Dear Stephen Hodge,

Thank you for your long and rather detailed reply. There are many
issues of technical nature for me to understand in your post,
however, you have helped to "push me over the edge and into the
swimming pool" where <<<the scholarly romanized version of Pali (and
Sanskrit) with the diacritics it uses.>>> is concerned.

So I am kind of screaming and splashing around a bit but I have
resloved to learn to swim. That goes for the unicodes too.

Meanwhile, I have just found and downloaded some useful "swimming
aids" amongst the files ie. <<<MP3 sound files - pronunciations of
600 Pali words, recorded by Ven. Mettavihari sound files>>>.

The sound files are appropriatley named in romanised version of Pali
(diacritics included) according to the Pali word they playback. This
makes possible listening, reading and repeatng aloud.

And once again, thanks.

Sukhdev

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "Stephen Hodge" <s.hodge@...> wrote:
> Dear Sukhdev,
>
> You wrote:
>
> Those dreadful Unicodes have to be learnt too (dont relish THAT
thought,
> though). I prefer a natural human language. Just cant stand those
> unicodes. But this being an IT driven world I know one day I will
have to
> learn them. But I hope to have mastered Devanagari by then, and
maybe even
> Sinhalese too. Serve those unicodes right. They didnt even EXIST
just few
> decades ago.
> -------
> You seem a bit confused about unicode, so perhaps some
clarification would
> help. Unless you are talking about the numerical codes used as
addresses
> for unicode letters (if that's the problem, you just need a
suitable
> keyborad utility), what you seem to dislike is the scholarly
romanized
> version of Pali (and Sanskrit) with the diacritics it uses. This
system has
> been in use for over 100 hundred years and has some advantages,
even if you
> find it "dreadful". As you know, both Pali and Sanskrit do not
have a
> specific script -- they can be witten with any north Indian script
(inc
> Sinhalese) or other scripts derived from them such as Thai or
Burmese.
> Since the latin or roman script is the most wisely used and
understood in
> the world, it makes sense to publish material in latin script with
the
> necessary diacritics in order to reach the widest readership. Also
in
> pre-computer days, there was the problem of the availability of non-
latin
> fonts and typsetting. But if you are uncomfortable with
diacritics, then
> fair enough -- but you will still need to understand the latin
script with
> diacritics to use any of the standard dictionaries you will need
for Pali.
>
> Unicode is something quite different. When personal computers
first came on
> the market, there was little need for anything beyond a basic
character set
> of the latin letters plus a few letters with diacritics and accents
for the
> main European languages (the ANSII encoding). As the use of
personal
> computers spread around the world, there was a need for many other
scripts
> such as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hebrew, Arabic, Amharic,
Georgian and all
> the Indian languages etc etc to be encoded. At first, each of
these scripts
> was encoded on an ad hoc basis by various people or groups -- but
there was
> no standard method for each of these scripts. This meant (and
still to a
> certain extent) that you could only display text correctly using
the same
> font as the original used or else the text was completely garbled
or showed
> lots of blank boxes.
>
> The purpose of unicode is to standardize the codes allocated to
each letter
> in every script currently used in the world, so that any suitable
font could
> be used or substituted. So unicode, as its name suggests, is just
a unified
> encoding system for letters and symbols. So apart from the basic
latin
> script and the extended latin character set which has all the
diacritics any
> body could ever want for any language, there is also unicode
Arabic, Urdu,
> Hebrew, Devanagari, Bengali, Telegu, Oriya, Gurmukhi and all the
other
> Indian languages, as well as Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc etc.
>
> However, most fonts that are available do not include all of these
> languages, but tend to be specific for different areas of the
world. There
> are a few enormous fonts which DO include a very large range of the
letters
> and characters that have standardized unicode addresses, the most
common
> being Arial Unicode by Microsoft. The Titus Bitstream Unicode set
is also
> good for people wanting to use Indian languages. Both of these
fonts are
> readily available but neither of them are complete unicode sets.
>
> I do not know anything in detail about the Gurmukhi script, but as
a north
> Indian script, I suspect that you should be able to i) find a
Gurmukhi font
> and input manager, and ii) type out all the Pali you want for your
own
> purposes in Gurmukhi -- you will just need to learn which diacritic
letters
> correspond to which letter in Gurmukhi. The only problem would be
that
> there is probably no published Pali material in Gurmukhi to use,
but you
> might just start a trend. I would also recommend that you do not
use a
> conversion program -- yes, it will save you time but you will learn
more
> Pali words if you have to type it out yourself manually.
>
> Hope this clarifies the situation and you will learn to look upon
Unicode as
> your friend !
>
> Best wishes,
> Stephen Hodge