I got to fiddle with a new computer at a local store with Windows XP on it.
(It's US release is 25 October.) One of the new features is the ability to use
OpenType fonts, which I think you can use on Windows 2000, right?
The Win XP systems I looked at had some OpenType fonts, including OT versionf of
Arial, Times New Roman, Courier New, Comic Sans, etc. It also had some new
fonts with new language capabilities.
So what does this have to do with Indo-European?
While Windows 95/98/Me could only handle European languages and Farsi (with no
Farsi keyboard support), Win XP can now work with Indic languages using
Devanagari, Gujurati, Gurmukhi and other fonts, as well as Armenian and (maybe)
Russian with the four obsolete characters phased out by the USSR in 1918. It
even has Thaana (or Divehi, for Maldivian). With OpenType, it is now possible
to create documents using the numerous ligatures and special forms required by
Indic scripts; TrueType does not have that capability.
As for non-Indo-European languages: Georgian, Syriac (old Estrangelo), major
Dravidian (the "Big Four") and Central Asian Turkic (Cyrillic script) is also
included, in addition to already-supported Arabic, Hebrew, Thai, Vietnamese, and
the four Asian encodings~.
I sure am looking forward to the 25th.
~DaW~
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at
http://mail.yahoo.com