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| Along with the number of languages and scripts involved, Indic languages provide challenges to developers because of their complexity and orthographic nature. |
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| Below are examples of vowel modification and conjunct-formation in the Unicode representation.
Hindi examples
1.Consonant + vowel sign
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consonant 'ha'
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+ vowel sign 'i'
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= syllable 'hi'
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| 2. Consonant + consonant |
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consonant 'na'
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+ 'halant'
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+ consonant 'da'
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= syllable 'nda'
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Note ligature formation
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| 3. Consonant + consonant + vowel sign |
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consonant 'na'
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+ 'halant'
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+ consonant 'da'
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+ vowel sign 'ii'
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= syllable 'ndii'
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| 4. Combination of 1 + 3 |
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consonant 'ha'
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+ vowel sign 'i'
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consonant 'na'
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+ 'halant'
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+ consonant 'da'
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+ vowel sign 'ii'
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= word 'hindii'
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Note that the spelling of the word Hindi written in Devanagari script does have long 'ii' at the end.
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| Tamil example |
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consonant 'ta'
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+ consonant 'ma'
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+ vowel sign 'i'
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+ consonant 'zha'
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+ special modifier 'pulli'
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= word 'Tamizh'
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| Gujarati example |
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cons.
'ga'
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+
vowel sign 'u'
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+
cons.
'ja'
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+
cons.
'ra'
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+
vowel sign
'aa'
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+
cons.
'ta'
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+
vowel sign 'ii'
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= word 'Gujaratii'
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| Punjabi example |
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cons.
‘pa’
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+
special modifier 'tippi'
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+
consonant 'ja'
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+
vowel sign
'aa'
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+
consonant 'ba'
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+
vowel sign 'ii'
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= word 'Punjabii'
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Ligatures
As shown above, in many instances Indic syllables form new glyphs. These glyphs are called ligatures.
Character reshaping is often simple and follows simple rules. In some cases however, the resultant ligatures have no relation to the original constituents and it is impossible for an untrained person to identify them.
Unlike bidirectional languages, no major layout transformation is required for Indic scripts when the Unicode approach is followed. Since character reshaping occurs at the individual conjunct-cluster level, the scope of complexity is localized. This means that if a specific behavior is known, it is relatively easy to render the expected behavior
Note: Bidirectional processing will be required for languages such as Kashmiri, Sindhi and Urdu when written in the Urdu script. These cases are not addressed in this article.
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Continue to "Storage, input, and display of Indic text"
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