Hi Jon and George;

1) Jon : I found the Burmese Unicode decimal values. There are about
90 codes for letters, numbers, and some other things. If I understand
correctly, these are the Unicode codes you wish to use? If so, I just
need to know
- where to download a free Burmese font (so I can get it and mention
it in emsTyper)
- what transliteration codes you would prefer for the characters

2) About preserving original texts. I think that there may be
something in behind this discussion worth noting.

In the vinaya : Schism. A schism is a serious division in the
Community — so serious that, if achieved in a dishonest way, it ranks
with matricide, patricide, killing an arahant, and maliciously
shedding the Tathāgata's blood as one of the five most heinous crimes
a person can commit (AN V.129).

The following link provides a list about the topic 'Dhamma as
not-Dhamma' (which I'm sure that everybody is aware of - I'm just
including the link as a convenience):
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/bmc1/bmc1.ch05.html#Sg10

Perhaps it is for this reason that Buddhist scholars and monastics
feel that it is very important to work with the original texts and
scripts? Any translation/reformatting is lossy. Even changing the
paper and ink can create a loss of information for scholars (for
instance, dating documents or identifying authors by their materials).

I would suggest that the Buddha's teaching (dhamma) is actually very
simple. However, the Buddha called his teaching the dhammavinaya.
Perhaps it is more in the context of the vinaya where the importance
of working with the best materials available becomes more evident?

3) Even if you do not speak Burmese, here is a possible situation?
George finds a text about something in Burmese - but the quote
provided is in romanized Burmese text. George is not comfortable with
the comments. He wants to see what other scholars have to say about
the original text. He needs to search for the Burmese quote. With
emsTyper, George has a handy way to search for the quote - even if he
doesn't speak Burmese.

metta

palitechguy

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, "gdbedell" <gdbedell@...> wrote:
>
> Jon,
>
> I am not sure we are getting anywhere<snip>