JTC1/SC2/WG2 N2591

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2
PROPOSAL SUMMARY FORM TO ACCOMPANY SUBMISSIONSFOR ADDITIONS TO THE REPERTOIRE OF ISO/IEC 106461
Please fill all the sections A, B and C below.
(Please read Principles and Procedures Document for guidelines and details before filling this form.)
See http://www.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/summaryform.html for latest Form.
See http://www.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/principles.html for latest Principles and Procedures document.
See http://www.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/roadmaps.html for latest roadmaps.

A. Administrative
1. Title:_ Proposal to WG2 for Encoding Syloti Nagri Script in the BMP _______________
2. Requester's names: INCITS/L2; UTC; Peter Constable (SIL International); James Lloyd-Williams and Sue

Lloyd-Williams (Sylheti Translation And Research, London); Advocate Shamsul Islam Chowdhury(Chairman, Sylot Academy, Sylhet, Bangladesh); Professor Asaddar Ali (Vice Chairman, Sylot Academy,Sylhet, Bangladesh); Mohammed Sadique; Matiar Rahman Chowdhury (Chairman, Sylot Academy (UKand Europe), London)
3. Requester type (Member body/Liaison/Individual contribution):
Member (L2), Liaison (UTC), expert (others)
4. Submission date:2003-06-12
5. Requester's reference (if applicable):(This proposal is arevision of L2/03-151R.)
6. (Choose one of the following:)
This is a complete proposal:
Yesor,More information will be provided later:
See also theaccompanying document, “Documentation in support of proposal for encoding Syloti Nagri in the BMP” (= L2/02-388).
B. Technical - General
1. (Choose one of the following:)
a. This proposal is for a new script (set of characters):
Yes
Proposed name of script: Syloti Nagri.
b. The proposal is for addition of character(s) to an existing block:Yes (1 character)
Name of the existing block:
General Punctuation
2. Number of characters in proposal:
45
3. Proposed category (see section II, Character Categories):
Category A
4. Proposed Level of Implementation (1, 2 or 3) (see clause 14, ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000):
Level 2 or 3
Is a rationale provided for the choice?
Yes
If Yes, reference: Syloti Nagri script contains combining diacritics.
5. Is a repertoire including character names provided?
Yesa. If YES, are the names in accordance with the 'character naming guidelines
in Annex L of ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000?
Yes
b. Are the character shapes attached in a legible form suitable for review?
Yes
6. Who will provide the appropriate computerized font (ordered preference: True Type, or PostScript format) for
publishing the standard? Sue Lloyd-Williams (Sylheti Translation And Research)
If available now, identify source(s) for the font (include address, e-mail, ftp-site, etc.) and indicate the tools
used: Sue Lloyd-Williams (Sylheti Translation And Research), < james@jslw.fsworld.co.uk>_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7. References:a. Are references (to other character sets, dictionaries, descriptive texts etc.) provided? Yes (seeaccompanying document, “Documentation in support of proposal for encoding Syloti Nagri in the BMP”)
b. Are published examples of use (such as samples from newspapers, magazines, or other sources)of proposed characters attached? Yes (see accompanying document, “Documentation in support ofproposal for encoding Syloti Nagri in the BMP”)
8. Special encoding issues:
Does the proposal address other aspects of character data processing (if applicable) such as input,presentation, sorting, searching, indexing, transliteration etc. (if yes please enclose information)?
Yes: it discusses conjunct formation and control of display of a virama-like character. See also the1

Form number: N2352-F (Original 1994-10-14; Revised 1995-01, 1995-04, 1996-04, 1996-08, 1999-03, 2001-05, 2001-09)

Page 1accompanying document, “Documentation in support of proposal for encoding Syloti Nagri in the BMP”
9. Additional Information:
Submitters are invited to provide any additional information about Properties of the proposed Character(s) or Scriptthat will assist in correct understanding of and correct linguistic processing of the proposed character(s) or script.
Examples of such properties are: Casing information, Numeric information, Currency information, Display behaviour
information such as line breaks, widths etc., Combining behaviour, Spacing behaviour, Directional behaviour, Default
Collation behaviour, relevance in Mark Up contexts, Compatibility equivalence and other Unicode normalization
related information. See the Unicode standard at http://www.unicode.org for such information on other scripts. Also
see http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UnicodeCharacterDatabase.html and associated Unicode Technical
Reports for information needed for consideration by the Unicode Technical Committee for inclusion in the UnicodeStandard. See section D below.
C. Technical - Justification
1. Has this proposal for addition of character(s) been submitted before? No (not to WG2; it has been submitted to andapproved by UTC)If YES explain _________________________________________________________________________
2. Has contact been made to members of the user community (for example: National Body,
user groups of the script or characters, other experts, etc.)?
Yes
If YES, with whom? Submitters (other than L2 and UTC) are members of the user community inEngland and Bangladesh.
If YES, available relevant documents: See accompanying document, “Documentation in support ofproposal for encoding Syloti Nagri in the BMP”
3. Information on the user community for the proposed characters (for example:size, demographics, information technology use, or publishing use) is included?
The usercommunity consists of sizeable communities in Sylhet region of Bangladesh, in Calcutta, in England and elsewhere.
Reference: See accompanying document, “Documentation in support of proposal for encoding Syloti Nagriin the BMP”
4. The context of use for the proposed characters (type of use; common or rare)
Limited but increasing
usage with renewed interest. Publishing in the script was known to have been done by several presses in
Bangladesh and Calcutta as recently as the 1970s. More recently, no metal-type facilities have been available, butdevelopment of digital type has resulted in renewed use and growing interest.
Reference: See accompanying document, “Documentation in support of proposal for encoding Syloti Nagriin the BMP”
5. Are the proposed characters in current use by the user community?
Yes
If YES, where? Reference: In London and Birmingham, and in Sylhet, possibly elsewhere. See
accompanying document, “Documentation in support of proposal for encoding Syloti Nagri in the BMP.”
6. After giving due considerations to the principles in Principles and Procedures document (a WG 2 standing
document) must the proposed characters be entirely in the BMP?
Yes
If YES, is a rationale provided?
Yes: living script
If YES, reference: See accompanying document, “Documentation in support of proposal
for encoding Syloti Nagri in the BMP.”
7. Should the proposed characters be kept together in a contiguous range (rather than being scattered)? Yes, withthe exception of one character, as noted below. (Note: the code positions shown in this proposal have been approved
by UTC.)
8. Can any of the proposed characters be considered a presentation form of an existing
character or character sequence?
No
If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
______________
If YES, reference: ________________________________________________________
9. Can any of the proposed characters be encoded using a composed character sequence of either
existing characters or other proposed characters?
No
If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
______________
If YES, reference:______________
10. Can any of the proposed character(s) be considered to be similar (in appearance
or function) to an existing character?
No. Syloti Nagri
has similarities with other North Indic scripts, but is distinct; it is no more like any other Indic scripts already in theUCS than are any of them to one another. Thus, for purposes of this proposal, these characters cannot be
considered similar to existing characters.

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If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
______________
If YES, reference: ________________________________________________________
11. Does the proposal include use of combining characters and/or use of composite sequences(see clauses 4.12 and 4.14 in ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000)?
Yes
If YES, is a rationale for such use provided?
Yes
If YES, reference: See accompanying document, “Documentation in support of proposal
for encoding Syloti Nagri in the BMP.”
Is a list of composite sequences and their corresponding glyph images (graphic symbols)
provided?
______________
If YES, reference: _______________________________________________________
12. Does the proposal contain characters with any special properties such as
control function or similar semantics?
Yes
If YES, describe in detail (include attachment if necessary)See discussion insection D below, and also in the accompanying document, “Documentation in support of proposal for encoding Syloti
Nagri in the BMP.”
13. Does the proposal contain any Ideographic compatibility character(s)?
No
If YES, is the equivalent corresponding unified ideographic character(s) identified? ____________
If YES, reference: ________________________________________________________

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D. Proposed Characters
As discussed in section II.6 of the accompanying document, “Documentation in support of proposal for encoding
Syloti Nagri in the BMP” (= L2/02-388), the basic collation order for Syloti Nagri is well established, but there
are attested variations in ordering in relation to a few details. In the following chart, characters areordered in what we believe to be the most preferable ordering.
As discussed in section II.1.6 of the accompanying document, “Documentation in support of proposal for encoding
Syloti Nagri in the BMP” (= L2/02-388), there is very limited attestation in manuscripts of a set of Syloti Nagri
digits. The evidence is not sufficient to support a proposal to encode Syloti Nagri digits at this time. It isconceivable that a proposal for Syloti Nagri digits may become justified at some future point if further
manuscripts are discovered, in which case an additional column of characters would be required. We
have no reason to anticipate this happening in the near future, however.
The code chart is presented on a new page. Note that there are existing characters in the 205 columnthat are not shown.

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Code Chart:Character Names:

A80 A81 A820A

Oe

1

BPf2

◌pQ

g

3

CR◌h4

DS ◌i

5

ET◌k6

◌^ U◌o7F V ◌hm

8GWw

9HXxA

I Y yB

◌q

Z

CKa

DLb

E

M

cF

N

dxx

205v

U+A800 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER A
U+A801 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER I
U+A802 SYLOTI NAGRI SIGN DVISVARA
U+A803 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER UU+A804 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER EU+A805 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER OU+A806 SYLOTI NAGRI SIGN HASANTA= halant, viramaU+A807 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER KOU+A808 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER KHOU+A809 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER GOU+A80A SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER GHOU+A80B SYLOTI NAGRI SIGN ANUSVARAU+A80C SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER COU+A80D SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER CHOU+A80E SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER JOU+A80F SYLOTI NAGRI LETTERJHOU+A810 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER TTOU+A811 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER TTHOU+A812 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER DDOU+A813 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER DDHOU+A814 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER TOU+A815 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER THOU+A816 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER DOU+A817 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER DHOU+A818 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER NOU+A819 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER POU+A81A SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER PHOU+A81B SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER BOU+A81C SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER BHOU+A81D SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER MOU+A81E SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER ROU+A81F SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER LOU+A820 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER RROU+A821 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER SOU+A822 SYLOTI NAGRI LETTER HOU+A823 SYLOTI NAGRI VOWEL SIGN AU+A824 SYLOTI NAGRI VOWEL SIGN IU+A825 SYLOTI NAGRI VOWEL SIGN UU+A826 SYLOTI NAGRI VOWEL SIGN EU+A827 SYLOTI NAGRI VOWEL SIGN OOU+A828 SYLOTI NAGRI POETRY MARK-1U+A829 SYLOTI NAGRI POETRY MARK-2U+A82A SYLOTI NAGRI POETRY MARK-3U+A82B SYLOTI NAGRI POETRY MARK-4
U+A82C..U+A82F (These positions shall not be used.)

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U+2055 FLOWER PUNCTUATION MARK= phul, puspika• used with Syloti Nagri, Bengali and other Indic scripts
Unicode character properties
With the exception of the characters listed below, we propose that all characters have a General
Category property of “Lo”, a Canonical Combining Class property of 0, a Bidirectional Class property of“L”, a Mirrored property of “N”, an East Asian Width property of “N”, and a Line Breaking property of “AL”.
In the information provided below, only those values that differ from the defaults just mentioned are listed.
Characters

Properties

U+A806

General Category = “Mn”, Canonical Combining Class = 9, Bidi Class = NSM,
Line Breaking = “CM”

U+A802, U+A80B,
U+A826

General Category = “Mn”, Canonical Combining Class = 230, Bidi Class = NSM,
Line Breaking = “CM”

U+A823, U+A824,
U+A827

General Category = “Mc”, Canonical Combining Class = 0, Line Breaking = “CM”

U+A825General Category = “Mn”, Canonical Combining Class = 220, Bidi Class = NSM,
Line Breaking = “CM”

U+A828..U+A82BGeneral Category = “Po”, Line Breaking = “AL”

U+2055General Category = “Po”, Line Breaking = “QU”

The canonical combining classes assigned to characters of general category Mc (other than hasanta /virama) do not match typical practice for Indic scripts (which would be 0). We propose these classes as
they better deal with the behaviours of the script and are less likely to lead to problems in implementation
and use. For instance, the DVISVARA and VOWEL SIGN U can co-occur, but these combining marks do
not typographically interact, so alternate orderings of the characters cannot result in visible distinction andhence cannot have any distinct information value. By putting these two combining marks in distinct, nonzero combining classes, these two orderings become canonically equivalent.

Additional notes
The accompanying document “Documentation in support of proposal for encoding Syloti Nagri in the BMP” (=L2/02-388) proposes a particular model for control of conjunct formation and of the display overt hasanta(virama). This particular aspect of that document is revised in this proposal. The current proposal is to use
an encoding model like that used for Myanmar script: U+A806 SYLOTI NAGRI HASANTA is used todetermine formation of a conjunct of the preceding and following characters, in which case the HASANTA
has no direct visual display. If, however, the HASANTA is followed by ZWNJ, no conjunct is formed, andthe HASANTA becomes visible.

N2352-F
2001-09-04

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