At 06:17 PM 8/3/2004, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

>"suzmccarth" <suzmccarth@...> wrote:
> > How about o + k + u = k + ou ?
> > This would then display properly as o + k + u. Is this possible?
>
>I don't see this combination on the Tamil unicode page. Do you mean
>
>visual <vowel sign e> + <k> + <aa> => stored <k> + <o>, equivalent to
>stored <k> + <vowel sign e> + <aa>?

Do you mean in the last line "<k> + <vowel sign au>"?

>In Thai, visual and stored <sara e> + <k> + <sara aa> is
>pronounced /kau/ and seems to correspond historically. Other
>possibly relevant groups are

Unfortunately, this depends on which set of Indic scripts you
prefer to trace "pure" lineage to... northern or southern...

><sara e> + <k> + <mai han-akat> = /ke?/
><sara ae> + <k> + <mai han-akat> = /kE?/ (low-mid front vowel, transcribed
><ae>)

It's not actualy <mai han-akat>, but <sara a> that combines with
<sara e> and <sara ae> to shorten them.

><sara e> + <k> + <ii> + <y> = /kia/
><sara e> + <k> + <uee> + <character o ang> = /kMa/ (first vocalic element
>is high back unrounded vowel)
><sara e> + <k> + <character o ang> = /k7:/ (close-mid back unrounded vowel)

For the diphthongs, there is no large issue, excepting for sorting
issues... the will all be sorted with <sara e>, as done traditionally,
rather than phonemically, which seems to be a large trend nowadays...

><character o ang> is a glottal stop, but it also serves (mater lectionis
>in an abugida?) for the open-low back rounded vowel (/O/).

urm.. wouldn't <character o ang> just be a conflation of two
possible functions, which are often represented by different characters in
other systems?

<character o ang> = /?/ /[#__]s
(glottal stop in syllable initial position)
= /O/ /[C__]
(open-o when not in syllable initial position)

cf. han`geul <ieut>, which is in modern han`gul /?-/ and /-ng/.

cheers,
-Patrick