Thanks Yong Peng and everyone for their kind replies.

I use wikipedia quite often and find it to be a useful one-stop
reference for everything under the sun. Would someone here be
interested in including a section on the 42 sounds and their
corresponding symbol in the Pali entry?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pali. It would be also useful if
mentioned is made about the old usages such as the different symbols
for Naggahita.

Another thing: I can only find 41 letters mentioned in Duroiselle,
Narada and de Silva.

Regards,
Dennis

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "Ong Yong Peng" <ypong001@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Dennis, Derek and friends,
>
> Dennis: there isn't really more than one "character set" for Pali.
> What we are reading (in the Roman characters) are just to represent
> the 42 'sounds' of the Pali vocal system (transliteration, more on
> Derek's site).
>
> The 'n' with a 'tail' is the Niggahita, pronounced 'ng', and also
> written 'm with a dot above' or 'm with a dot below'. This is the
> same as writing 7 with or without a cross. It is also like the small
> letter 'a' has two ways of writing. The same applies to the number 1,
> whether you write it with one stroke or two, is up to individual.
> Also for the number 0, whether you draw a diagonal / across the O. Or
> the dollar sign $ with one or two vertical lines. All are acceptable.
> The list goes on...
>
> Hope that helps.
>
>
>
> metta,
> Yong Peng.
>
>
> --- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Dennis W. K. Khong wrote:
>
> Sorry I didn't make it clear that I wasn't asking about font/typeface
> sets. I am interested in character sets (or Romanised Pali
> alphabets). I think PTS has a character which looks like an 'n' but
> with a tail like a 'g'. Some character sets don't have a '.'
> below 'm', while another have both. I would like to know how are they
> different and whether a standard set has evolved.