Pali in Thai Script

[Richard BUDELBERGER]

> Message du 27/03/14 15:43
> De : Sittipon Simasanti 
> A : unicode at unicode.org
> Objet : Pali in Thai Script
> 
> Hi,

Beuar,

> I am a volunteer programmer working for Tipitaka studies foundation in Thailand. 
> We are working on a new project about Pali in Thai script with special emphasize 
> on the pronunciation aspect. Since, Pali here is written using an everyday use 
> Thai characters with a couple of extra symbols. Most people will read out using 
> their normal Thai voices for all consonants (e.g. ค is read as “kha” and not “ga”), 
> which make Thai spoken Pali differently from people not trained in Thailand. 
> In order to ease this situation, we have created an orthography font (slightly 
> modified from the existed Thai font) and used them internally. I have to admit 
> that, currently, we are changing the glyphs from time to time. But, we are looking 
> forward to establish the studies nationwide in the near future once everything is 
> in place. I was wondering what is the unicode community opinion on these new 
> characters. Normal KO KAI and KO KAI with black dot to make KO KAI non-aspirated. 
> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/824603/unicode/glyph.png Thai consonants with 
> Black dot for non-aspirated and White dot for aspirated. 
> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/824603/unicode/glyph2.png These are 
> all the characters we need beside the normal Thai characters. Is it possible for us 
> to submit/add these new characters to unicode once everything is in place? If it is 
> possible, should we separate them into a new symbol for black dot and white dot, 
> or simply call KO KAI with black dot as a new character? 
>
> We are open to suggestions.

Very interesting ! we already have “Garshuni”, that is, basically, Arabic written in Syriac script (cf. http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:arabe_en_graphie_syriaque), extended to other 
languages, as Persian, Turkish, Azeri Turkish, Kurdish, Armenian, Malayalam, Latin (cf. http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:latin_en_graphie_syriaque), 
Ancient Greek (cf. http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:grec_ancien_en_graphie_syriaque)… and even a kind of “reverse-Garshuni”, that is Syriac in 
Modern Greek script (cf. http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:syriaque_en_graphie_grecque) !… That’ what George Kiraz called 
“garshunography” (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garshuni).

And now, Pali. Not Thai in Pali script, but Pali in Thai script…

Do you know how many languages are concerned by this “Paligarshunography” ? Since ho many centuries ?

> Thanks a lot everyone! 
>
> Sittipon