The necessity to
have Tirhuta Lipi on computers is long felt. And now, through
the persevered efforts, we are fascinated to see our native and beautiful
writing characters, the Tirhuta Lipi, on the computer. But still, we
have long to go; there are many issues, now uncovered, that need our
careful attention, wide planning and hard work. Collective help and
supports are required from developers, experts and linguists; to
discuss further on following issues, and to extend the work to develop
a standard for Tirhuta Lipi.
Some
Characteristics of Tirhuta Lipi
-
The Tirhuta Lipi is
characterized by quick to write manually, as alphabets require
minimum number of pen lift over. But this complicates its
implementation in computer, as almost every alphabet changes
its shape when it is compounded with other alphabets (including 'swar
matra')
For example: Shapes of HA in HU , HRI, HYA, HLA, HYA, HGA etc. are
different.
-
The ways of adding U
to different consonants varies. Sometimes, the shape of a
consonant is completely changed after adding U.
Example: The shapes of KU and HU are completely different from KA
and HA respectively.
-
The MATRA
symbols and their positions are different for KHU, JU, DHU, RU,
YU, SHU, TRU etc.
Issues
Should
we include all those variations in our Standard? If only selected to
retain, which characters's variation should we include?
The integration of all
variations is not impossible, but it makes the font much complicated to
use. Then, an exhaustive training will be required to use the font, which
will not be in favor to promote the number of users of the font. For this
reason, we have seleted almost same keyboard layout as that of PREETI
font, so that all users familiar to PREETI font can use Tirhuta font
easily. Further, this will help to change the text directly from PREETI
font to TIRHUTA font with some minor corrections.
But this choice leads to
some constraints: we have limited characters and compounds. And the major
question is, if we don't have all the compounds, how
we are going to write half-characters for CHA, YN, JHA, TA, PHA, BA, RA,
WA,SHA, KSHA, TRA and GYA. (which are available in DEVNAGARI, but not
'distinctively' in TIRHUTA) Should we use HALANTA for these?
Should
we devise a printed writing system for TIRHUTA Lipi(which will
be slightly different from manual way of writing charaters)
considering these facts?
After, considering these
issues, we will be also thinking about the aesthetic shapes and
proportion of the characters. Some characters have different shapes as
well, like RA and BA. Which one
should we use for our standard?
Experts/Linguists:
We ask experts and
linguists to have extensive discussion on these issues, and propose
for a common protocol to be accepted as a standard for Tirhuta Lipi.
Developers:
Developers can upgrade
the font, without altering the font information. We request them to upgrade
adapting a common way, so that we can reach to a standard.
Please, let us know about your upgrading through email.
