Unencoded Lao Characters

[Richard Wordingham]

On Wed, 2 Apr 2014 19:16:32 +0700
Theppitak Karoonboonyanan <theppitak at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Mar 30, 2014 at 5:35 AM, Richard Wordingham
> <richard.wordingham at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > On Sat, 29 Mar 2014 11:10:52 +0700

> > In that case, it ought to address GHA, NYA,
> > TTHA, NNA, DHA and BHA as seen in inscriptions, recorded for
> > example in the 1979 MA thesis of Thawaj Poonotoke (ธวัช ปุณโณทก) at
> > http://www.khamkoo.com/uploads/9/0/0/4/9004485/thai_noi_palaeography.pdf .

> I see. As said in the thesis, these Thai-borrowed characters were
> mostly used by the elites who were influenced by foreign states.

Are they any more borrowed than the rest of the alphabet?

> > I'm not convinced that the old Tai Noi and
> > Buddhist Institute forms of each of NYA and NNA are the same
> > character - I suspect we may have four characters here.  The two
> > versions of NYA are particularly difficult to reconcile.

> Don't you think it's a matter of style, in the same manner that Lao
> Tham share the same block with Lanna and Khun?

Perhaps it will work.  It's tidier if it does.

> > 1) The Lao block already has two subscript consonants, U+0EBC LAO
> > SEMIVOWEL SIGN LO and U+0EBD LAO SEMIVOWEL SIGN NYO, though perhaps
> > the various forms of the latter need to disunified.  How does the
> > latter's J-shaped glyph kern?

> I'd rather leave the kerning to fonts (i.e. fonts for contemporary
> Lao and those for Tai Noi would kern differently). For the
> variations, I'm afraid it's a matter of style again.

My worry here is with the Khmu usage of the J-shaped glyph.  Khmu uses
U+0EBD as an initial consonant.  If it is kerned in Khmu usage, then
there is not a problem.

> > ... in the
> > related Thai Nithet script (อักษรไทยนิเทศ), formerly used in
> > Northern Thailand, one can argue for four forms of the cluster HO
> > MO - the ligature HO MO (as LAO HO MO), and HO plus (i) a purely
> > subscript MO (gc=Mn), (ii) subscript MO with an ascender (gc=Mc),
> > and (iii) a borrowing of Tai Tham <SAKOT, MA> (gc=Mn if treated as
> > a single character).
> 
> What's the difference between HO plus (i) and HO plus (ii)?
> I think I haven't seen the former case yet.

It's the same as the difference between U+1A5E TAI THAM CONSONANT SIGN
SA and <U+1A60 TAI THAM SIGN SAKOT, U+1A48 TAI THAM LETTER HIGH SA> or
between U+1A56 TAI THAM CONSONANT SIGN MEDIAL LA and <U+1A60, U+1A43 TAI
THAM LETTER LA>.

Richard.