[Lohit-devel-list] Request for help on classical style Lohit Tamil font

[Srikanth Lakshmanan]

Hello all,

கி, சி, தி Glyphs -- Another classical font case.

Madhanaharan (copied in cc) recently raised the issue of glyphs designed
incorrectly across most Tamil fonts for  கி, சி, தி in Tamil wikipedia. The
 ி should start from the left of parent glyph instead of right is being
mentioned as rule in select books which he has referenced in the
discussion. Check  கி  in the new Wikipedia logo(3rd glyph) he has designed
which supposedly has the 'correct' rendering.

While many newer fonts might not the have it properly, as another user in
the discussion pointed out,   கி, சி, தி in its present form itself has
been around for years in print, so it might not be correct to say one or
the other "incorrect". But I see a case for changing in the lohit-tamil
classical font.

Should I file a bug? Should you have more questions, please reply and
Mathanaharan might probably be able to answer them.

Thanks

[1]
http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%95%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%95%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%AA%E0%AF%80%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%BF%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BE:%E0%AE%86%E0%AE%B2%E0%AE%AE%E0%AE%B0%E0%AE%A4%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%A4%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%BF#.E0.AE.B5.E0.AE.BF.E0.AE.95.E0.AF.8D.E0.AE.95.E0.AE.BF.E0.AE.AA.E0.AF.8D.E0.AE.AA.E0.AF.80.E0.AE.9F.E0.AE.BF.E0.AE.AF.E0.AE.BE.E0.AE.9A.E0.AF.8D_.E0.AE.9A.E0.AE.BF.E0.AE.A9.E0.AF.8D.E0.AE.A9.E0.AE.A4.E0.AF.8D.E0.AE.A4.E0.AF.88_.E0.AE.AE.E0.AE.BE.E0.AE.B1.E0.AF.8D.E0.AE.B1.E0.AF.81.E0.AE.B5.E0.AE.A4.E0.AE.B1.E0.AF.8D.E0.AE.95.E0.AE.BE.E0.AE.A9_.E0.AE.B5.E0.AF.87.E0.AE.A3.E0.AF.8D.E0.AE.9F.E0.AF.81.E0.AE.95.E0.AF.8B.E0.AE.B3.E0.AF.8D





On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 13:33, pravin.d.s at gmail.com <pravin.d.s at gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
> On 20 February 2012 08:45, Shriramana Sharma <samjnaa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello people. I have using the Lohit Tamil font (among other Lohit fonts)
>> for quite some time and like it very much.
>>
>> We would however like to add the classical style written forms for ணா னா
>> றா (also seen in the right part of ணொ னொ றொ ணோ னோ றோ) and of ணை னை லை ளை to
>> the font. This classical style has been documented in the Unicode chapter
>> on Tamil: http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.0.0/ch09.pdf p 300
>> and 301 (in the book, not of the PDF) under the name of "Ligatures with -aa
>> in Traditional Tamil Orthography" and "Ligatures with -ai in Traditional
>> Tamil Orthography".
>>
>> So far we are aware of only one Unicode Tamil font which supports it,
>> e-Tamil OTC by Elmar Kniprath from
>> http://www.aai.uni-hamburg.de/indtib/INDOLIPI/Indolipi.htm (
>> http://www.aai.uni-hamburg.de/indtib/INDOLIPI/Tamil.zip). You can check
>> how that font renders the text: ணா னா றா / ணொ னொ றொ / ணோ னோ றோ / ணை னை லை
>> ளை. However we especially like the visual style of Lohit Tamil so we wanted
>> to do a classical style Tamil font based on Lohit Tamil.
>>
>> Basically this requires four extra glyphs for ணா னா றா and the ligating
>> vowel sign -AI which we call "elephant's trunk" due to the resemblance. By
>> carefully crafting the metrics of the elephant's trunk and writing tables
>> to replace the regular vowel sign -AI ை by this glyph when it occurs before
>> (i.e. after reordering) ண ன ல ள, the desired output can be achieved as seen
>> in the PDF. Elmar Kniprath's font also has done the same thing.
>>
>> Now we have designed the extra glyphs and put it at the end of the Lohit
>> Tamil (v2.5.0) font (renamed to Lohit Tamil Classical) and assigned PUA
>> codepoints for convenience for now.
>>
>> I however request the help of you people in creating the appropriate OT
>> table entries to make this rendering possible.
>>
>> Of course, you can take these glyphs as our contribution to the Lohit
>> project under the OFL if you would like to release a separate Lohit Tamil
>> Classical font.
>>
>
> By looking at it, looks like new ligature will conflict with the existing
> Lohit Tamil rendering. Yes, "Lohit Tamil Classical" looks good to me.  I
> will check and do release of it.
>
> Do report bug against Lohit Tamil in Fedora  with the new .sfd fie.
>
>
>>
>> Even if you do not wish to maintain such a font, it would be most kind of
>> you if you could help us adding the required OT table entries. If you would
>> prefer that we remove the name Lohit from such a separately released
>> modified font (as per the OFL) we can do so.
>>
>
> No props will do. It will be good to have both under same repo. So if any
> changes happening in Lohit Tamil i can reflect those in variant as well.
>
> Best Regards,
> Pravin Satpute
>



-- 
Regards
Srikanth.L
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