Unicode Joins India.

**Sarcle** · 01-01-2006, 03:51 PM

One script for a dozen languages

"All the Indian languages together contain only 57 basic phonetic elements," avers Kasturi, and goes about the task of fitting them to the keyboard, using the 26 letters of the English alphabet and diacritical marks. "The Unicode Consortium has codified and numbered the letters of many languages of the world along with diacritical marks," informs the site

"Many of these tasks are gigantic in content and scope," says Kasturi, wishing that a global organisation took things forward.

Hint, Hint, Nudge, Nudge. Microsoft just invest's a billion in india, India announces it is working idn's. Anyone see a connection?

New's Link

**Rubber Duck** · 01-01-2006, 05:43 PM

Sarcle, I think this is a bit of a Red Herring. This guy is trying to do for India what Esperanto has done for Europe.

He is actually trying to develop a way of representing all the Indian languages in a single phoenetic alphabet. Whilst domains in this script would necessarily be IDN, I cannot see this as being at helpful. He is actually trying to provide a means of transliteration, just as technology is rendering the need for such methods redundant.

I believe that local Indian Languages will be represented in Local Indic Script. There are already hundreds of thousands of web pages with such script. By the time this project gets off the drawing board we will be talking tens of millions. This will be a system that nobody has been trained to use or have a real requirement. I don't think it will ever be more than an intellectual curio.

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

**Sarcle** · 01-01-2006, 05:45 PM

Okay, then Drixon I must have mistook the meaning. I thought he was just adapting unicode for the entire system. You are correct though nothing needs to be reinvented.

**DNWizardX9** · 01-01-2006, 06:09 PM

there are so many diff languages in india... how can it be done

**Rubber Duck** · 01-01-2006, 06:16 PM

Well it not difficult to imagine that every language in India can be represented in a Phonetic Alphabet of 57 characters or that a Keyboard could be designed for this purpose. My question is what is the point? If this sort of thing was going to workm, the Japanese Internet would all be written in Romanji and the Chinese Internet in Pinyin. What's more these forms of transliteration have about a 100 year head start. I think the explanation lies in the age of the inventor. Sadly, just out of touch!

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon

**drbiohealth** · 01-01-2006, 10:00 PM

Most difficult part would be to teach people use it. They would rather prefer to stick with English.

**Rubber Duck** · 01-02-2006, 03:52 AM

Originally Posted by drbiohealth

Most difficult part would be to teach people use it. They would rather prefer to stick with English.

Whilst getting everyone to communicate in English is not a very likely scenario, I agree it would seem to have more mileage than this idea!

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon