ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N2549
2002-12-03

Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set
International Organization for Standardization
Organisation internationale de normalisationеждународная организация по стандартизации
Doc Type:
Title:
Source:Status:Date:

Working Group Document
Proposal to encode the Saurashtra script in the UCS
Jeyakumar Chinnakkonda Krishnamoorty and Michael Everson
Expert Contribution
2002-12-03

A. Administrative
1. Title
Proposal to encode the Saurashtra script in the UCS.
2. Requester’s nameJeyakumar Chinnakkonda Krishnamoorty and Michael Everson.
3. Requester type (Member body/Liaison/Individual contribution)
Individual contribution.
4. Submission date
2002-12-03
5. Requester’s reference (if applicable)
6. Choose one of the following:
6a. This is a complete proposal
Yes.
6b. More information will be provided later
No.

B. Technical -- General
1. Choose one of the following:
1a. This proposal is for a new script (set of characters)
Yes.
Proposed name of script
Saurashtra.
1b. The proposal is for addition of character(s) to an existing blockNo.
1b. Name of the existing block
2. Number of characters in proposal
78.
3. Proposed category (see section II, Character Categories)
Category A.
4a. Proposed Level of Implementation (1, 2 or 3) (see clause 14, ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000)
Level 2.
4b. Is a rationale provided for the choice?
Yes.
4c. If YES, reference
Brahmic script with vowel signs.
5a. Is a repertoire including character names provided?
Yes.
5b. If YES, are the names in accordance with the character naming guidelines in Annex L of ISO/IEC
10646-1: 2000?
Yes.
5c. Are the character shapes attached in a legible form suitable for review?
Yes.

Page 16a. Who will provide the appropriate computerized font (ordered preference: True Type, or PostScriptformat) for publishing the standard?
Jeyakumar C. K. (www.palkar.org) & Michael Everson (Everson Typography). TrueType.
6b. If available now, identify source(s) for the font (include address, e-mail, ftp-site, etc.) and indicate
the tools used:
Jeyakumar C. K. (www.palkar.org) & Michael Everson (Everson Typography). Fontographer.
7a. Are references (to other character sets, dictionaries, descriptive texts etc.) provided?
Yes (see below).
7b. Are published examples of use (such as samples from newspapers, magazines, or other sources) ofproposed characters attached?
Yes.
8. 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)?
No.
9. Submitters are invited to provide any additional information about Properties of the proposedCharacter(s) or Script that will assist in correct understanding of and correct linguistic processing of theproposed 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 relatedinformation. See the Unicode standard at http://www.unicode.org for such information on otherscripts. Also see Unicode Character Database http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/
UnicodeCharacterDatabase.html and associated Unicode Technical Reports for information needed forconsideration by the Unicode Technical Committee for inclusion in the Unicode Standard.
See below for ordering and shaping behaviour.

C. Technical -- Justification
1. Has this proposal for addition of character(s) been submitted before? If YES, explain.
No.
2a. Has contact been made to members of the user community (for example: National Body, user groupsof the script or characters, other experts, etc.)?
Yes.
2b. If YES, with whom?
Mr Kubendiran, editor of Bashabimāni.
2c. If YES, available relevant documents
N/A
3. Information on the user community for the proposed characters (for example: size, demographics,information technology use, or publishing use) is included?
See below.
4a. The context of use for the proposed characters (type of use; common or rare)
Rare.
4b. Reference
See below.
5a. Are the proposed characters in current use by the user community?
Yes.
5b. If YES, where?
In Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat states of India. A monthly magazine called Bashabimāni ispublished in Madurai, India.
6a. After giving due considerations to the principles in Principles and Procedures document (a WG 2standing document) must the proposed characters be entirely in the BMP?
Not necessarily.
6b. If YES, is a rationale provided?
6c. If YES, reference
7. Should the proposed characters be kept together in a contiguous range (rather than being scattered)?
Yes.
8a. Can any of the proposed characters be considered a presentation form of an existing character orcharacter sequence?
No.
8b. If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
8c. If YES, reference
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9a. Can any of the proposed characters be encoded using a composed character sequence of either
existing characters or other proposed characters?
No.
9b. If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
9c. If YES, reference
10a. Can any of the proposed character(s) be considered to be similar (in appearance or function) to an
existing character?
No.
10b. If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
10c. If YES, reference
11a. Does the proposal include use of combining characters and/or use of composite sequences (seeclauses 4.12 and 4.14 in ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000)?
Yes.
11b. If YES, is a rationale for such use provided?
No.
11c. If YES, reference
Brahmic vowel signs.
12a. Is a list of composite sequences and their corresponding glyph images (graphic symbols) provided?
No.
12b. If YES, reference
13a. Does the proposal contain characters with any special properties such as control function or similar
semantics?
Yes.
13b. If YES, describe in detail (include attachment if necessary)
See below and attachment, which is a primary teaching book for the language.
14a. Does the proposal contain any Ideographic compatibility character(s)?
No.
14b. If YES, is the equivalent corresponding unified ideographic character(s) identified?
14c. If YES, reference

D. Proposal
Introduction
Saurashtra is an Indo-European language, related to Gujarati and spoken by about 85,000
people in southern India, in the area around Madurai, Salem, and Thanjavur cities. The
SIL Ethnologue describes it as “an Indo-European island surrouded by Dravidian languages”. Since the end of the 19th century the Telugu, Tamil, Devanagari, and Saurashtra
scripts have been used to publish books in Saurashtra. At present, the Tamil script is mostcommonly used to write Saurashtra, augmented with the use of superscript digits and acolon to indicate sounds not available in the Tamil script.
The Saurashtra script is of the Brahmic type; its modern version was developed in the late
1800s. Like Tamil, Saurashtra does not make use of complex consonant clusters,
preferring instead to mark the killed vowel with a visible subscript virama. An exception
to this is the conjunct ¥ ks.a, which is formed of KA + VIRAMA + SSA in this encoding, andwhich is sorted as a unique letter in older dictionaries. Early Saurashtra text makes use ofadditional conjuncts, which can be handled with the usual Brahmic shaping rules. Soalthough, apart from ks.a, the virama is always visible in modern Saurashtra, it is best toencode modern Saurashtra with ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER making the virama visible, rather
than to consider it a general visible mark. This supports both older and newer Saurashtra
text.

Page 3

Collating order
The usual Sanskrit ordering applies to Saurashtra: A AA I II U UU RU RUU LU LUU E EE AI O OO
AU AM AH KA KHA GA GHA NGA CA CHA JA JHA NYA TTA TTHA DDA DDHA NNA TA THA DA DHA NA PA PHABA BHA MA YA RA LA VA SHA SSA SA HA LLA KSSAGlyph placement
The vowel signs in Saurashtra follow the consonant to which they are applied. The vowels-i and -ı̄, however, are typographically joined to the top right corner of their consonant.
Examples: í ka + ˇ∂ -i = ” ki, í ka + ˇ∑ -ı̄ = ‘ kı̄ and ú t. a + ˇ∂ -i = ’ t. i, í t. a + ˇ∑ -ı̄ = ÷ t. ı̄.
Punctuation and digits
In the samples viewed at present, European COMMA, FULL STOP, and QUESTION MARK are used,as well as the Devanagari DANDA and DOUBLE DANDA. Digits have distinctive forms inSaurashtra.
IssuesTwo fonts exist which contain an unidentified letter – ?a. One of them, Sangudhari, which
includes precomposed glyphs for characters in -i and -ı̄, gives — ?ı̄ as well. In thepublication Padārthr. n, the words •–µ• na?āna and •—• na?ı̄na are transliterated into
Tamil-based orthography as ï£:ï nā:na and ï⁄:ï nı̄:na. ™–¬¨ƒ ma?or and •–•ƒ•¡na?annŏ are transliterated as «ñ£:£¢ mo:r and ï:ï¢ªï£ na:nnŏ. The colon-like mark isused also in Tamil transliterations of this letter in Bashabhimāni, where •—°ƒ°íƒ na?ı̄ttakis written ï⁄:î¢îè¢ nı̄:ttak. This colon-like mark is not encoded in the Tamil block, and theexact meaning of either it or the Saurashtra letter is uncertain.
In a chart from Bashabhimāni, four Saurashtra letters are shown in combination with thisunidentified letter: ¨ƒ– £¢∑¢ rh, ≠ƒ– ô¢∑¢ lh, ™ƒ– ñ¢∑¢ mh, •ƒ– ï¢∑¢ nh.
Another issue is the shape of the vowel signs for -l. and -l.̄. In one teaching book it appears
that full-size glyphs are used, with a tilde beneath marking the long vowel: íº kl. , íΩ kl.̄(compare í∫ kr. and íª kr.̄ ). In earlier sources, however, the glyph for -l. is reduced, andlength is marked with -ā; the Sangudhari font supports this practice: íº kl. , íΩ kl.̄(compare Sangudhari í∫ kr. and íª kr.̄ ).
Implementations
There are a number TrueType implementations of the modern Saurashtra script incirculation on the internet. To date, no computer implementation of the older version of
the script has been created. Previously, a letterpress was used to print Bhashabimanimagazine. As printing technology advanced, the need for a Saurashtra script font was felt,
and was created by local publishers. The Suresh font, designed by Suresh Thimma
Ramdas, is used to print Bhashabimani; a later corrected version of that font is Kuber,which is used here. (The name Kuber is derived from Kubendiran, the name of the editorof this magazine.) The fonts are freely available in the Internet at www.palkar.org.
References
U. Norihiko, Language of the Saurashtrans in Tirupati. (In Latin script.)
N. Uchida. Saurashtra-English dictionary. ISBN 3447030550. In Saurashtra script.
(Uchida is a Japanese scholar who went to Madurai to research Saurashtra. He did hisPage 4

research at Madurai Kamarajar University. The local language in Madurai is Tamil; inthe course of his research, he learned Saurashtra well and is said to speak Saurashtra
as well as a native Saurashtrian.)∞¢óñí¤òù¢, ÿ î£ì£. 2000. ±Æƒ¨µ∞ƒúƒ¨ ¶µù ™µ≠¡ = úõ¢ó£û¢ì¢ó ∞£ì2 ñ£ªô£.
ñ¶¬ó: ∞¢£¤ò£ ∞î∞¢∞èñ¢ ∞¢£¤ò£ ªìè¢ù¤èô¢ ∏ù¢ú¢®®Îì¢. [Śrı̄ Tāt. ā.
Cupraman.iyan-. 2000. Savrās.t. ra pātha mālo = Savrās.t. ra pāt. 2a mālo. Madurai: PriyāPatappakam Priyā T.ekn-ikal Inst. it. iyut. ]Bashabhimāni.

Unicode Character Properties
The same properties as apply to Tamil and Devanagari apply to Saurashtra.

Page 5

Saurashtra vowels, with equivalents in Tamil and Telugu scripts.

The text in the bottom half of this figure is given in Saurashtra and Tamil script; theSaurashtra appears to be in an early form of the script as it shows conjunct consonants.
It is rendered here with modern orthography and transliteration:
LØø∞ù ±√¨µL∞¿ ±µ≤∂6° ±©µ, ™§∏¨¡ |Øƒ¨ø∞ù ±√¨µ∞ƒúƒ¨ ±µ≤∂°ƒ´ ±©µ, ™§∏¨¡ |śrēs.t. ha saurās.t. ra sāhitya sabhā, machuro |ú¢«óû¢ì ªú÷ó£û¢ì¢ó ú£∑⁄î¢ò ú∞£, ñ¶¬ósrēs.t. a sauras.t. ra sāhı̄tya sapā, maturai
Page 6

Page 7

Page 8

Proposal for the Universal Character Set

Jeyakumar C. K and Michael EversonRow 1x0: SAURASHTRA
1x00

0123456789A

BCDEF91x01

1x02

1x03

1x04

1x05

Ä ê † ∞ ¿ –Å ë ° ± ¡Ç í ¢ ≤ ¬
É ì £ ≥ √ƒÑ î §Ö ï • µ ≈Ü ñ ¶ ∂ ∆á ó ß ∑ « ◊à ò ® ∏ » ÿâ ô © π … Ÿä ö ™ ∫ ~ ⁄ã õ ´ ª À ¤å ú ¨ º Ã ‹ç ù ≠ Ω Õ ›é û Æ æ Œ ﬁè ü Ø ø œ ﬂ

G = 00
P = 01

Jeyakumar C. K and Michael Everson

Proposal for the Universal Character Set

Row 1x0: SAURASHTRA
hex
1x00
1x01
1x02
1x03
1x04
1x05
1x06
1x071x08
1x09
1x0A
1x0B
1x0C
1x0D
1x0E
1x0F
1x10
1x11
1x12
1x13
1x14
1x15
1x16
1x17
1x18
1x19
1x1A
1x1B
1x1C
1x1D
1x1E
1x1F
1x20
1x21
1x22
1x23
1x24
1x25
1x26
1x27
1x28
1x29
1x2A
1x2B
1x2C
1x2D
1x2E
1x2F
1x30
1x31
1x32
1x33
1x34
1x35
1x36
1x37
1x38
1x39
1x3A
1x3B
1x3C
1x3D
1x3E
1x3F
1x40
1x41
1x42
1x43
1x44
1x45
1x46
1x47
1x48
1x49
1x4A
1x4B
1x4C
1x4D
1x4E
1x4F
1x501x511x521x531x541x551x561x571x58

Group 00NameSAURASHTRA SIGN ANUSVARASAURASHTRA SIGN VISARGASAURASHTRA LETTER ASAURASHTRA LETTER AASAURASHTRA LETTER ISAURASHTRA LETTER IISAURASHTRA LETTER USAURASHTRA LETTER UUSAURASHTRA LETTER VOCALIC RSAURASHTRA LETTER VOCALIC RRSAURASHTRA LETTER VOCALIC LSAURASHTRA LETTER VOCALIC LLSAURASHTRA LETTER ESAURASHTRA LETTER EESAURASHTRA LETTER AI
SAURASHTRA LETTER OSAURASHTRA LETTER OOSAURASHTRA LETTER AU
SAURASHTRA LETTER KASAURASHTRA LETTER KHA
SAURASHTRA LETTER GASAURASHTRA LETTER GHASAURASHTRA LETTER NGASAURASHTRA LETTER CASAURASHTRA LETTER CHASAURASHTRA LETTER JASAURASHTRA LETTER JHASAURASHTRA LETTER NYASAURASHTRA LETTER TTASAURASHTRA LETTER TTHASAURASHTRA LETTER DDASAURASHTRA LETTER DDHASAURASHTRA LETTER NNASAURASHTRA LETTER TASAURASHTRA LETTER THASAURASHTRA LETTER DASAURASHTRA LETTER DHASAURASHTRA LETTER NASAURASHTRA LETTER PASAURASHTRA LETTER PHASAURASHTRA LETTER BASAURASHTRA LETTER BHASAURASHTRA LETTER MASAURASHTRA LETTER YASAURASHTRA LETTER RASAURASHTRA LETTER LASAURASHTRA LETTER VASAURASHTRA LETTER SHASAURASHTRA LETTER SSASAURASHTRA LETTER SASAURASHTRA LETTER HASAURASHTRA LETTER LLA(This position shall not be used)
SAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN AASAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN ISAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN IISAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN USAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN UUSAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN VOCALIC RSAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN VOCALIC RRSAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN VOCALIC LSAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN VOCALIC LLSAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN ESAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN EESAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN AISAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN OSAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN OOSAURASHTRA VOWEL SIGN AU
SAURASHTRA SIGN VIRAMA(This position shall not be used)
SAURASHTRA DIGIT ZEROSAURASHTRA DIGIT ONE
SAURASHTRA DIGIT TWO
SAURASHTRA DIGIT THREESAURASHTRA DIGIT FOUR
SAURASHTRA DIGIT FIVESAURASHTRA DIGIT SIXSAURASHTRA DIGIT SEVENSAURASHTRA DIGIT EIGHTSAURASHTRA DIGIT NINE
unidentified saurashtra letter(This position shall not be used)(This position shall not be used)(This position shall not be used)(This position shall not be used)(This position shall not be used)(This position shall not be used)(This position shall not be used)(This position shall not be used)

hex
1x59
1x5A
1x5B
1x5C
1x5D
1x5E
1x5F

Plane 01

Name
(This position shall not be used)(This position shall not be used)(This position shall not be used)(This position shall not be used)(This position shall not be used)(This position shall not be used)(This position shall not be used)

Row 1x010