHALA DIGIT FIVE
0DD5 SINHALA DIGIT SIX
0DD6 SINHALA DIGIT SEVEN
0DD7 SINHALA DIGIT EIGHT
0DD8 SINHALA DIGIT NINE
0DD9 SINHALA NUMBER TEN
0DDA SINHALA NUMBER ONE HUNDRED
@ Punctuation
0DDB SINHALA KUNDALIYA
*****************
The VKS and you guys copied the foreign sinhala and now justifying
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 23, 2008 at 1:29 am
Quote
Problems shown in your screenshots are arising not because of a Sinhala Unicode problem but because of your inability to setup/use/implement software applications
unquote
Contradicting
Quote
We have to invent our own way. It has been invented and implemented successfully.
Unquote
One time you write of international standard unicode and a SLSI1134 and again you say our own way.
Quote from above
setup/use/implement software applications
Unquote
Setup what?
Which software? Made by whom? Sold where?
Implement what? Which software? Which hardware?
Now give me an explanation.(be specific and list the names of all software required to see sinahla correctly)
I cannot see “du” as one letter in my computer using excel but I can see it in your computer.
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 23, 2008 at 3:30 am
Donald,
This is disgusting man. You did not leave Prof. Sam when he was alive and you insult him even after his death. Apart from everything else don’t you even have the simple decency we expect from any civilised human being? (Sorry, I forgot, civilised is not the word to describe you)
I know nothing about Sinhala unicode, but all I know there are enough people using it and they are happy about it. If the users have no complains what is your problem man? Are you off your head?
May 23, 2008 at 4:42 am
Quote
I know nothing about Sinhala unicode,
Unquote
If you know nothing how can you talk good or bad.
I have no sympathy on any person or group who are trying destroy the Language Sinhala.
If you want to know more about sinhala please talk to me
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 23, 2008 at 5:06 am
Donald,
You are an animal, not a human being.
Aren’t you get tired by slinging mud at prominent personalities?
If you have nothing better to do, go to Galle face and fly a kite. Don’t abuse cyber space for your pathetic personal attacks.
May 23, 2008 at 6:14 am
Who are the prominent personalities?
List them if you have the guts.
Whether dead or living no sympathy for anyone who is destroying language Sinhala.
We got to name the mistakes intentionally they have done and correct them for the betterment of Sri Lanka.
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 23, 2008 at 9:45 am
Hi everyone!
I gooled for ‘Donald Gaminitilake’ and this is one entry I found.
Quote
Mr. and Mrs. Gaminitilaka have been living in Japan for more than twenty years. They came to Sri Lanka for a short visit on December 30, 1999.
Mr. Semage Donald Edmund Gaminitillake is fifty years old. He has a brother but no sisters. Mr. Gaminitillake’s mother, Mrs. G. D. Daisy Fernando and father, Mr. S. Edmund Fernando are dead and gone. Mr. Gaminitillake is handsome and kind. His hobbies are traveling and photography. He is a computer engineer. He has excelled in Eminency, Electronic and publishing media fields. He studied at S. Thomas’s College in Sri Lanka and at CHIBA University in Japan.
Mrs. Bhadra Sulochana Gaminitilaka is forty-nine years old. Her mother is Sumana Fernando and her father is Mr. M. S. B. Fernando. Mrs. Gaminitilaka has three sisters.
Mrs. Bhadra’s hobby is traveling. She studied at Vishaka College. She is very beautiful. They are very kind and helpful.
Unquote
Donald, is that you?
May 23, 2008 at 1:33 pm
That is an introduction given to us in Horizon web Mahavilachchiya
Why not quote the site you picked it
Pedigree is correct. I can quote up to 1897 and little more than that.
over 100 years of history is behind us. I am proud of it.
Why not talk about the sinhala issues here.
No one has answered what are the additional software needed to present Sinhala correctly.
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 23, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I too gooled and found. you had missed two more sentences
quote
“”They gave a computer to us for our studies. I wish them good luck.”"
unquote
http://www.hlacademy.org/journal/issue_04/index.htm
see under tributes
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 25, 2008 at 7:23 am
Anuradha, Harshadev and gang,
Aren’t you ashamed of doing this type of personal attacks against Mr. Donald Gaminitilake? Shame, man. Try to be disciplined.
If you have run out of your arguments, better keep your mouths shut than indulging in this type of low level attacks.
May 25, 2008 at 9:47 am
Anuradha, Harshadev and gang will have to admit the errors and invite me to correct the problem.
I am ready!!!
Donald Gaminitillake
I Set the Standard
May 25, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Visit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnE82eOVve0
I will post one by one my comments on TV
Donald Gamnitillake
I set the standard
May 26, 2008 at 4:55 am
I was so glad to learn about Donald uncle’s pedigree. As imporssive as the pedigree of my poodle.
Uncle, why only up to 1897? I though you can trace to at least the time of Dutugemunu, like our Mervin Silva uncle.
You got into You Tube? My God. You Tube ekath ivarai.
May 26, 2008 at 8:45 am
More will come on you tube.
You guys are avoiding the discussion.
Are you scared???
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 26, 2008 at 3:21 pm
In 46 I mentioned the obstacles for IT development in Sri Lanka
1. Nation wide connectivity
2. Lack of proper sinhala and tamil in computer
3. Lack of human resources
Now from 32
I quote
we don’t need to accept each and every damn way that others have implemented their languages.
Unquote
The answer is given (actually I told this in 2002)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DPf8ViK9O4
If we cannot look around us and develop our country I have no words to tell you who you are
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 26, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Quote from lirne asia (Request For Comment: Broadband QoS testing Phase 2)
“Windows XP vs. Windows Vista versions: We can test the application for only one OS. We guess if we develop for Windows XP with luck it might work for Vista.”
Unquote
That means the Sinhala text generated by xp will not be seen correctly by Vista???
am I wrong or correct?
If we cannot see the Sinhala TEXT on vista which has been originally created in XP — the unicode sinhala or SLSI 1134 sinhala is incomplete and a incorrect solution.
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 27, 2008 at 12:04 pm
මා යුනිකෝඩ් වලට ආධුනිකයෙක්. මගේ විනෝදාංශය Graphic Designing. (චිත්රක යැයි මා කීවේ Graphic වලට, හරිද මංදා?) යුනිකෝඩ් නොවන අකුරු වර්ග විශාල ගණනක් තිබේ. මා සිංහල වචන අඩංගු චිත්රක නිමැවුමට භාවිතා කරන්නේ ඒවා යි. ඊට හේතුව ඒවායේ ලස්සන අකුරු අඩංගු වීම.
උදා: Derana.
මෙබදු ලස්සන අකුරු වර්ග යුනිකේතයෙනුත් ලබාගත හැකි නම්, වෙබ් අඩවි වල පෙනුම වඩා දියුණු කරගන්න පුලුවන් වෙයි නේද?
එබදු අකුරු තිබේදැයි මා දන්නේ නෑ. දන්නේ නම් දන්වන්න.
මා හිතන්නේ පාසල් පෙළ පොතේ ඇති අකුරු ආකාරයේ අකුරු වර්ග වලින් බොහෝ දේ කල හැකි උනත් යුනිකේත සිංහලයේ දියුණුවට මෙබදු අයිසින් ද ඇවැසි බවයි.
(සඤ්ඤක ද යන්න ටයිප් කිරීමට නොදනිමි. කමන්න
May 28, 2008 at 2:04 am
Dear Sampath
Only limited number of characters are registered in Unicode consortium. These characters do have a UTF value. Rest of the Sinhala characters are not registered in the unicode consortium nor do have any UTF values.
Of you visit the link given below you will find what has been registered in unicode and understand your problem
http://www.akuru.org/images/lakbima_Oct_4_2007_web.jpg
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 28, 2008 at 3:52 am
I accept the Unicode approach. (think Donald is not the only one who doesn’t) All what I said is Sinhala Unicode chart is still *incomplete*. For current Unicode chart lacks widely used characters like yansaya and repaya, while have kept space for never used ‘ilu’ (0D8F) and ‘iluu’ (0D90). Sannaka ‘ja’ (0DA6) another unused character.
This is purely because J. B. Disanayake has done the stupid mistake by building the Sinhala Unicode based on hodiya. (There are no ilu, illu is any of the other South Asian language charts)
In addition to yansaya and repaya, we call include some of he widely used joint letters too, because there is enough space. That will save so many other issues.
Unfortunately when somebody suggest even a minor change in Unicode you people become so defensive and start shouting mad. This is the biggest obstacle to the Unicode.
We saw once somebody called Anandawardhana went to the length of suggesting to remove yansaya and repaya from Sinhala language instead doing a simple change.
May 28, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Dear D Gamage,
I understand your proposal and arguments behind it. Instead of adding thousands of characters and creating a big bang and a mess, what you are proposing is only a few sane additions to make matters much simpler, especially when we have free space left in the codepage.
This is not the first time I saw someone suggested this.
Mathematically speaking, present Sinhala Unicode base set is mostly orthogonal. I.e., it has only the necessary and sufficient characters; not more, not less.
I say “mostly” because the matter of ඥ was a bit controversial - whether it is a standalone character or a conjunct - and a decision was reached only recently.
Please don’t get me wrong, I am NOT against such an amendment. I am NOT religiously defending Unicode. If SLSI or Unicode agrees to do so, I would wholeheartedly support it.
[Now Mr Donald, if you want to quote me, make sure you quote the following paragraph as well, the preceding paragraph doesn't make sense without it.]
As an implementer of Sinhala Unicode on the GNU/Linux platform, and as the creator of the first free Sinhala Unicode font, I didn’t find the absence of those characters a problem.
Therefore, if such an amendment is to be proposed, please don’t expect me to be the one to do so.
If you, or someone else, write programs in Unicode, or try to enable Sinhala Unicode on a particular platform/application and find that the existence of those few characters in the base set would make a big difference, then please do make a case. If I think it makes sense, I would support it.
Notice that the details of joiners and internal representation and encoding is NOT visible to the user. Therefore their presence or absence in the base character set is NOT a users concern.
For example, the Sayura input scheme I designed uses R for rakaransaya. The user types R and see rakaransaya added to the character at the cursor. Internally, it emits a “al kireema”, ZWJ and “ra”.
To summarize, I’m fine with your proposal, but I don’t have a need to do it, and if you or some other implementor has a valid technical case to do so, I would support it.
Anuradha
N.B.: Unfortunately, some people have confused asking for “UTF values”. UTF doesn’t allocate values; Unicode does. UTF is only a representation mechanism for Unicode and not a character allocation scheme.
May 29, 2008 at 1:40 am
quote
This is purely because J. B. Disanayake has done the stupid mistake by building the Sinhala Unicode based on hodiya
Unquote
This was not JB but Andy Daniels
http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr2.html
VKS just copied this and made few adjustments.
quote
N.B.: Unfortunately, some people have confused asking for “UTF values”. UTF doesn’t allocate values; Unicode does. UTF is only a representation mechanism for Unicode and not a character allocation scheme.
Unquote
Once the characters are allocated the UTF values are given. If a character is registered in unicode a utf value is there. If a character is not in the unicode there will be no UTF value.
Accept the fact that there are only few characters are in the unicode rest is not represented in unicode and have any UTF value.
For Sinhala to be correctly represented all Sinhala characters have to be in the SLSI first. Then comes the UNICODE.
First amend the SLSI which can be done ASAP.
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 29, 2008 at 1:46 am
Quote
As an implementer of Sinhala Unicode on the GNU/Linux platform, and as the creator of the first free Sinhala Unicode font, I didn’t find the absence of those characters a problem.
Unquote
Sir you can have 1000 fonts this is not the issue.
Sinhala TEXT need to be compatible across all platforms.
For TEXT to be compatible across all platforms a proper character allocation table has to be there (WAGUWA) You have not done it only I have done and published it.
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 29, 2008 at 1:55 am
Quote
Instead of adding thousands of characters and creating a big bang and a mess,
Unquote
No big mess. everything would flow smooth. Yes big bang — you all will get exposed for a incomplete sinhala unicode. This is what bites you all.
Any changes to SLSI go to the SLSI 1134 file and reopen it from the place where I have placed the objections.
Donald Gamnitillake
I set the standard
May 29, 2008 at 2:03 am
First of all I did not make the above post here. It was a slightly edited version of a post I made elsewhere cut and pasted by somebody. (Your guess is as good as mine!) All I can say is this is an unethical thing to do. Please avoid doing so in future.
But Anuradha had replied me here so I will respond.
Just as I thought Anuradha jumped to religiously guard the present Unicode chart, though he says he does not!
I never talked about developing fonts. I never said you cannot develop yansaya or rakaransaya based on the present chart.
What I said was the present chart allows enough room for two (or more) developers to develop certain things in two (or more) ways. So there can be enough issues in information transfer (and other applications) This is one issue Donald keeps on pointing to us. (I do not agree with his solution, but as far as detecting the issue Donald is dead right!)
Take this simple example.
According to present chart, how many ways to represent the character ඇ ? One? Think again. There are two.
Either it can be 0D87 or 0D85+0DD0!
Wow! How come the two great pundits of our times JBD and VKS missed this? Because these two idiots (Just like now Anuradha does) did not know the difference between hodiya (alphabet) and Unicode chart! They think hodiya and Unicode chart are one and the same. They are not.
I gave one example how the present chart can be ambiguous. When it comes to Yansaya, Rakaransaya and joint- characters this is far more complicated. The ideal chart should be such that there should be no ambiguity.
I guess this is the time to correct the mistakes JBD and VKS did, NOT by doing larger mistakes as Donald suggests, but by some simple additions and deletions to present charts. (This can be done as there are enough code points left. In fact, many other countries have already done such changes. One example in Bangladesh. The original Bangla chart came from Wet Bengal of India, so that lacked few characters only used in Bangladesh - which was added later)
Till you do that, JBD and VKS, even in their graves, will never rest.
Present generations will continue to curse these two, wherever they find practical issues with applications. (Unless as Anadhawardene suggests, if we take Yansaya, repaya etc out of the language)
May 29, 2008 at 2:05 am
One correction, the last sentence should start with “Future generations…”
May 29, 2008 at 2:42 am
Quote
Till you do that, JBD and VKS, even in their graves, will never rest.
Unquote
That is true For the last year I could never rest in my grave. Everybody is blaming me for Unicode and the failur of LGN, which I gave to Samsung.
Even my mother (in the grave nxt to mine) cannot rest She is sneezing continuously. I think lots of people are remebering her too.
May 29, 2008 at 3:18 am
Dear Dharma,
According to present chart, how many ways to represent the character ඇ ? One? Think again. There are two.
Either it can be 0D87 or 0D85+0DD0!
As far as I know, we only the first form is valid. Unicode base set for Sinhala is based on logical order, not physical representation of glyphs. Please correct me if I am wrong. In my keyboard drivers and fonts, we have only the first one.
But you are bringing up a valid point here. Documentation for such matters are not widely available. SLSI 1134 seems to have some details, but it’s not public domain unfortunately. There are some extracts on http://www.fonts.lk web site (by the way, this site is now obsoleted by http://www.siyabas.lk now).
I am very keen to know the other examples. If there is are issues, they should definitely be fixed.
Anuradha
May 29, 2008 at 3:25 am
Also, please have a look at my quasi-transliterated keyboard input scheme for SCIM on GNU/Linux platform. It gives a user’s perspective of Unicode:
http://www.sayura.net/im/
May 29, 2008 at 4:02 am
Anuradha,
[As far as I know, we only the first form is valid. Unicode base set for Sinhala is based on logical order, not physical representation of glyphs.]
Please show me where does it say so.
Show me how you write කැ. If it is 0D9A+0D87 you follow the logical order.(ක්+ඇ=කැ)If it is 0D9A+0DD0 you mearly add two glyps.
[In my keyboard drivers and fonts, we have only the first one.]
In *your* drivers, yes. But let us assume one illogical, irrational developer for some reason we cannot imagine now used the second sequence to develop his font set.
Will that be Unicode compatible or not?
May 29, 2008 at 9:43 am
Dear Dharma,
[Please show me where does it say so.]
SLS 1134 itself says so, and please have a look at this document which has extracts from the standard.
http://www.fonts.lk/doc/Representation%20of%20Sinhala%20in%20Unicode.pdf
[Show me how you write කැ. If it is 0D9A+0D87 you follow the logical order.(ක්+ඇ=කැ)If it is 0D9A+0DD0 you mearly add two glyps.]
Each vowel has its corresponding modifier, and you use the modifier, not the vowel itself.
You may argue that in that case අ also should have a corresponding modifier to make So ක් + [අ] = ක, just like ක් + [ඇ] = කැ. Yes, this is a valid argument, but I think making අ an exception is not a bad idea. So ක stands alone, while ක් needs al kireema, and all other forms of ක needs a modifier.
[In *your* drivers, yes. But let us assume one illogical, irrational developer for some reason we cannot imagine now used the second sequence to develop his font set.
Will that be Unicode compatible or not?]
Not only in my drivers, several others do that, too.
An illogical, irrational developer may do something wrong, of course. That’s where I propose the necessity of more public domain documentation, which is not sufficient.
Anuradha
May 29, 2008 at 9:51 am
Dear Dharma,
One more thing.
Have you tried writing any Unicode software or fonts? If yes, what are the specific issues you have faced?
An interesting pattern is that all these “complains” are from those who haven’t tried to write any code.
Anuradha
May 29, 2008 at 11:20 am
Quote
NOT by doing larger mistakes as Donald suggests,
Unquote
How can I be wrong by registering all the sinhala characters in the SLSI and in unicode consortium?
You guys always avoid the unregistered lot of sinhala characters in SLSI 1134 or unicode consortium.
Also you guys are avoiding the compatibility of Sinhala text across all platforms.
by passing this fact — always only comment about the input methods of sinhala characters as in a typewriter.
Nanaasara, JB and VKS just copied the andy daniels proposal for unicode . You guys also avoid talking this.
All of you including anruadha is responsible for destroying Sinhala Language.
Donald Gaminitillake
I set the standard
May 29, 2008 at 11:28 am
Quote
Have you tried writing any Unicode software or fonts? If yes, what are the specific issues you have faced?
Unqote
TEXT NOT COMPATIBLE ACROSS ALL PLATFORMS and applications
NEED Additional SOFTWARE
do not have a proper IME
all because Sinhala characters are not registered in unicode or slsi and therefore do not have correct UTF values
Donald Gaminitillake
U set the standard
May 29, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Be calm Donald uncle, you don’t have to be angry like that. You are so angry that you