Please click on link below to view or contribute to the discussion on Standardizing Sinhala for IT applications.

OK. You want a font that works and free to use? Write to me. I will register you as a tester. Anybody here wants to be a tester may also do the same.

My efforts are since 2002. I am not a Government agency that has unlimited resources. I buy software with my humble earnings. When I devote time for my native country and language, I rob from my livelihood. In this project, I am the Business Decision maker, the Business Negotiator (with Microsoft and Unicode), Technical Expert, Language Researcher, Impact and Feasibility Study provider, System Analyst, Native Language user, Alternative System (Sinhala Unicode) Investigator, Consultant, Programmer, Font Designer, Typography Student, Typographer etc. and the Risk taker. It is my sleep I sacrifice. I neglect my family. I neglect my clients. No one pays compensation to me.

I lived in Lanka for 37 years and perfectly understand the mentality of socialism — expect the government to provide and then blame it for failure.

You are trapped in the notion that Unicode means Sinhala Unicode page. That is only a concept by Unicode Inc. that furthers the business interests of it’s members and especially the directors. They are not forcing you to accept their idea. They only think that it is a good idea. For me, it is NOT a good idea. The reason is that it isolates Sinhala from the inner circle of Unicode users. Chinese, Arabic and even other Indic languages can afford to use their own Unicode pages because they have large user bases that can provide a useful network of communication — independent internets. Small countries like us should not adopt isolated Code pages. (None of the European nations did. Fraktur and Gaelic are different scripts but are still based on the first two Unicode code pages.) Choosing a code page is OUR choice — individuals as well as the government. Making fonts is our responsibility too. This decision is too grave to be entrusted to a handful of bureaucrats. It’s people’s work. They own and use the language.

Here is a quote by a pioneering mathematician and linguist that is watching my progress (it was obviously an email message with some spelling/language errors):

“In the years up to say, 1960, one studying science at a university would also study latin and prehaps greek, because much of the older stuff was written in these languages. Newton wrote as much in Latin as English, and indeed, the notion of papers written in English, or french or german, was unheard of. Still, times have change[d], and because the english, and later americans, took an early lead in technology, much of the rest of the world came to use these languages [English versions].

India was for a while colonised by the british, and the retention of english there as an official language, is more a case of not trying to put either of a dravidian or h[i]ndu language over the other, and so they created this foreign language as a “lingua franca”.

It’s the same in europe, too. Much more is written in english, even for germans in germany, than in german. It is more because english has a larger vocabulary, and much of the language stuff has been nutted out. English is the new Latin, in this regard.”

We cannot isolate the Sinhala natives from the rest of he world because of a script. While preserving Sinhala, they need to know English too. Basing the Sinhala script on roman character set would facilitate learning of English by exposure. We have found that over the past years English is only the domain of the elite. I know it is a language that can be learned by self study and effort. That’s how I learned it when I (along with others in my 8th grade class) was force promoted to an English-only GCE class. Free access to the Internet coupled with Sinhala based on first two Unicode pages is what I think would hold the Sinhala user withing the greater community of the Internet.

[quote]

Dharma,
Keep wishing for a free freedom — it isn’t there. Stop blaming people and act!

[unquote]

Who wants free lunches? At least I do not. All I said was we have spent so much for this so called standards development and it is gross ridiculous if someone suggests that I still have to pay for using Sinhala in my computer.

Why should I need to pay twice (once to Sri Lanka government in tax and then to you) for the simple task of using Sinhala in my computer?

Please enlighten me what actions should I take.

After the “Chesse” the blog got stagnant was wondering that now everybody got scared that their “Cheese” has been moved are now running in the maze to find more better “Cheese”

In another thread Tamil Language has just commenced.
For Sinhala there is an incomplete set but these guys never did anything for Tamil Language.
I was the only person publicly voiced equal usage of both languages Sinhala and Tamil using a computer. Both languages do have a problems when using a computer.

I have the Solution but these people are scared even to give it a try because their “Chesse” will get moved.

Donald Gamnitillake
Colombo

Dharma,
Keep wishing for a free freedom — it isn’t there. Stop blaming people and act!

Quote
“So even hypothetically if donald is right do you’ll think all these players will agree to implement his method? Then what will happen to O/S support to all the applicaitons which are supposed to emerge with Sinhala?”
Unqote

I was trying to find a answer for this.
At last I found the answer.
I found it in the following book
You can purchase it at “Gandara”
I thank Mr Dian Gomes for introducing such valuble book to Sri Lanka.

The name of the book is

” Who Moved My Cheese” by Dr Spencer Johnson

also you can visit
http://www.whomovedmycheese.com/

Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo

For all those years, Prof. Sam has been smartly exploiting this to achieve his own personal goals. He uses this as a ‘hingannage thuwalaya’.

The day beggar finds his wound is healed, he knows his means of income is over.

Similarly Prof. Sam knows the day Sinhala is introduce in the major OSes, he does not have a project, and he loses his means of (a) income and (b) power. So he tries his best to delay introducing a Sinhala standard.

Till Sinhala is introduced in the major OSes, Prof. Sam can always make his political masters happy by making offerings in piecemeal. (As we all know his political master knows nothing about this issue and to him Unicode is perhaps the name of a fancy restaurant in Hambantota. So he does not care.)

So Prof. Sam makes his offerings time to time and little by little. Not everything at once. One day he introduces SMS in Sinhala. One day he introduces a key board in Sinhala. One day he introduces Sinhala e-mail etc. We see this from state television, and these simple things are presented as great achievements. In reality. we know these are nothing but tamashas. For example we had a standard Sinhala key board for at least ten years. It is not something one developed based on Mahinda Chinthana.

Anyway, Prof. Sam’s political master is happy with this game because it looks like he actually does some work, Prof. Sam is happy because this gives him the two things he ever wants in life; namely (a) money and (b) power. State television is happy because they get a story to run. ICTA is happy because it has a story to publish in its news letter.

The only party who are not happy is the users, who are continued to be cheated by Prof. Sam and clan.

For how long Prof. Sam continues to wash rice for his grand mother like this?

This thing about sending rich Sri Lankas to study in the US.

It is amazing the amout of money they have. They do things that upper-middle-class Americans cannot dream of. For instance, they get apartments for the children to go to school from and pay out-of-state tuition rates for college. Semthing like $60,000 a year. I am just lucky that my daughter became a National Merit Scholarship finalist. A University offrered full tuition and boarding for her. I was seriously thinking of finding a high-powered job in Sri Lanka, just to be able to pay for her college. I know those are cushy jobs too. You just sit and talk big.

I am not kidding. You are talking about money. I am talking serious work and business. Come out of hiding. Are you scared? Of whom, may I ask?

Half a million to one million Us$ was spend on this?

No doubt both sons of the Agency’s loku mahattaya are studying in US!

Thank you for taking me on. Why I like you to come here more often is because of this:
You bring out the MOST FUNDAMENTAL questions: Why do we do this at all and whose paying for all this? And you remind that it is because you want to type Sinhala with the least hassle.

Then you say you have already paid too much and someone else (JC) fixes the problem but you don’t want to pay him.

Here’s a story:
My car developed a severe oil leak. So I took it to the garage. The garage owner told that they have to lift off the engine and replace the gaskets. The price was as much the price of the car. After three weeks in the garage, I paid and took the car back. The leak remained and the garage owner gave technical reasons why it still leaks (part of it being the station wagon is 11 years old). I went to another garage. That mechanic put it up the hoist, showed me the leaking oil and said that I had to take one of the wheels off and replace some parts there because the oil is shooting from the side into the engine and politely hinted that the other garage did not diagnose correctly. Back home, I got my girl to help me figure out where the oil comes out of. So, I got in the car and and pumped the pedals and turned the steering wheel etc. while she peeked into the engine. We found that the leak is from the hole developed on a tube that runs automatic steering fluid. Our handy man who had come to do some fixing in the house was looking on and offered to help. Though not not a mechanic, he read the repair manual, got dirty all over and fixed the promblem in 45 minutes. By now I had paid out a lot of money and was angry. Did I pay the handy man too?

Ok. Let’s get back to business and bargain.
Here’s the description of the font:

===================
The font is Sinhala script, of course.
Input is through US-International keyboard layout. (It’s what European do. It is set up in the Control Panel — no loading of software)
It is Unicode compliant:
Partly that means, when you type b followed by a, it shows bayanna. In other words, you type the way you speak. The font displays the way it should be written. Sinhala orthography is hard to program. it will come in stages. But the first version would be pretty much okay.

Installation: You copy the file into the Fonts directory. I’ll send a batch file that automates it too, if you want — Do’t get too carried away. Think of the mighty green bucks that I charge, like Microsoft. (Major difference: I am a Sinhalese living abroad and wear the sarong whenever possible. Similarity: We both are American businesses, I can speak English AND Sinhala, not much Sanskrit that you guys write nowadays).
The characters are not the greatest looking but would be better than most you see. I’ll improve it as I get paid. You get upgrades free (Microsoft charges for upgrades.)

Condition: You pay for each copy of the font file. (your friend pays for their copy). Every user should register with me. And I’ll sue anyone that is caught using it without registering it with me. (US is serious about software piracy. I am on the same boat with Microsoft on this.)

Here’s a hint: Think like a business person. The Sinhalese had it for thousands of years until the British broke its bones. Recall that Anuradhapura was named after a merchant, not some coconut politician (Coconut means white inside, brown outside). So, if you think my efforts are worth money, then form a company over there to be the sole distributor (Sri lanka allows monopolies, if I am correct). Then loby the government to buy from us (you and me) than upgrading all those government owned computers to Windows Vista, whatever it is going to be called when out. Get the other developers like Microimage as your partners. They are pretty reasonable and intelligent.
===================

So, the bottom line:
How much would you pay for one copy of Sinhala font that will run natively on Windows XP that is also Unicode compliant? let’s negotiate. If you want to privately discuss, write to me at jc@LANandWAN.com.

You are correct. After Sri Lanka spending all this they were unable to give a proper product.
It is corect for you and the general public to expect correct Sinhala in computer free of charge.
Who takes the resposibility of the incorrect product!!

Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo