Reply to D.K. Agencies

[Peter Hook]

VYAKARAN: South Asian Languages and Linguistics Net
Editors:  Tej K. Bhatia, Syracuse University, New York
          John Peterson, University of Osnabrueck, Germany
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Dear Shri Surya,

        Xdvng font is (to my eyes) an elegant, well-proportioned font.
However, it is preferable on many other grounds to use Unicode and I do
not recommend that anyone use Xdvng now. One of the present objectives for
me and my colleagues is to find a way to convert Malhar from Xdvng to
Unicode (without re-entering the entire work one symbol at a time).
        One of the reasons you found the exercise difficult may be that
parts of it are simply wrong! If as a native speaker of Hindi you feel
that the answers given are underdetermined by their contexts, not
sufficiently supported by the information given in CVpaR.html, or just
erroneous, I'd appreciate knowing that. My intention in sending the
message I sent to members of the List was to obtain just such feedback.
        It is also possible that rules for normal usage of vector <paR>
are too complex and too idiosyncratic to be consciously acquired by adult
learners, or even too elusive to be defined. I hope that is not the
case...

        Thank you for your comments.

                Peter

On Tue, 27 Jul 2004, D.K. Agencies (P) Ltd. wrote:

> VYAKARAN: South Asian Languages and Linguistics Net
> Editors:  Tej K. Bhatia, Syracuse University, New York
>           John Peterson, University of Osnabrueck, Germany
> Details:  Send email to listserv at listserv.syr.edu and say: INFO VYAKARAN
> Subscribe:Send email to listserv at listserv.syr.edu and say:
>           SUBSCRIBE VYAKARAN FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME
>           (Substitute your real name for first_name last_name)
> Archives: http://listserv.syr.edu
>
> Just for curiosity, I visited the webpage.  The initial purpose
> was really to see how the devanagari chars have been handled
> and i wanted to look at the page only from the technology used
> point of view.
>
> Upon reading the page, I noticed that even I was not able to
> correctly answer many of the questions, though Hindi happens
> to be my mother tongue.  However, after going through this
> excercise, I am not sure if I may still claim so :-|
>
> Coming back to the technology used on this page, I would really
> like to know as to what is likely to be the trend in the coming
> months and years as far as displaying non-Roman chars are
> concerned, UNICODE or Javascript with combinations such as
> Xdvng.
>
> On our website, we intend to go ahead with UNICODE.  And a few
> test records have recently been uploaded from the main database
> server to the webserver.  Those interested may visit
> <http://www.dkagencies.com>, and click the link "use language
> search" on the left column.
>
> I already know from users, that it is not working most Mac machines
> and will, of course, not work on machines where UNICODE is not
> installed.  Unicode comes pre-installed in case of Win2000 and
> Win-XP, and does not require any font loading time while one
> is visiting the web pages.
>
> I know this is a Grammarians' listserv, so perhaps should not
> have sent this message here but could not resist.  Therefore,
> discussants may reply me directly instead of sending to the entire
> list.
>
> Once again, the excercise is really useful (and difficult).
>
> Best wishes,
> Surya
>
>
> Ruth L. Schmidt wrote:
> > Dear Peter,
> >
> > With Internet Explorer 5 for the Mac the Devanagari font was not
> > displayed. With Netscape 4.7 it was displayed, but with anomalies
> > ("ri" for "e" and others less transparent).
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Ruth
> >
> >>
> >> Dear Members of the List,
> >>
> >>         This summer I have been working on grammatical material to help
> >> learners grasp the difference between compound verbs like <gir jaanaa>,
> >> <lauT jaanaa>, etc. and <gir paRnaa>, <lauT paRnaa>, etc. An exercise
> >> intended to do this is at:
> >>
> >> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pehook/CVpaRex.html
> >>
> >> If any of you would be willing to take a look at it and let me know about
> >> mistakes or flaws in it, I'd be very grateful to you.
> >>
> >>         All the best,
> >>
> >>                 Peter
> >>
>