Since the last thread was getting unwieldy in size it has been shut. Please continue the discussion here.
The last few posts from the previous thread are posted below for continuity.
224 Comments
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Dear Dharma
Unicode/SLS 1134 is incomplete Standard. They have not registered all the Sinhala characters.
It is just the typewriter technologyDonald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Harshula
Hi Everyone,
Donald Gaminitillake on Jul 7th, 2006 at 9:24 pm wrote:
——————————————————————–
quote
This union produces a set of encodings containing all the basic elements (letters). Ironically, this union not only contains your 1660 letters, it also includes baendi akuru. You should also note that the basic elements are not encoded by a fixed number of bits.
Unquote
——————————————————————–You’ve finally quoted my comments from our very first discussion in late 2004! At that stage, Anuradha and I, somewhat naively, thought we could explain Unicode Sinhala to Donald.
I incorrectly assumed that Donald was an academic and hence described Unicode Sinhala in an overly mathematical manner (please read this short email):
http://sinhala.sourceforge.net/archive/akuru.org/0013.html
Donald Gaminitillake on Jul 11th, 2006 at 9:39 am wrote:
——————————————————————–
Please confirm whther you have a hidden “union” of character table apart from the few characters registered in the unicode = Slsi1134.“yes” or “no”
——————————————————————–NO. I guess 1.5 years onwards you still can’t understand this. There is no *”hidden” union*.
Very simply, codepoints 0d80 – 0dff represent the Sinhala codepage and codepoint 200d represents a ‘Zero Width Joiner’ (ZWJ) and is shared amongst all the South Asian and some other scripts. That is why ZWJ is not in the codepage of one or all the South Asian scripts, it is in a ‘shared’ codepage. All the aforementioned codepoints are officially registered with Unicode and are a part of the *standard*.
Please reread my earlier comments for a detailed explanation:
1) http://www.lirneasia.net/2006/04/questioning-ict-myths/#comment-1571
2) http://www.lirneasia.net/2006/04/questioning-ict-myths/#comment-1703Regards,
Harshula -
Harshula
Hi,
There really seems to be two main discussions (*) that are occurring here:
1) Unicode Sinhala (SLS1134:2004) is complete. And those that disagree.
2) Why isn’t Unicode Sinhala (SLS1134:2004) support available in software released before 2004?
Can we talk about (1) for the moment. Other than Donald, does anyone think Unicode Sinhala (SLS1134:2004) is incomplete?
(*) Of course I’m ignoring all the slander and the axe grinding that has been going on in these threads.
Regards,
Harshula -
Dear Harsula
Tell me after the “‘Zero Width Joiner’ (ZWJ)” what happens.
Table 35 row 20 under General Punctuation these joiners are listed.
Once you input the joiners it goes in search of a codepoint to represent the character
Harsula was the person who spoke about a union of characters now you say “NO”
I quote from your 2004 mail
For extensibility purposes, the Unicode encoding ends up involving more than one simple matrix. In our case it is roughly the union of:* A1
* A2
* C (= Cartesian product of A2 and A3)
* D (= a subset of the Cartesian product of B, A3, A2 and C2 (C2 = Union of C and A2))This union produces a set of encodings containing all the basic elements (letters). Ironically, this union not only contains your 1660 letters, it also includes baendi akuru. You should also note that the basic elements are not encoded by a fixed number of bits.
For the reasons stated above, it is incorrect to claim that the Unicode Sinhala encoding is incomplete.
UnquotePlease show us the locations of these elements in Unicode or SLSI1134. “This union produces a set of encodings containing all the basic elements”
Where are these basic elements. Give one example for “DU” (result after the joiner)
Like the joiner which has been registered in the unicode give me the other locations which are byond the list of the Sinhala Unicode or SLSI 1134
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
HeWhoMustNotBeNamed
I am sorry, I cannot write this under my own name. Had I done so, this post would have obviously carried more weightage. In fact, I did not want to contribute first, but then thought if I do not, what I am going to tell now will be hidden forever. Hence this post.
Anyway, let me tell you what I know.
Donald, Ahangama, Dharma, Harsha, Harsula or Anuradha (or anyone here) knows very little about the history of this topic. Let me educate them.
At a certain committee meeting in CINTEC in early 2002, somebody pointed out that the Sinhalese usage in computers is (was) extremely low, in spite of the fact that there is (was) THE Unicode. (There were no Donald Gaminitilakes then and more or less, everyone 100% accepted Unicode was THE ONLY STANDARD.)
Everybody agreed to this and as a result, it was decided to assign the task of *POPULARISING* Sinhalese in the computers to Dr. Gihan Dias. (With the consent of all these who were present, including *Prof. V. K. Samaranayake.*)
The tasks Dr. Dias was supposed to perform, inter alia, were:
1. Talk to all major OS manufacturers (especially Microsoft) and persuade them to support Sinhalese in the respective OSes.
2. Conduct a contest among Sinhalese font developers and give awards to the best ones. (So more Sinhalese font sets based on Unicode will be available for the user and it will solve the incompatibility issues.)
3. Discuss with newspaper companies (who are among top users of Sinhalese fonts) and persuade them to use fonts based on Unicode instead of proprietary fonts they were using. (So there will be no question of sharing information.)
4. Encourage Sinhalese content developers both within government and out of government to produce more and more content in local languages
5. Conduct workshops / lectures / seminars on related topics to educate the developers and the users
Please note this was in early 2002 and there was no e-Sri Lanka, nor ICTA. SMS usage was minimal and nobody bothered about sending SMS in Sinhalese. Ditto for OCR and WAP. They were not big issues. The only issue was only to have a single set of fonts for Apple and IBM environments to ease the difficulties faced by the *PUBLISHERS, WEB DEVELOPERS AND WEB USERS* thereby increasing the Sinhalese usage in computers.
The information about this initiative appears at http://www.fonts.lk/intro.html, but under a later date line. Probably it was the date the committee first met, but the project has a history much longer.
Then came the big tamasha e-Sri Lanka in 2003, and suddenly everyone wanted to be a part of that. Not that I blame anyone. When there is a national initiative in ICT, everyone wants to be in it, rather than out of it. In addition, they were given high hopes of good compensation packages.
What followed was the saddest episode.
Dr. Gihan Dias exploited this project so that he can get into ICTA. Apart from this project, he has never been involved in any national level *development* projects. Technical, yes; but development, no. He was a good techie, no doubt, but that was all. He joined as the Director – HR, though he never had any experience in HR. (In fact, he never did anything related to HR in ICTA.)
So, to make a long story short, overnight Dr. Dias changed his colours and joined ICTA, leaving Prof. Samaranayake and the company alone crying in the road. (who were among the top critics of ICTA then.) Naturally, Prof. Samaranayake was badly hurt. He had told many people, “Gihan has hijacked MY project” (That was largely true.)
(In the Computer Society Annual sessions of 2003, Prof. Samaranayake, as the Chairman of one of the sessions brought out this topic and passed a hint. Dr. Dias had immediately got up and responded. The following debate between the two amused many in the audience.)
Coming back to the topic, needless to say, Dr. Dias never achieved any of the above initial objectives. He was not the best person to do so. He was only a techie. Further those were assigned to him by CINTEC and not by ICTA, and back in 2003 CINTEC was a four letter word, nobody wanted to mention in public. So everyone forgot what CINTEC wanted.
The only achievement of Dr. Gihan Dias was SLS 1134, (which he developed with the help of few other software companies.) I personally do not see this has done any major changes.
Somewhere in the middle (I am not sure exactly when) we also started hearing about a Donald Gaminitilake, who was very critical about Unicode/SLS1134/ICTA etc. One reason why Donald was so famous was that he got into the tussle between Dr. Dias and Prof. Samaranayake. Each of them wanted Donald to attack the other, so they tolerated him to certain extent. If both of them worked together against Donald, the latter would not have had any chance. Fortunately for Donald, he fought against a divided force. Prof. Samaranayake and Dr. Dias never joined hands to fight the common enemy, Donald.
I am not a techie and frankly I do not understand what Donald says. So I let the experts to decide whether it is necessary to give him and ear or not.
This brings us to the present. Although four years have escaped, anybody will see we are still at square one.
It is unfortunate that most of the concerns one raised in 2002 are still valid.
1. Sinhalese usage in Computers is still extremely low.
2. There is no single set of fonts that everyone accepts to be used by publishers and web developers. (So the compatibility problems still exist)
3. There are so many incompatibilities between Apple and IBM. (Any publisher will confirm this.)
4. You cannot chat using Sinhalese.
5. You cannot even write e-mails in Sinhalese (unless it is with somebody you communicate regularly) because you do not know whether the receiver has the same set of fonts you have.
As far as I know, all what we have to do it to address these issues. (Not to mention additional issues like sending SMS in Sinhalese and doing OCR in Sinhalese.)
All I can say is we should not do the same mistakes we have done in 2002.
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Answer to all this is a correct Character allocation Table for Sinhala.
Only I have done it. Not the Cintec or ICTA or any one.
(for new comers –character allocation table ISBN 955-98975-0-0 (Contents do have Copyright areas & Patent pending areas©2000-2006))
Take the unicode consortium. The whole unicode consortium is based on character allocation tables.
Sri Lanka registered SLSI 1134 in Unicode (under protest– only two groups posted the protests ie Srilanka Association of Printers and Donald Gaminitillake) which was incomplete set of sinhala characters.
No software maker will be able to develop a commen font simply because of all characters are not represented in the UNicode Sinhala or SLSI1134.
Now this group is talking about “elements”. Where are these elements for Sinhala in SLSI1134 or Unicode Sinhala? They also speaks about a “union” and in the same time they say NO to it.
Take China for an example. They have three sets of Character allocation tables.
Once the Character allocation table is given the rest belongs to the software developers.
In Sri Lanka like the dot LK which has a monopoly — the same group wanted a monopoly for Sinhala Language. That is why they registered a part of the characters and hid the balance in form of “elements’ or a “union”.They never expected for me to come forward and point this out.
All started (somewhere in 1998) with Niranjan Meegammana wanted his Kandy set to be compatible with MAC. Then I found the problem is with the Character allocation table.(I was in Japan at this time)Japan too had this problem. That is why they have JIS one JIS two etc. Anyway with some delay they incorporated all the Japanse characters into the Character allocation table with proper code points. Same thing happend with Koreans , Chinese.
The OS developers too adopted the system to accormodate any form of characters table.
In early days you will not be able to install MS DOS one byte english into a computer that had been design to use in Japan or Korea. Now these are not problems or nobody knows about it.The INdic group got into the typewriter module and Ascii limitation of 256 — could not get out of this loop
Whoever took the initial steps in Sri Lanka had no knowledge of Typography or Typology or was not from the Printing and publishing Industry. The characters belong to this Industry.
They only knew a Sinhala typewriter and typewriter technology.We have to give the full credit to Mr Wijesekera. He was the person who broke he Sinhala characters into parts and accormodate them into a limited space of a type writer. This was Mr Wijesekera’s Character allocation table for the type writer.
All the scripts other than the indic group in the unicode are full complete characters.
To solve this problem all we have to do is publish the full sinhala character allocation table with correct code points.— ISBN 955-98975-0-0—
Donad Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Denna Denna
Thanks HeWhoMustNotBeNamed (Voldermot also called by the same name in Harry Potter!!!) for the explaination. This takes the biscuit!!!!!
Two experts Dino and Gihan D, got in this mess because of their extreme greed for money, reputation and power and became the butt of the joke in front of the whole country (not to mention those kids in Mahawilachchiya here.)Both would have been respected figures in the country if they used their brains and realised what they can do and what they cannot do. (I still cannot understand why Dino stood against Mahawilchchiya though as there can’t be found any logic here to sabotage their future.)
Was this (UNICODE issue) the reason why Prof prevented Donald talking at CSSL some years back? But why did he sabotaged the kids’ presentation????? What is the logic?????
Under what logic people like VK (certified crooks) become the big shots at at ICTA under a president like MR? Whose Chinthanaya is this??????
Gihan D had a good track record when he was younger among Moratuwa undergrats and now such a respected figure is in shatters due to extreme greed.
Why do all people try to JUMP INTO a place like ICTA? This is a seriois project and only those who are capble of doing something should be there. Manju H seems lucky to be out of this mess it seems…..
When Manju is out and VK is even stornger, will he destroy Mahawilachchiya again????? Will MV become the primary target of the TERMINAOTR VK now???
At the end, will Lankans be able to use proper Sinhala in their PCs? How long Donald has to waste money on Internet writing down the same facts over and over? Will there be any little Donalds to take his ideas forward in future?
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Dharma Gamage
Harsula,
I will be very grateful if you do not misinterpret what I say.
[quote]
2) Why isn’t Unicode Sinhala (SLS1134:2004) support available in software released before 2004?
[unquote]This is NOT the issue, as I have explained so many times. This is only a very poor misinterpretation of the real issue.
What I ask simply is even after more than 15 years of efforts in introducing Sinhala to computers why we are still not successful? (as Nepalis or Bengalis) Why we have so less number of Sinhala web sites? Why the Sinhala content in the net is negligible? Why cannot BBC has a Sinhala site, when they can have Tamil, Nepali and Bengali versions? Why I cannot use Sinhala in my computer, though I can use Tamil, Arabic and Nepali characters? Why we use so many different sets of fonts based on different character mappings? WHY WE STILL DO NOT HAVE A SINGLE STANDARD ACCEPTABLE BY ALL?
Please also remember Unicode Sinhala is NOT as same as SLS 1134. Unicode Sinhala was approved in 1998 and SLS 1134 came in 2004. There was a six year gap in between.
I am sure the long post above by HWMNBN will open your eyes.
BTW, thanks HWMNBN for the detailed explanation. It shows how the IT experts in this country behave.
As for your first question, the users do not mind the technical details. The users want a SOLUTION. Whether it is Unicode or JCcode or Harsulacode or Donaldcode is not important to them.
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I met a person working at PC House He knew this CAt problem. I told him to write to this chat.
They back off saying cannot fight with the big people. “Loku minnusth ekka happenna ba”
This backward timidness is what we have to get over if we have to develop Sri Lanka.Do not worry there are many Small ‘Donalds” around to take over but shy to come forward.
Quote
I still cannot understand why Dino stood against Mahawilchchiya
unquoteThis was simple because a group of students not having even o/L was talking IT in front of a Professor. This is the digital development and top down situvation the country needs.
I was kept out because of the same reason. I am not one of them not from the uni of Sri Lanka. I put forward my paper on Character allocation Table. instead of putting my paper into the waste paper bin they should have taken it up. You have to hand the copyrights of the writings to the CSSL to publish any article in this seminar. wow — with that they could have my rights too.
They missed this chance. If they permitted to do my presentation and taken my copyrights into their hands I will not be strong as now.
Their intention is not to educate the village students in Sri Lanka even if we have the free education system. Please visit villagers (any) there are no teachers in schools. But these students will have to sit for public examinations when they reach the age.
There are some places the computers are still kept in original boxes.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Dharma,
I visit lirnasia site for sometime and contribute/share my views in threads which interests me and also the one’s which I can give my views based on our experience in the industry. I am not visiting this site to DEFEND or HARD SELL Sinhala Unicode standard to anyone but rather expressing my views based on reality. People who really wants to work in Sinhala with or without a standard work in Sinhala be it Word Processing, Publishing, Emailing whatever, even with inter operability issues without a standard even today.
I agree with you and perhaps some of the comments of post 5) where we have wasted such a lot of time on this matter without getting the required deliverables in place at right time. As I say always this thread shouldnt have exist if things been resovled and standardized and technical products released to the market long time ago.
The convincing role to major OS players should have been done even prior to 2002, which was the faliure perhaps of the respective teams, commitees who were invovled in this process. Now since we have miss the earlier buses there is big issue about the standardization as things have not progressed earlier.
All my views were to say that the Sinhala Unicode that’s been adopted now can be technically implemented. I also agree with you in order for this to become the standard everyone should start using it from Apple’s to IBM’s to Linux to what not with complete inter operability. If someone comes (say it’s Donald) with a technically superior product and pushes hard all out to end users which includes government, NGO’s, Printers/Publishers, Major OS vendors to other’s it can become the standard in the marketplace and the SLS1134 will be the standard just in books.
Finally, as per my knowledge lot of companies are releasing products now on Sinhala Unicode and eventually when all end users starts using it all over including publishers to others it will become the standard. Thereafter no one will be in a position to change it since it will be widely used and inter operated like English.
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Dharma Gamage
Harsha,
Yes, I agree with you.
However, you have not answered my earlier question. Have you seen anywhere it is said that Windows VISTA (or whatever the next ver) would support Sinhala?
I have never read anybody from Microsoft saying this and that is why I keep my fingers crossed.
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Dear Harsha Purasinghe
We do have a problem in implementing Sinhala.
Unicode Sinhala lacks many characters. Where are they?
You just avoid this questionIf they are in “elements” or inside a “union” can you give the locations registered in Unicode.
Tell me what hapens after the “‘Zero Width Joiner’ (ZWJ)” of a sequence
Under General Punctuation these joiners are listed.Also explain how a OCR works using the present Sinhala Unicode example character “DU”
Unless the “DU is there physically in unicode sinhala or in the hidden union or elements OCR will not recognise the character “DU”Get into the mechanism and write simple
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Dharma Gamage
I have done some web search on the topics under the discussion, and what’s out there do not look good for our poor Donald.
1. I personally do not think Donald or anyone has the single ownership to a character allocation table. It was there in many hodi pothas probably even before Donald was born. However, even in terms of computers Donald is NOT the first one to publish a character allocation table. One published in 1994 appears at http://userweb.pdn.ac.lk/~nimalr/sinhala/lreport.pdf
So there goes our Donald’s pipe dreams for a patent!
2. The site http://www.bhashaindia.com gives how thirteen Indian languages are represented in computers based on Unicode character tables. If you spend even ten minutes in this site you will realise, how they have successfully used Unicode to implement Indic language applications. Sinhala is not a very different language and Sinhala letters have one to one relationship with Devanagari. So if you can use Unicode Hindi in computers, there is no reason why you cannot use Unicode Sinhala.
If Donald continue to ask his question (like a broken gramophone!) let me say how to write ‘Du’. First check how they do it in Devanagari. Then substitute appropriate Sinhala characters. You will get your answer.
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This was done by a person called Yannis Haralambous
Anyway my table contains more than this list with proper code points for Sinhala.My copyrights do exsist in Sri Lanka and the pending patent.
There are more caontents than a table for my pending patentalso we dont have a IME for Sinhala
Indic IME 1 (v 5.0) is a common setup for Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati, Hindi scripts. It allows you to install the IMEs for the required scripts. It is an enhanced version of the previous Indic IME 1.
For an IME to run all the code points have to be defined.
Also have to develop several IMEs to use in differnt systems.
IME—Input Method Editor, with thousands of potential code point combinations
For “DU” we do not have registered CODE POINTS — DHARMA also we do not also have an IMEBefore an IME we have to publsih all the code points that I have done.–character allocation table ISBN 955-98975-0-0 not by Yannis Haralambous
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Dharma Gamage
Donald,
[quote]
This was done by a person called Yannis Haralambous
Anyway my table contains more than this list with proper code points for Sinhala.
[unquote]The issue is not the name/ethnicity of the person or the number of code points.
The point is, SOMBODY HAS ALREADY BEATEN YOU!
So how ethical it is for you to talk intellectual property rights and patents?
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More Dharma
Quote from http://www.bhashaindia.com/Developers/MSTech/IndicSupport/indiclife.htm
….
These formatted glyphs, based on the underlying code points, are sent on for display …
text is stored as code points until it needs to be displayed…..
unquoteFor SInhala we have not defined these code points. Only a limited number is registered. Rest are hidden.
This is the problem that I am addressing.
That is the issue over here.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Dharma Gamage
Okay, I have found the list of new languages that will be supported in Windows VISTA.
Alsatian (France).
Amharic (Ethiopia). Unicode only.
Assamese (India). Unicode only.
Bashkir(Russia).
Corsican (France).
English (India)
English (Malaysia)
English (Singapore)
Greenlandic (Greenland)
Hausa (Nigeria)
Khmer (Cambodia). Unicode only.
K’iche (Guatemala).
Kinyarwanda (Rwanda).
Lao (Lao P.D.R.)
Lower Sorbian (Germany)
Mongolian (PRC)
Sinhala (Sri Lanka). Unicode only.
Spanish (United States)
Tajik (Tajikistan)
Tamazight(Algeria, Latin)
Tibetan (PRC)
Tibetan (Bhutan)
Turkmen (Turkmenistan)
Uighur (PRC)
Upper Sorbian (Germany)
Wolof (Senegal)
Yakut (Russia)
Yi (PRC)
Yoruba (Nigeria)Can sombody explain, what they mean by Unicode only? Does it mean we can type in Sinhala but the menus, help, error messages etc., will not in Sinhala yet? (Even that is not bad for a start!)
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Dharma,
As per what I know Microsoft wants to support Sinhala (Unicode – as per Sinhala Unicode not any other) in upcoming Windows Vista. I got a opportunity to meet one of the key regional MS figures where I even asked him about VISTA’s support of Sinhala which he too said they want to support it. Further, I have credible information that Bill Gates himself in one of his emails to regional people have mentioned to include Sinhala support in upcoming Vista.
So what’s the big deal? Will this happen?
Well again as per what I know in order for above to happen ICTA has to take some initiatives and update Microsoft accordingly. Basically MS and ICTA has to finalize the agreement related to Sinhala Language Interface Pack which is based on Sinhala Unicode. I am not sure how far this has gone and perhaps they must have finalized by now.
But if you dont see Sinhala on next Vista it will definitely due to above issue which I have mentioned.
By talking reality I might get marginalized and side lined perhaps in the industry but I rather keen on talking reality as per what I see. Like you, myself and hunderds and thousands of MS Windows users want to see this support in next version of Windows.
I hope the people concerned who are involved in respective decision making will do the needful before we miss another BUS, which will leave Linux as the only alternative to use full blown Sinhala Unicode on MS platform otherwise. And MS Windows users will have to rely on 3rd party products which supports Sinhala Unicode.
Donald,
I am sorry to dissapoint you as am not wasting any of my time answering your same repeated questions. You have been given clear explanations by Linux user group and many other on this subject and you have failed to understand how Unicode works as pointed out earlier. You can keep on pushing your standard which is on paper by the time either Sinhala Unicode or something else will emerge and will be used around in Sri lanka. As what’s important is technical implementation of these standard and people practically starts using them.
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Crossed
Harsha and others,
Donald repeats the same thing as nobody has answered or given a solution for the problem he is talking about. Silencing Donald doesnt mean the problem is solved. We all have to understand this.
THough everyone talks big here, we still cannot read a sinhala webpage without downloading fonts and cannot chat or email in Sinhala. So, asking Donald to shut up will not be the solution.
VKS
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Dear HArsha
Linux have not answered the question or You
Where are the “elements ” or the “union” listed in the unicodeBut the most interesting comment was “or something else will emerge and will be used around in Sri lanka.”
What is this someting else!!! Something better than unicode by the same group!!!!Again hidden concepts and agenda’s
Like Crossed said “Donald repeats the same thing as nobody has answered”
Dhrmma , “SOMBODY HAS ALREADY BEATEN YOU!”
No one has beaten me.
No code points and Please visit the patent office and read my patent pending 13120.If you think Yannis Haralambous CAT is better than mine why not use it.
Yet the present unicode is incorrect and incomplete set of Sinhala characters
Technically I wrote to Yannis Haralambous for his comments.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Too Crossed
Harsha is a businessman and has a right to defend his product. But why don’t anyone who wasted money on unicode (which has proved a total farce) silent on this issue. There is a brochure published by ICTA (Donald must see this) saying that they have found the answer for using Sinhala with PCs. But to see even ICTA website’s Sinhala version, we need to download the font. Why don’t we have an answer yet for the problem?
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Dear Too crossed
I have given the answer so many times like a broken gramophone!(as Dharma say)
Publish the total character Allocation Table for Sinhala which I have done.
Give me the credentails to make the software similar to an IME to run on PC, Apple and linux
Keyin method could be Wijesekera or JC;s Romanized Sinhala“brochure published by ICTA” If you can pls post me one
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Cisco2900
[quote]
Further, I have credible information that Bill Gates himself in one of his emails to regional people have mentioned to include Sinhala support in upcoming Vista.
[unquote]Lolz! I think Harsha thinks the others in this forum are konde bedapu cheenas. Bill Gates might not even know what Sinhala is. Moreover, he is now not there in Microsoft officially, so he cannot say anything regarding Sinhala in Windows Vista.
This kind of poor publicity is good for political stages. (Like “Do not worry, we will achieve peace within one year”) Unfortunately for Harsha, the users of this forum are not as stupid as the average voters in the country.
These podiens like Harsha go long distances to save their masters Dino and Gihan D.
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Cisco2000 you are correct I wonder when Bill Gates spoke to Visa developers!!
By the way I am copying a mail received by me from Microsoft India 15/November /2003
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo———–
Dear Mr. Gaminitillake,
Thank you for your confidence in us.
The fact of the matter is that what you are proposing and what Microsoft is following, actually supplement each other!
Your main request of supporting the QWERTY keyboard layout for Sinhala and Tamil is not at all an unreasonable request. Users the world over have graduated from traditional typesetting systems, and there are strong legacy reasons for which it is sometimes prudent to support multiple keyboard layouts for any language.
What Mr. Paul Nelson has been trying to explain, sir, is that this is possible, without compromising on the Unicode support!
As I had explained on the phone, the font, the keylayout and the char storage are all different entities. One can provide support for multiple keyboards, and still carry out character storage in Unicode, which Microsoft strongly embraces for all languages.
For your information, we already provide IME kind implementation for Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati and Kannada through ISVs in India. This kind of an IME is similar to a Japanese one, though of course much simpler.
To take this forward, I suggest that I work with you, to ensure that your QWERTY keyboard “is” supported in our forthcoming Sinhala support.
To do this, I request you sir, to please send me:
· The QWERTY keyboard layout for Sinhala, as you would want it to be implemented
· The QWERTY keyboard layout for Tamil, as you would want it to be implementedBased upon your layout, I shall engage a partner into this exercise, and work to ensure that when we release Sinhala support for Windows, the layout is supported.
I hope this helps.
Thanks & I look forward to hearing from you.
Raveesh Gupta
Program Manager: Localization
Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt. Ltd.
The Great Eastern Centre
New Delhi 110019
India
Ph: 91 112 6294600, ext 131
Cell: 9811202123 -
Cisco2900,
I am not particularly keen to answer people who hide their identity and accusing without knowing the facts. I think you have not perhaps followed clearly from the begining of this long thread which started sometime ago, which I repetadly said that am talking the reality as per what I see nothing else.
It seems like you people who comes to this site with a covered PAPER BAG (as prof. highlighted earlier) accuse people without knowing who they are and whom they work for. People in the industry knows inlcuding people like Donald who we are etc, as we join hands with Donald in other community projects. Even on the sinhala matter we are having healthy discussions always not sidelining him, as I beleive his critics has helped to fast track Sinhala related work on ICT.
As I said I am not interested to pass any information to a forum without knowing the credibility of this source of Bill Gates comment on Sinhala. As you know there is a MS Country office and a country manager whom you can talk to and find out the credibility of this informaiton as people at MS-LK office are the one’s who broke this news to others and also his note has triggered to work things in a fast phase at MS. Please note MS has a country office in Sri Lanka and it’s really pity to underestimate company’s chairman not knowing about one of it’s country office’s, and some of the activities happening at least breifly. SO SUGGEST YOU GIVE A CALL TO MS OFFICE IN LK AND FIND THE CREDIBILITY OF MY COMMENT! as I dont want to do provide any false information to this forum. Further I wrote this comment to answer Dharma & others who are keen to discuss real issues and not to people who hide their identities.
I think this forum would have been much productive if people stick to the topic and talk real issues rather accusing people. And also it would be great if this site can be restricted only to people who come with true identities and discuss important policy issues in a productive manner rather than using this for personal attacks and showcasing their personal attitudes to others.
Crossed,
I always suggest Donald to implement his work technically and come up with working products rather than keep on repeating the same “incomplete” story. If he comes up with a superior product and pushes to people concerned it will become the standard as I mentioned earlier. So am not talking about silencing donald. His voice is very important to fast track development work related to Sinhala. -
Cisco2900
Mr dear Harsha,
Bill Gates ceased to undertake any official responsibility of Microsoft since Jan 2000, when Steve Ballmer replaced him as the CEO.
In addition, he even resigned from the post of Chairman last month to work full time on Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. He is no more there at Microsoft.
I am surprised that and IT guru like yourself is not updated about these happening.
Microsoft is a commercial establishment, and like any profit oriented institution, it usually boasts to impress its customers. Anybody who knows the market, takes these with a pinch of salt.
But people like you, think Bill Gates is so concerned about the development of Sinhala language and Sinhala content, he waits behind his developers with a whip in his hand forcing to offer solutions in Sinhala! Lol!
Microsoft knows the market for Sinhala is negligible. Only 15 million or so speaks Sinhala. Out of this 15 million only one or two out of hundred actually use a computer. Then there will be very few who actually purchases licensed copies. So why should Microsoft worry so much to introduce Sinhala to Vista?
Finally, it does not matter from where the information comes, it only matters whether the information is true or not.
-
Man with a Paper Bag
Harsha,
You still don’t answer questions. We do not have a proper solution to use Sinhala in computers!!!!!! There is no point just being with Donald for community projects. We all do community projects with spare time and spare money. But we need to do our JOB properly. In your case, you haven’t done your job properly. So, get together with Donald to do the JOB properly.
Do not curse the men with paper bags either. A dirty guy like VK cannot do what he wants now simply because of the men with paper bags. This is e-democracy what we wanted 20 years back. So, men with paper bag here don’t mean any harm to you. This is only to open your eyes. We know you are a good man with a good heart and you are definitely not in VK’s gang. You are a decent creative guy. When you put your Helawadana right, we will stop making comments here.
Not all men have the liberty and luck to come up without paper bags like Donald. He says he is the king. But others are just citizens and if they remove paperbags, VK will take them to the guillatine. Didn’t he take all powerful Manju to guillatine???
So, prof and Harsha, take men in paper bags as angels, not as devils. We all want to see something productive happening in ICT. We had enough of VK marfia. Men will remove their paper bags when this mafia is beaten. You and us are friends, not enimies.
-
Divakar Goswami
Cisco2900, Bill Gates will step down only in 2008. In the meantime he is very much involved with Vista. Why don’t you google Bill gates and Vista and see the results. To man with paper bag and others who have just dropped by, please read the earlier threads before jumping in and making comments.
Harsha and others have explained a few times already that currently Sinhala language support is not available natively with Windows and Mac, although it is available for Linux. When Windows Vista comes out it will support Sinhala Unicode and most of the current problems people face will be resolved.
Now you can continue to jump up and down asking why there is no support for Sinhala NOW?! I think various versions of history has been provided on this thread as to why Sinhala Unicode standard wasn’t developed sooner, please feel free to pick any of the many explanations that suit you.
-
Even Microsoft understood my proposal but the people in the “ARUMA PUDUMA RATA” just ignore the importance of my project.
Only I have the ‘Solution” for Sinhala IT.
I have proved this byond any reasonable doubt. Why cant the software develpoers and young engineers look both sides of the coin and give an impartial comment.
Even Highly protected application Quark Xpress Tag data and data saved on EPS text format can be edited using any simple Editor. These edited data could be reexported into Quark and produce high quality work.
All this is possible because of proper character allocation tables.I hope gypsies group will be able to read this contents and create a song “WHY IT WHY”
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Jean
Well well well Diwakar,
Do you think all Sri Lankans can buy Windows Vista as soon as it is avaible. Most of the country’s PCs run on Windows 98/Me yet, let alone XP. Are you asking us to buy Vista???? What about the government money Gihan D and Dino devoured??? This is not a small issue as you think What Donald is talking on is not just about Sinhala. He and the rest of the country has grave concerns over public funds wasted by the two “experts.”
-
Dharma Gamage
Donald,
[quote]
Even Microsoft understood my proposal but the people in the “ARUMA PUDUMA RATA” just ignore the importance of my project.
[unquote]I have a simple answer why nobody is interested in your so-called ‘solution’.
While we all understand the issues, you have failed to convince anyone (at least myself, a user who have been sympathetic towards you than most of the others here) that you have a solution, let alone THE solution.
[quote]
I have proved this byond any reasonable doubt.
[unquote]May be you have proved this to yourself. But the things do not work that way. If you want that to be implemented, you have to convince OTHERS too. (in addition to yourself) This is where you have failed.
So many times I have explained what you should do if you want to convince others. If you do not listen to it, even for another ten, twenty or hundred years you do nothing else than ranting, ranting and ranting.
-
Cisco2900,
I am glad that Divakar answered you and seems like you are not updated. Bill Gates will step down in mid 2008 and that too he’s trying to figure out how hard it is since he loves the role he plays as Cheif Software Architect though Ray Ozzie gonna take over. (Suggest you either do google or read Fortune-July-Bill Gates Reboot – above are based on these mag interviews/sources).
It’s pity the way you are presenting my comment which is based on a CREDIBLE source which is none other than Microsoft itself. So answer whether it’s true or not please talk to MS-LK office which is at WTC and get yourself satisfied as I dont want to publish FALSE information to other members of this forum who are very focused on the topic. As you can see in my reply I have even made that post to answer Dharma, as I thought it would be better to share something I got to know which is credible as Dharama was quite keen to know the Vista’s support.
Man with a Paper Bag,
In short all I can say is if you’ll can remove your paper bags and voice out confidently on the topic and real policy issues/ICT issues with real identities like Donald, Dharma, JC and all other’s does with true identities, NO MAFIA’S will prevail in this country. People shouldnt be afraid to talk about facts and realities.
-
Quote
I have a simple answer why nobody is interested in your so-called ’solution’.
UnquoteThen why are they worry about ny copyrights and pending patent?
Dharma is the very person who says “why one have to downlodd fonts everytime”
“IT” in SriLanka is not only text development but OCR voice GPS SMS and many more
All depend on a proper “Character Allocation Table” with proper code points.
Try to understand why Latin script works. All characters do have individual code points
Sinhala registered in Unicode or SLSI1134 are just few characters. IF you can understand this differance let me know.Best is for you to meet me.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Dharma Gamage
Donald,
[quote]
Dharma is the very person who says “why one have to downlodd fonts everytime”
[unquote]At least Unicode people have some solution, though it is cumbersome.
Do you even have that?
You know only to critisise others and rant. You have not even written a single line of code.
Before trying to find others faults, a wise man will think whether he can offer an alternative.
There is a saying in Sinhala that a naked man should not find faults with the dirt in the clothes others wearing.
-
Why you avoid the simple question
The Sinhala unicode not having the total number of Sinhala characters
Only a limited number is registered in this tableThat is what I am addressing.
I have asked the unicode registered locations for the “elements” or ‘union” nobody cares to answer this.
This is Unicode SInhala is incomplete and incorrect.Quote
he can offer an alternative.
unquote
Yes I have published the alternate complete Character Allocation Table for Sinhala.
When this is highlited all find other answers. Avoiding the truthQuote
trying to find others faults
UnquoteThis also confirms the Unicode Sinhala do have faults and I am the only person who is making a voice to protect the Language Sinhala
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
JC Ahangama
Testing…
Thank you and pardon me. -
Harshula
Hi Donald,
Donald Gaminitillake on Jul 14th, 2006 at 1:26 pm wrote:
——————————————————————
Why you avoid the simple questionThe Sinhala unicode not having the total number of Sinhala characters
Only a limited number is registered in this tableThat is what I am addressing.
——————————————————————Those familiar with Unicode Sinhala (SLS1134:2004) realise what you are saying is untrue. You have been unable to prove your allegation after almost 2 years of your propaganda.
Let’s do a little experiment using your favourite word “Dumriya” [http://sinhala.sourceforge.net/archive/akuru.org/0020.html]. I’ll write the word in Unicode, with one letter on each row and the corresponding Unicode codepoints alongside in parentheses “()”.
Unicode Vs Donaldcode: Round 1
==============================Unicode:
දු ()
ම් ()
රි ()
ය ()Donaldcode:
?Now it’s your turn do the same using Donaldcode. If you can’t, then Donaldcode is incomplete and a failure.
Regards,
Harshula -
Harshula
Reposting after removing the angle brackets …
Hi Donald,
Donald Gaminitillake on Jul 14th, 2006 at 1:26 pm wrote:
——————————————————————
Why you avoid the simple questionThe Sinhala unicode not having the total number of Sinhala characters
Only a limited number is registered in this tableThat is what I am addressing.
——————————————————————Those familiar with Unicode Sinhala (SLS1134:2004) realise what you are saying is untrue. You have been unable to prove your allegation after almost 2 years of your propaganda.
Let’s do a little experiment using your favourite word “Dumriya” [http://sinhala.sourceforge.net/archive/akuru.org/0020.html]. I’ll write the word in Unicode, with one letter on each row and the corresponding Unicode codepoints alongside in parentheses “()”.
Unicode Vs Donaldcode: Round 1
==============================Unicode:
දු (0daf,0dd4)
ම් (0db8,0dca)
රි (0dbb,0dd2)
ය (0dba)Donaldcode:
?Now it’s your turn do the same using Donaldcode. If you can’t, then Donaldcode is incomplete and a failure.
Regards,
Harshula -
JC Ahangama
Okay!
I found what was wrong in my posts not being allowed. I did not enter the email address!
My apologies to Dr. Divakar and professor Samarajiva for complaining. Thank you Divakar for letting me know about the new requirement of the email address. (Hmmm… that means all those pseudonym posts actually come from real addresses? or could the email address be false too?)
If you both as administrators object to my further using this system, please let me know. I will then thank you for letting me use your resources thus far and write my comments at:
http://groups.google.com/group/SinhalaUserGroup
Under the heading:
A Standard Sinhala for Computers and the Internet
—————————————————–Now to the business of replying:
SOMEONE SAID THAT THAI UNICODE PAGE IS BEHIND SINHALA:
———————————————————————-
That is true. But Thais are defying Unicode and use Latin code points in their national standard. The reason they give is simple. They want Thai message to pass through all Internet roadblocks. RFC822 and its successors permit only Latin-1.I say we can do the same but in a less confrontational way because we are a little island. Just use romanized Sinhala and use fonts to show romanized Sinhala in Sinhala script. It works. We need some programming to make it work in older computers too. For some people, money matters and some others cannot afford new computers.
So, those who are ardent supporters of Unicode use Unicode. And those who want full IT capabilities for the script use romanized Sinhala. It can support Wijesekera keyboard too. And there can be transliteration between the two.
Microsoft is researching with us why the Sinhala font is not showing correctly in certain Windows XP machines. This test font is easy to use. It is unfortunate that none from Sri Lanka has asked for a copy. That seems to prove my point that the people who discuss here actually are not interested in learning the facts but belong to die-hard groups (or elites who actually don’t care about Sinhala, Professor Samarajiva, not you, you are the facilitator — I know now).
I invite your kind indulgence on an advice an ancient person who died 2550 years back gave:
He was talking about Ekamsovaaða (one-sided belief):
The Lord Buddha advised his disciples to be flexible and not to be angry if someone gives a new or different kind of understanding to his teachings…Thank you.
ANOTHER QUESTION WAS IF SINHALA UNICODE BLOCK IS INCOMPLETE:
——————————————————————————-
I think it is complete in the sense it represents Sinhala script.However, it has a ligature named as a regular character: TAALUJA SANYUGA NAASIKYAYA (I might be spelling this wrong). This unfortunate decision makes Pali and Sanskrit incompatible with Sinhala Unicode. I tested a conversion and it failed and there is ambiguity. The reason is the older languages (and Sinhala grammar books) correctly treat this letter as the combination of HAL JAYANNA and TAALUJA NASIKYAYA. The good test for a ligature (bænði akura) is that it does not take the hal kiriima. TAALUJA SANYUGA NAASIKYAYA does not take a hal kiriima.
-
Dear JC, I am glad you are able to post. We have never had any problems about your posting to this forum and you may continue to do so. I also hope you are able to appreciate that all of us at LIRNEasia are quite busy and when we have to respond to repeated email about administrative issues it takes time away from other time critical work. Thanks for your cooperation.
-
Your Unicode
දු (0daf,0dd4) = Sinhala letter alpapraana dayanna,Sinhala vowel sign ketti paa-pilla
This is not “DU” just two code points defined aboveIF you read my chart “DU” is represented by 3708 (tentative allocation)
character allocation table ISBN 955-98975-0-0 (Contents do have Copyright areas & Patent pending areas©2000-2006))If you need my chart let me have your postal address to send one
Likewsie the rest follows.If I can paste jpg files into this I would show the public the correct “DU”
You were the people who said there are “elements” and “unions” after the joiner but failed to give the code points after the joiner.
You just talking about typewriter techniques
even Microsoft confirm my system
Quote
“Users the world over have graduated from traditional typesetting systems, ”
unquoteWe are using computers not typewriters
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Harshula
Hi Donald,
Unicode Vs Donaldcode: Round 1 (cont.)
==============================Unicode:
දු (0daf,0dd4)
ම් (0db8,0dca)
රි (0dbb,0dd2)
ය (0dba)Donaldcode:
(3708)
?
?
?Donald, you still have 3 more letters to fill. Hurry up. Or are those three so “tentative” that they are still unallocated in Donaldcode?
Donald Gaminitillake on Jul 14th, 2006 at 11:05 pm wrote:
————————————————————
දු (0daf,0dd4) = Sinhala letter alpapraana dayanna,Sinhala vowel sign ketti paa-pilla
This is not “DU” just two code points defined above
————————————————————It is “DU”. Modern technology, i.e. computers, are *smart* enough to understand that if a codepoint for paa-pilla comes after a ‘consonant’, then that paa-pilla is ‘applied’ to the ‘consonant’. In this case the paa-pilla is applied to the dayanna. Therefore it is well and truly “DU”.
I know you might find this difficult to grasp, but this is modern technology, not like your ancient printing press technology. Donaldcode is like going 500 years back in time when the printing press was *new* technology in Europe.
What Donald doesn’t understand is that CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) solutions are *not* suitable for South Asian scripts. CJK are logographic scripts (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/logographic.htm) and Sinhala is syllabic (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/syllabic.htm). Because they are completely different writing systems, the best solution for CJK is *not* the best solution for Sinhala.
The reason why Donald doesn’t understand this is because he is neither a linguist nor a computer scientist, but he tries to be an ‘expert’ in an area where he is a ‘novice’.
Regards,
Harshula -
JC Ahangama
This post probably is hilarious. But I’d like to join in.
This example discussed is about,
ðumriyaWell, those who are human here, that is those gradually acquired knowledge as they grew up might guess what that funny character ð is.
Now I invite you to go back and read the block of text these two gentlemen are arguing about:
දු -
JC Ahangama
Oops! Unicode Sinhala broke my post half way. let me try again.
දු
ම්
රි
යIf the above gets in, I write the balance
-
JC Ahangama
Okay.
Now looking tat each of the Sinhala line, I see the characters decomposed into consonants and vowels. But when I typed them in, they looked complete. Isn’t this a problem, good folks?Now see romanized Sinhala:
ðu
m
ri
yaThat is decomposed too. Now, if you have the font, it is supposed to show the combined Sinhala characters.
The problem is that the underlying font renderer of this web application we use here is not properly written. There are lot of kinks in the system which will take time to get fixed
UNLESS, yes, unless WE write the drivers. We can turn tables on M$ and sell them back to them. Yes. I truly believe in this. This could be a Sri Lankan expertise to the world like the Indians are the call center for the world. -
Donaldcode:
(3708)
?
?
?Donald, you still have 3 more letters to fill. Hurry up. Or are those three so “tentative” that they are still unallocated in Donaldcode?
I told you to either send your address to psot the table or go to National archives and read the table
Du =3708
Mm=4501
Ri= 4806
Ya= 4702If you do not give a proper absolute allocation Table there will no OCR , No Voice to text , etc etc
Even microsoft understand my system. Only you guys are thinking of a type writer
IT is not typying
Quote
CJK is *not* the best solution for Sinhala.
UnquoteMicrosoft say see 24 quote
The fact of the matter is that what you are proposing and what Microsoft is following, actually supplement each other!
quote
This kind of an IME is similar to a Japanese one, though of course much simpler.
unquoteRead No 24 —
CJK system had solved all the IT problems
I know my Sinhala I know my CJK system I can derive the best for SinhalaDonald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Todays Dailynews (15/7/2006) page25
As by IC- Cedit Number 3986CEDevelopment of a web partal for District Secretariats and Divisonal Secretriats — IFB: ICTA /SER/55
When we cannot send an Email in sinhala across any platform, No web site are availble across any platform for sinhala. Our Cinstitution and Official language dept say we have to do work in SInhala & Tamil
How came any one develop a web site and do content development in Sinhala???
This Ad is by the MD/CEO of ICTA
I think both persons should seek medical assistance at the Angoda mental hospital.Please do not waste public funds on projects that are good but impossible to do in Sri Lanka in Sinhala simply because we do not have a proper code points for Sinhala language across all platforms
Unless you solve the langausge issue
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Two corrections for 47
WEB PARTAL = read as “WEB Portal”
came = “come”Donald
-
Intersting site for unicode
http://www.decodeunicode.org/w3.php?ucHex=0D80
If you take the pointer you will be able to get the code point and the definition
My question is where are the rest of the sinhala characters?
This is why I say Unicode Sinhala is incomplete and incorrect
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Harshula
Hi JC,
If you want to participate in the experiment, please follow the rules, namely:
——————————————————————–
… with one letter on each row and the corresponding … codepoints alongside in parentheses “()”.
——————————————————————–“one letter” = equivalent of one Sinhala letter. So, in your case it might be two Latin letters.
Don’t forget to include the *codepoints*.
If you don’t provide a solution in this format, I’ll continue the experiment with only Unicode & Donaldcode. If you do provide a solution in the correct format then I’ll continue the experiment with Unicode, Donaldcode & JCcode.
Regards,
Harshula -
Thank you for accepting the Donald’s code
Why dont we add few new pages into unicode with Donalds CodeDo not worry about the exsisting set. It will be there too. There are similar langauges in unicode
Arabic , Hangul all have the part story and full characters. Hangul still use the parts to input but full characters are used by the IME for dispaly and text.Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
JC your romanized Sinhala can be use as a input method with wijesekera in my derived system.
Wheter one uses Wijesekera or JC or any system that a future person make — all will acccess the same code point and the character remains the same.In my system even voice could be used as a input method.For that best person is Savinda who has done lots of research in Sinhala voice area.
Sombody will have to start Sinhala Elocution Classes for corrrect pronounciations. See by accepting the exsistance of a Donalds code new job opprtunities are imerging. In Srilanka we donot have any elocution classes for Sinhala. But for English it is available.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Harshula
Hi Donald,
Most importantly, thank you for accepting Unicode Sinhala (SLS1134:2004) is complete and realising that දු (0daf,0dd4) is actually “DU”.
Regards,
Harshula -
With (0daf,0dd4) you have to sepcify with the jjoiner to go and locate the “DU” from where “DU” is.
The elemnts or union is not specified in the SLSI1134 or unicode consortium
That is why public will have to download each and every font that one use to create the text.
Also text data will not flow across all platform.Only sinhala characters in unicode SLSI1134 Sinhala (what ever you call) is listed below.
http://www.decodeunicode.org/w3.php?ucHex=0D80
I quote this site because any one can go into the URL and see all the unicode registered characters in jpg form rather than on pdf format on unicode consortium. Compare with the facts that we are discusiing in this site
Therefore I always stand by the fact the Unicode Sinhala or SLSI134 is incorrect and incomplete standard. Once registered in unicode one cannot change the incorrect page but when the National Standard is changed they will include the new National standard in Unicode Consortium.
My system is also accepted as a solution by micorsoft. (see 24)
Also with my system many software developers will have a chance of developing IT compatible components for Sinhala later move their knowledge into other indic langauges
With my system Sri Lanka would be a HUb for indic langauges.(again job opportunities)
With every step I take forward new job opportunities will be automatically created. The young dynamic software engineers will be able to strike Silver.
Before the Humpty Dumpty face the great fall —
” All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.”The time is ripe for ICTA to hand me this subject and the project for the betterment of the public in Sri Lanka.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
JC Ahangama
Harshula!
I am honored, Sir! Yes. truly I am. I wanted to ask for this and you, as if by intuition asked me to get in the ring, though I’d rather not fight. I want everyone to be compassionate and try to understand each other’s point. We are in one camp. The “we want the best for Lanka” camp.
I can’t erase the grin on my face. It’s like I just got admission to Colombo university (which at that time said I was too old) I think this other thing also played a part: I Just returned from the Thai Wat and may I say, namoo buððhaaya?
Ok. You want the code points. They are at:
Basic Latin (Codepoints 0 thru 127):
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0000.pdf
Latin-1 Supplemant (Code points 128 thru 255):
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0080.pdfThat is, romanized Sinhala which includes COMPLETE pure Sinhala, COMPLETE Pali and COMPLETE Sanskrit is in the FIRST 256 code points of the Unicode!
This is also known as ISO-8859-1. That is the set of characters honored by RFC822 and its successors. (Which is why Thais did not budge from it). It is also the default characacter set of web pages and MIME messages. Further, it is the set of code points used by the who’s who of the developed nations. (they made it. We just hopped in. Sorry white man. BTW, the white man looking over my shoulders is laughing)
I do not need to enumerate the code points of the English alphabet. They are in the Basic Latin which is ASCII that us old dogs call. Romanized Sinhala uses only the lower case letters (except for sanyakas), i.e. those code points falling between,
a = 61 thru z = 122 in the alphabetical order like a=61, b=62, … z=122.f=102 is for unpadhmaaniiya — a rare Sanskrit letter also used by the Sinhalese for transcribing from English. As this is already in roman, it is a mute point. But if you insist, go ahead and use it in Sinhala (e.g. fonseekaa mahaþaa). The pronunciation is close and Sinhalese anyway pronounce f as upadhmaaniiya than the English way.
q=113 is used for Sanskrit jihvaamuuliiya, another rare Sanskrit letter. It has no use in Sinhala.
We do not use w=119 like Italian and many other Indo-European languages.
Then we use ten chracaters from the Latin-1 supplement:
The items such as AltGr z tells how these characters are typed in US-International keyborad. This is the keyboard I use everyday. There is an equivalent for it in Linux (Reda Hat): use U.S. English w/deadkeys layout for your keyboard model. On macintosh use the Internatonal keyboard.æ=230 Ash AltGr z Directly borrowed from Old English / Icelandic
þ=254 Thorn AltGr t Directly borrowed from Old English / Icelandic
ð=240 Edh AltGr d Directly borrowed from Old English / Icelandic
ñ=241 Enye AltGr n adapted from Spanish / same as in Tatar
ç=231 c with cedilla AltGr , Adapted from French c with hook
µ=181 Mu AltGr m Greek — adapted for Muurðhaja na
ø=248 Oe AltGr l Danish — adapted for Muurðhaja la
ü=252 iruyanna AltGr y Sanskrit only
ö=246 iluyanna AltGr o Sanskrit only
ä=228 visargaya AltGr q Sanskrit onlyThen for Sinhala sanyaka akuru we use the following shifted letters:
G=71 Sanyaka gayanna
D=68 Sanyaka dayanna
Ð=208 Sanyaka ðayanna
B=66 Amba bayannaWhat is this about an experiment? Is it the train expriment? Like,
Unicode:
දු (0daf,0dd4)
ම් (0db8,0dca)
රි (0dbb,0dd2)
ය (0dba)romanized Sinhala:
ð (240)
u (117)
m (109)
r (114)
i (105)
y (121)
a (97)Harshula, this is the last time I am playig this game. romanized Sinhala is just that. All code points are known. We write just like the Western Europeans do. The complete alphabet is at:
http://www.Sinhalaheritage.comNone of you good gentlemen or ladies have written to me asking for the font. I sent it to the admins and Mr. Gaminitilleka. They are probabaly too busy. If you want to know what I am doing why don’t you write to me and ask for the font? Either you are using your boss’s computer and therefore you cannot test a font or you are entrenched on one sdie in an imaginary battle do not want to peacefully think and discuss.
Here is my email address, everybody:
osp@LANandWAN.com (you can use jc@… too but ‘osp’ will help).I know you have good backbones. So write to me. I spent too much time here just to play this silly game. All the techies should know what is meant by Latin-1. If you want to know how Sinhala sounds are mapped to Latin-1, go to this web site and check out the alphabet (by the way, it is the most complete Sinhala alphabet anywhere on the net):
http://www.Sinhalaheritage.com
There’s nothing more to it or less to it. We have a proof-of-concept font that shows Latin-1 in Sinhala. No other language in the world does that. So, in my opinion, we can have the Unicode block, but romanized Sinhala is superior because it will always show in romanized, readable form, not a row of question marks. If your system supports OpenType and /or Uniscribe you’d be able to read and edit in Sinhala script too.
Currently Microsoft is researching why we cannot get the ligatures to form in certain Windows XP machines. I’ll report the results back so the people know. This is about the country, its money and its future.
There’s no experimant here. Just facts to digest, if you have the time and inclination. I can’t spend time here like Mr. Gamintilleka and everyone else that debates here. Nobody pays me a salary for it and I am a poor man. (And the admins also rightly said I write too much. It’s a waste of their reources too if we just argue for the sake of an empty win than investigating each point. LOGIC! LOGIC!!).
-
ABOUT THE ROMANIZED SINHALA FONT:
I think I said this many moons back. Anyway, the font is a simple idea. Instead of the Latin letter ‘a’ we show the ‘ayanna’, instead of Latin ‘k’ we show the ‘hal kayanna’. This is just like the Singlish program that was on the Internet. It is still there probabaly, but I could not track down its developer. One of the persons who wrote about it was not too helpful either.
Any way, for the Train competition, you write:
ðumriya
by simply typing like you’d usually type English.
If you have that Sinhala font, you can use it instead of, say Arial. Now comes the most intriguing part that nobody was able to give an answer to:If you are typing inside Notepad (with the Sinhala font) inside a fairly new Windows XP professional computer, perhaps that also has Service Pack 2 update in it and was an PEM install, the words will form as follows:
[ðu],m,[ri],[ya]
Perfect! Otherwise, the svara and vyaçjana stand by themseles with the word decomposed — as good as typing with Arial.We have been in communication with Microsoft regarding this. Their Typography team gave a sort of a backhanded answer to my question why the script is well formed inside Notepad and not Word 2007 and every version earlier. (At this time, I was not aware that some XP PCs do not show properly formed Sinhala inside their Notepads).
The answer was that it might be because of a business decision by MS that the Simple Script ligatures are not supported in Word. They think that higher grade appa would support it (Publisher?).
Now we are having the general support group of MS researching why some computers show the ligatures and not others.
I know the partial answer, two pronged:
1. Microsoft Windows is the giant hairball it is that nobody really knows it.
2. It depends on whether Uniscribe or OpenType support is called by the application. Obviously, Notepad in those machines get that support.I know we do not have low level programmers (C language) in Sri Lanka that are willing to read Unicode and write a Uniscrtibe like font driver. If we can do it, the country saves a ton. (Plus we can sell to India too). It might be cheaper to get it done in a country like Thailand or that other Souht Asian country that someone said has found their own IT solution. If we can find willing programmers we should try it before the president takes out the check book to buy Windows Vista. I can give all the leads, but Dharma does not want me to be paid. (David Trotter here is good for it too, if you prefer. He is my sub).
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Dear JC
You will have to do some planing for my system too.
You have the list already. If I have missed any you can add them tooAfter allocating if you find the same sound value even for two or three or six or more still can accormodate without any problem. Only thing you have to isolate & identify them for me.
Also if you find interesting combinations which help the users indicate them
All this work is based on paper and pencil.
In my system every user will be able to expand this area independently according to his or her subject. IF they are intersted can forward this data for future upgrades under a index system.
With my system quality of Sinhala lit will improve.(another advantage)
== Without changing fonts.==
In my propsed system you can use the Latin script , Greek alphabet,(another advantage)
You can mix SInhala and any language using the Latin script.(another advantage)and many more advantages!!!!
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Donald,
The advantages you list are impressive indeed.
As for sounds that you are talking about, Sinhala has only one set. This is because our vowels are clear mono tones not diphthongs and because the sounds are already PHONETICALLY DEFINED by the alphabet and categorized and arranged. There’s nothing for you and me to say anything about the Sinhala sound set. The grammar books have already taken care of it. We are fixed within one set of sounds. I identified these in modern terms and allocated Latin letters and digraphs to them. This is romanized Sinhala. It supersedes the existing romanized Pali and all Sanskrit transliteration schemes which are unweildy to use and unnatural to look at.
Compare English: It is a sister Indo-European language. But has a shifting sound set which we understand as regional accents.
The alphabet is listed below. The sounds are also indicated. As HTML collapses the extra spaces, it may be difficult to read. The pipe characters I included to counter that might have even aggravated it. Copy and paste it somewhere and fix the format to read it better.
ROMANIZED CLASSIC SINHALA ALPHABET
(includes Pali and Sanskrit)
———————————————-
a | aa | æ | ææ | i | ii | u | uu (æ and ææ only in Sinhala)
ü | üü | ö | öö (Sanskrit only)
e | ee | ai | o | oo | au (ai and au Only in Sanskrit)
á | í | ú | ó nasal vowels — The acute accent indicates nasalized vowelCONSONANTS
k | kh | g | gh | ñ | G Velar consonants
c | ch | j | jh | ç Postalveolar consonants
t | th | d | dh | µ | D Alveolar consonants
þ | þh | ð | ðh | n | Ð Dental consonants
p | ph | b | bh | m | B Bilabial consonants
y | r | l | v approximant consonants
z | x | s | h fricatives (þaaluja sayanna, muurdhja sayanna, ðanþaja sayanna, hayanna)
ø palatal lateral approximant (muurdhaja layanna — dark el)
ä voiceless uvular fricative (visarjaniiya)
q voiceless velar fricative (jihvaamuuliya) — allophone of visarjaniiya
f voiceless bilabial fricative (upadhmaaniiya) — allophone of visarjaniiya -
JC thanks butlater shall come back to you on this
Waiting for a reply from ICTA
We are having FAGAT this august. A printing exhibition and a conferance. Character issue will be a topic.
I will be a bit busy with guests who are coming to Colombo
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Dharma Gamage
Dear Harsula,
I will be very grateful if you stop spreading the myth that Unicode Sinhala is as same as SLS1134:2004.
Unicode Sinhala is dated 1998. (http://www.fonts.lk/history.html)
This refers to a document at http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0D80.pdf.
In fact, the copyright of this document goes back to 1991.Further, Unicode is an INTERNATIONAL standard.
SLS1134 refers to a separate document available at (among other places) http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/WG2/docs/n2737.pdf
This is a LOCAL (SRI LANKAN) standard and dated 2004.
These are two documents, though there are overlapping areas and SLS1134 was developed to fill the gaps in Unicode Sinhala (such as the absence of yansaya, repaya and bendi akuru)
There were Sinhala fonts based on Unicode long before SLS1134 was approved.
Hope the difference is clear.
-
Dear Dharma
The SLSI 1134 too have the same contents as the unicode Sinhala
SLSI1134 do not represnet any characters such as yansaya, repaya or bendi akuru or “DU” etc etc
The SLSI also does not indicate the locations of any elements after the joiner.
Please send me your Email address so that I can send you a copy of the pdf format of SLSI1134
Unicode only honour the National Standard of a country.
To Admin:
I hpoe the Admin will post both unicode chart and the SLSI 1134 chart in jpg form for the public to verify. Pls send me the Email address I can send both in jpg format.Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Dharma Gamage
Donald,
As far as I know, both Unicode Sinhala:1998 and SLS 1134:2004 are not ‘charts’ per se. There are something more to charts. They are two documents.
I have given the links for both so any interested party can refer. No need for admin to repost.
As for Yansaya and Repaya you are wrong, because page 6 of SLS:1134 (2004) tells how to represent them clearly. (But not Unicode Sinhala: 1998)
I have checked with Devanagari. I do not think they have a yansaya, but the repaya and rakaransaya are handled in the same manner.
-
Dear Dharmma
Unicode consortium is a list of Character allocation tables
SLSI1134 too a Character allocation tableI talk of full individal characters but SLSI1134 only talk of these characters but the elements or locations are not specified
The Chart only consist of the same unicode sinhala chart or code points.
These code points are clearly defined.Not the rest of Sinhala characterrs.That is why you need many different fonts to be down loaded to see the contents.
Simply beciase the different font maker keep the “DU” in different locations.
No specific standard or location
example
0daf = Sinhala letter alpapraana dayanna,
0dd4 =Sinhala vowel sign ketti paa-pillaWith the Sinhala unicode or with SLSI 1134 no one can develop any OCR, Voice and other computer based applications for Sinhala.
This is the problem I am addressing.Without publlishing all the sinhala characters with proper code points nothing can be develop.
Why dont you give me a phone call.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo(0daf,0dd4) = Sinhala letter alpapraana dayanna,Sinhala vowel sign ketti paa-pilla
-
Quotes from SLSI 1134
Quote
1
“Symbols used in the Sinhala language are coded using 128 cells in the half page plane
reserved for Sinhala characters in ISO/IEC 10646. Each cell or position given in
Figure 1 of the standard represents one character.”2
“In addition to storage, retrieval and machine to machine communication in
Sinhala, it also includes provisions to co-exist with other languages as specified in
ISO/IEC 10646.”3
“Codes are not provided in the code set for distinct formations in the language
for the Repaya, Yansaya, and Rakaransaya.”4
“However, specific collation algorithms (not specified in this standard)
are required to correctly collate text encoded in this code.”Unquote
———————-
I hope now Dharmma will accept the the SLSI1134 & Unicode Sinhala is just a few sinhala characters registered in unicode to use a computer as a typewriter.You could see on jpg format the number of Sinhala characters in unicode
http://www.decodeunicode.org/w3.php?ucHex=0D80Quote 2 confirm SLSI1134 = Unicode Sinhala = ISO10646
The SLSI1134 & Sinhala unicode is incomplete set Sinhala Characters. (4) quote confirms all this.
Donald Gamnitillake
Colombo -
Dharma Gamage
Donald,
As a *USER* I will accept Unicode or Donald code or SLS 1134 (or for anything for that matter) if that enables me to freely use Sinhala in the computer environment. Period.
-
Not only Dharmma all the people who wants to use Sinhala must have the free right.
Today it is not there.Implementing my system you all get the right to use SInhala not only in computer as text but on many other applications.
I am the only person who is fighting for these rights and the rights of the Sinhala Langauge.
Yet the authorities are Deaf, Dumb and Blind.
By the way Dharmma and Admin do you know of any place where they need help for computers.
Please visit this site
http://www.rotarycolombocentral.org/funactional Literacy.htm(a). Photograph of the site(not necessary at the first stage),
(b) Address of recipient(e.g. Chief priest’s name) ,
(c) Beneficiaries (e.g. 40 villagers per month),
(d) Number of people in the village served by each centre,
(e) Person responsible in the Rotary Club or project Chairman’s name and email address and telephone number.(e) would be myself and our club
I need thhis information before the 25th of July.Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
http://www.rotarycolombocentral.org/funactional Literacy.htm
or
http://www.rotarycolombocentral.org
Click –Functional Literacy Programme-2006/2007
Donald
-
Hi,
I didn’t had the time to read the complete blog. I’m Yannis Haralambous and I would like to make one thing clear: when I have designed the Sinhala font there was no Unicode yet and so the encoding I used was (and is) completely arbitrary. All my efforts went into designing a nice font for a writing system I admire a lot. Personnally I think I have succedded althout native readers may think otherwise. I have designed my font in METAFONT and others have afterwards converted it into PostScript. I believe that Unicode is the future, but if you know of any characters missing from Unicode you should make a proposal to add them. On the other hand, if you know of ligatures not included in my font, please let me know, and maybe one day I can add them. Ligatures are glyph issues, and have nothing to do with Unicode, which is a character encoding. In November will appear the English translation of a book I have written on Fonts and encodings, from US publisher O’Reilly.
Cheers
Yannis -
Dear Yannis
Thank you for the reply
I very much appriciate.
I will post you the list of my characters soonDonald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Harshula
Hi Dharma Gamage,
Dharma Gamage on Jul 18th, 2006 at 10:27 am wrote:
—————————————————————————-
I will be very grateful if you stop spreading the myth that Unicode Sinhala is as same as SLS1134:2004.Unicode Sinhala is dated 1998.
—————————————————————————-Unicode Sinhala = SLS1134:2004. Perhaps you are failing to understand that Unicode and SLS1134 are not static, periodically they are revised. Go look at:
http://unicode.org/versions/enumeratedversions.html
Nor are they independent of each other. When SLS1134 is revised, e.g. in 2004, it will be presented to Unicode. e.g.
http://www.unicode.org/consortium/utc-minutes/UTC-099-200406.html
——————————————————————————
Toronto, Ontario, Canada — June 15 – 18, 2004Scripts, New Characters – Sinhala (C.16.9)
[99-A3] Action Item for Rick McGowan: Draft a letter of commendation (regarding the new Sri Lankan standard for Sinhala) for the Sri Lanka national body, for Mark’s signature.[L2/04-131]
…
Sri Lanka standard for Sinhala (C.15.12)
[99-C37] Consensus: The UTC recommends that “right-side” forms of conjuncts in Sinhala be represented by a sequence of . [L2/04-131]
[99-A51] Action Item for Rick McGowan: Write a response to Sri Lanka re the subcommittee recommendation. [L2/04-131]
[99-A52] Action Item for Peter Constable: Write a document on consistency of left and right-side conjunct forms in Indic scripts and request an agenda item for the August meeting. [L2/04-131]
——————————————————————————For a bit more history on Unicode Sinhala, please read:
http://fonts.lk/pdf/whatisunicodetalk.pdfHope you now understand why they are equivalent.
Regards,
Harshula -
Dharma Gamage
Harsula,
Please do not try to establish this myth of equating Unicode and SLS1134 anymore to cover the skins of certain people.
I can understand the argument you try to build. You try to say Sinhala Unicode was established only in 2004, so there is no way it could have been incorporated in any of the OSes.
Thus you can easily cover the skins of Dino and gang, who have been working in this issue since mid 1980s. If Unicode was approved only in 2004, what Dino and his people were doing all these days?
I do not talk about versions. I talk only about the originals. Unicode Sinhala was first approved in 1998. So if that were complete, there were no difficulties in incorporating it to the OSes.
The question is why it has not happened.
-
Quote
The question is why it has not happened.
unouteBecause it was incomplete Sinhala characters
and
Quote from SLSI
“However, specific collation algorithms (not specified in this standard)
are required to correctly collate text encoded in this code.”
unquoteHidden area that still kept under carpets
So my claims are fully justified.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Dharma Gamage
Friends,
I just visited Milinda Moragoda’s revamped web site http://www.milinda.org.
It is very interesting that I cannot read the Sinhala pages. All I see is garbage. I think Milinda too uses Unicode!
If he knew the issues Milinda would have used the same solution used by Lankaenews or Lankadeepa instead of using proprietary fonts.
What is the big idea of having a web site that cannot be read by the majority of users?
-
This is the font set he is using
font-family: FCLWebSinhala, FCLSinhalaWebS
I told him this probelm in a public forum when they were contesting for elections
He told me that I am telling him the empty side of the water glass. This is the understanding Millinda has.
I wish he will be able to see this grabage using Dharmmas computer or mine
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Siddhalepa Vedamahattaya
I was there at that meeting when Donald questioned Moragoda on standardisation of Sinhala issue. I think that was the point all these started.
I remember how Moragoda responded to queries. Then he did not know how to talk properly. Not that he was impolite. He was polite and replied in detail, but his tone was very arrogant. (as Donald says, instead of replying the question he has reverted saying Donald sees a glass half empty! – something a politician should never do)
Anyway, now I think Moragoda has changed after losing the election. (Politicians learn lessons only after losing elections. Till then they think they are the gods.)
For those who have missed the fun that day, I reproduce an extract from an unpublished article. (Authour not given.)
It is not on Sinhala standardisation, but any IT enthusiast in Sri Lanka, should read it. It gives a clear impression how the two major political parties sees ICT.
[quote]
Immediately before the General Election of 2004, Computer Society of Sri Lanka invites representatives from both major political fronts to present their views on ICT policy, to an audience consisting mainly of ICT professionals. Moragoda was the obvious choice from UNP. Susil Premjayanth comes representing UPFA, probably because he is the secretary of it, and nothing else. I feel sorry for Premjayanth. In this subject, he is only a Lilliput compared to Moragoda. I hope the crowd would not take too harsh on him.
There is a sharp difference in the approaches taken by the two politicians. Moragoda, the Messiah of ICT of the developing world, comes in his royal Ambassador, escorted by another Ambassador and few more vehicles full of his ‘chuk-golayas’.
Moragoda’s officials seem to know nothing about communication in the political world. Perhaps they wanted to show their devotion to the boss. They occupy the entire front row, quite inadvertently creating an invisible barrier between their master and the audience.
Moragoda needs no preparation to answer quires on ICT. He takes questions one by one, answers them at the conceptual level by taking examples from USA and Malaysia. He explains his future plans in detail. If he is not sure of any point he passes the question to an official in the front row. One of his golayas immediately comes to rescue the master. Sometimes several officials, one after another, stand to answer the same question. Somebody asks a simple question about some minor thing, and even before Moragoda has a chance, a junior officer rises and replies on his behalf. I see Moragoda nodding. He might be quite happy with the loyalty shown by his yes-men.
Without even realising it, Moragoda is doing two mistakes. One – He is using public officials in his political campaign, which is by no means ethical. Two- he gives the impression that he does not know what is going on, and helpless without the assistance of the officials. Both reflect negative on him.
A senior academic puts a simple question: “Mr. Moragoda, why do you want to spam our mail boxes by sending us unsolicited political propaganda?”
Moragoda with a visible uneasiness, tries to explain in detail and says if anyone does not want the mails there is always an ‘unsubscribe’ option. A dumb response. He should have been smarter. “I tried that…” retorts the academic, “…but still I get your mails!”
We all have a good laugh on Moragoda’s expense. Moragoda apologises and says he would take corrective measures, but to no avail. The damage has already been done.
I do not say Moragoda did not answer the questions or evaded them. He answered every one of them satisfactorily, but the problem was his answers were too abstract. He uses no anecdotes, no yarns and absolutely no humour. He never smiles. All of us might have been ICT professionals but we are all tired after a hard days work. The last thing we want is another conceptual level lecture on ICT. We look for something simple. Moragoda fails to deliver that.
The approach taken by Susil Premjayanth is exactly opposite. He comes alone, clad in pure white and with a book in his hand. He is obviously not prepared and probably he knows nothing about ICT. Still he looks confident. He smiles at the crowd and requests not to ask technical questions, as he himself is not an expert. He hints that the real experts are in the audience. He would have made Dale Carnegie beaming with proud with that statement. I see some in the audience already nodding their heads.
Having built the rapport, Premjayanth takes questions one by one and gives short and simple answers. (Obviously, unlike Moragoda, that is the best he can do!) Without a row of obedient officials creating a communication barrier, Premjayanth has no difficulty in building an effective relationship with the audience. He goes one more step further by remembering the names of the persons in the crowd and addressing them by their names. Now he is making Dale Carnegie really proud. He smiles and cracks jokes. To the audience, he is no more a politician; he is their next-door neighbour.
The same academic now puts a similar question to the speaker: “Mr. Premjayanth, before you Mr. Milinda Moragoda addressed us. But we find your voice is much coarse than Mr. Moragoda’s. I think that is because you go on addressing political rallies in the traditional manner, while Mr. Moragoda uses modern technology like e-mail in his campaign. Don’t you think it is the time for you too to adopt such new techniques?”
Pat comes the reply. (It is a gem!) “That has always been the problem with UNP. They do not understand the culture of this country. So they go on sending you e-mails. No, thank you sir. I do not want to engage in any e-mail campaigns. I will do my campaign in the way I am used to. Let’s see the results on April second!”
Hats off to you Mr. Premjayanth! We all erupt in laughter and for the first time that day the audience gives a round of applause. Mind you, this is a hundred percent IT savvy crowd clapping for someone who has just spoken against the use of e-mail! Cannot help. Premjayanth has won the day.
What Premjayanth did not tell was that more than half of the e-mail users in this country, being members of the affluent class, will anyway vote for UNP whether they receive propaganda mails or not. So why waste time and money on votes you already have in your pocket? Why not go to paddy fields, market places, factories and temples and attempt to win the hearts of the simple folks by addressing them in a language they understand using a communication medium they are comfortable with?
The verdict: It was a fight between David and Goliath. We all know who won.
[unquote]
-
Harshula
Hi Dharma Gamage,
Dharma Gamage on Jul 19th, 2006 at 12:25 pm wrote:
————————————————————————
I just visited Milinda Moragoda’s revamped web site http://www.milinda.org.It is very interesting that I cannot read the Sinhala pages. All I see is garbage. I think Milinda too uses Unicode!
————————————————————————No, it’s not Unicode. And the Tamil section is not Unicode either. If it was Unicode I would have been able to see the letters in both cases.
It’s yet another Sinhala font with their own proprietary encoding scheme. Just like Donaldcode.
Regards,
Harshula -
Dharma Gamage
I have a vague idea that the earlier version of Milinda’s site was done with Sinhala Unicode fonts. If I remember correctly, it was done by the same company that did the ICTA site.
May by even Mr. Milinda Moragoda too had lost faith in Unicode.
-
The day when Sri Lanka use “Donald’s Code” these things will never happens
Harsula you have not answered the following yet
:Quote from SLSI
“However, specific collation algorithms (not specified in this standard)
are required to correctly collate text encoded in this code.”
unquote”Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Harshula
Hi Donald,
It’s quite clear now why you are so confused about Unicode Sinhala (SLS1134:2004). You completely don’t understand the concept of ‘ligatures’ in *smart* fonts.
Donald Gaminitillake on Jul 18th, 2006 at 1:28 pm wrote:
——————————————————————
The Chart only consist of the same unicode sinhala chart or code points.
These code points are clearly defined.Not the rest of Sinhala characterrs.That is why you need many different fonts to be down loaded to see the contents.
Simply beciase the different font maker keep the “DU” in different locations.
No specific standard or location
example
0daf = Sinhala letter alpapraana dayanna,
0dd4 =Sinhala vowel sign ketti paa-pilla
——————————————————————Your explanation/suggestion is completely and utterly incorrect.
An example of a ligature is “DU” (0daf,0dd4). Very simply, it’s two ‘inter-connected’ letters.
You need to first realise that fonts are much *smarter* now. There are two notable sets of tables in these fonts:
Table 1) Defined by Unicode (non-ligatures)
– The codepoints of the letters you have typed are defined by Unicode, these are looked-up in the font, if it is *not* a ligature, then the glyph/image is drawn on your screen. If it is a ligature, there’s an additional step.Table 2) Defined by Font (ligatures)
– If the codepoints of the letters you have typed form a ligature, e.g. you have typed (0daf,0dd4) dayanna,paa-pilla, then an additional lookup is done *internally* in the font.
– This works by looking in an internal table to see whether there is a ligature for the two codepoints, in our example (0daf,0dd4). If there is a ligature for the two codepoints (0daf,0dd4), then the glyph/image of the ligature is drawn on the screen. e.g. “DU”.
– This means that whenever you write “DU” (0daf,0dd4) the user can expect to see “DU” regardless of which Unicode Sinhala font is used.
– This means that “DU” does *NOT* have to have a separate codepoint of its own like the primitive printing press technology used by Donaldcode. It is simply recognised and drawn on the screen by typing (0daf,0dd4).Donald Gaminitillake on Jul 19th, 2006 at 4:42 pm wrote:
——————————————————————
Harsula you have not answered the following yet:Quote from SLSI
“However, specific collation algorithms (not specified in this standard)
are required to correctly collate text encoded in this code.”
unquote”
——————————————————————http://www.ucsc.cmb.ac.lk/ltrl/public/Localization/Sinhala_Collation_&_Encoding_2%5B1%5D.0.pdf
Donald, do you even understand what collation is?
Regards,
Harshula -
JC Ahangama
Dharma and Harshula,
Being a techie Harshula knows this, but you missed to answer the question properly perhaps due to a slip of the mind. It happens to everybody.
It is simple to find out what font is used in a plain web page like what you are discussing here. Simply look for View Source from the menu and search for the ‘font’ key word in the resulting text page. You will find the font-family declaration(s).
In this page, they specify to use FCLWebSinhala, and failing which show in FCLSinhalaWebS and no deafult font if those fonts are absent. So, the default is the regular Latin font of the browser. The question marks indicate that the default Latin font does not have letters for those Unicode positions.
Copy the garbage characters, paste it into Notepad, and change the font to some Sinhala web font you have. You’d be able to see some of the characters in Sinhala but they would not make sense. Now change the font to a Unicode Sinhala font. You’ll see only English characters — same as what you saw on the web page.
This illustrates the problem we are facing. There are many Sinhala fonts. Each define code points with different alphabetic letter. They don’t agree from one to the other. There are two classes of Sinhala fonts: Web fonts that use Latin code points and Sinhala Unicode block based fonts such as Iskoola Pota.
To read Sinhala you should have the font specified by the web page. Supposing everyone agrees to use the same standard, i.e. same character for same code point, you should expect to be able to read Sinhala everywhere. We still would have two problems:
1. The web developers would have to have many font faces to make their sites attractive. Hard work, just for a few thousand rich people in the cities to read their web pages.
2. The abugida type fonts (Unicode fonts) need font rendering specifically installed for the web browser to do the ‘complex font’ rendering. Or, they’d have to do font embedding plus rendering in each brand browser.The technical ramifications of moving Sinhala to ICT would have vastly different results depending on what the majority finally accepts as their standard (standard in the sense, consensus). The problem with this statement is that ‘majority’ in Sri Lanka means ‘the powerful’.
I say it is best to tack along with the Western Europeans. That way, we only need to say our characters look different than theirs and to be quiet because German Fraktur and Gaelic do have different characters shapes. We have already said this to Microsoft re: Pali. They do not have objections, and agreed to find the cause of our font not uniformly showing correctly in all Windows XP machines.
If this is solved, we in the Pali group would have gone way far ahead of Sri Lankans. I know Lankans want somehow the government to say this is what you should do. We are not bound by that silly notion.
-
Harshula
Unicode Vs Donaldcode Vs JCcode: How to write ‘train’ in Sinhala
Assessment criteria
a) Encoding scheme is internally consistent in the provided example.
– This verifies that the scheme has been given at least some thought. This is essentially to give the participants some easy marks.b) Sinhala script and Latin script visible at the same time in a text file.
– This ensures that the Sinhala script is given ‘first class’ position alongside Latin. If you can’t write the Sinhala script and the Latin script simultaneously in a text file then you can’t use Sinhala in low-level applications, thus relegating the Sinhala script to a ‘second class’ status.c) There are existing implementations
– This is important for two reasons. One, is that it is a practical solution, not just a theoretical solution. Two, it minimises the latency before it is available in the market, thus becoming widely adopted.Unicode
=======
දු (0x0daf,0x0dd4)
ම් (0x0db8,0x0dca)
රි (0x0dbb,0x0dd2)
ය (0x0dba)(a) 1/1, it is internally consistent in this example.
(b) 1/1, the goal of the Unicode project is to uniquely encode all scripts.
(c) 1/1, GNU/Linux implementation available and MS language pack available.
(total) 3/3JCcode
======
[Requirements: “equivalent of one Sinhala letter. So, in your case it might be two Latin letters.” Hence a slight format change of JC’s submission.]ðu (240,117)
m (109)
ri (114,105)
ya (121,97)(a) 1/1, it is internally consistent in this example.
(b) 0/1, JCcode collides with Latin, thus not allowing Sinhala script and Latin script to be displayed simultaneously in a text file. It relegates the Sinhala script to ‘second class’ status.
(c) 1/1, Using the latin script should be available on all platforms. Using the Sinhala script apparently requires downloading a font.
(total) 2/3Donaldcode
==========
Du =3708
Mm=4501
Ri= 4806
Ya= 4702(a) 1/1, it is internally consistent in this example.
(b) 1/1, encoding values will not collide with Latin one, however it should be noted that the encoding values will collide with Unicode.
(c) 0/1, no implementations available, purely theoretical.
(total) 2/3Conclusion
==========Unicode wins because it provides the best medium-long term solution. The currently slow adoption because of the slowness to market of a vendor holding a monopoly on OSs is causing a lot of pain. JCcode is an interesting solution in that it tries to accommodate the Sinhala language, not the Sinhala script, in old technology. JCcode is worth observing. Donaldcode is technically already a dinosaur even before it is implemented. For a solution which started from scratch it is quite disappointing.
Regards,
Harshula -
JC Ahangama
Harshula,
What?:
a) Encoding scheme is internally consistent in the provided example.
Please explain, if necessary with an example.
I know its all English. But it has no discernible meaning, granted tech sounding words.b) Sinhala script and Latin script visible at the same time in a text file.
– This ensures that the Sinhala script is given ‘first class’ position alongside Latin. If you can’t write the Sinhala script and the Latin script simultaneously in a text file then you can’t use Sinhala in low-level applications, thus relegating the Sinhala script to a ’second class’ status.Here’s the sample:
[Sinhala]
mee vacana síhala bhaaxaaveni. harzula magee miþurekya. jayaveevaa!
[English]
This is English. English rules if you like it or not. So, stay near English if you care about your future.Re:
‘first class’ position alongside Latin, above,Here is the First Class language list:
Standard Scripts:
languages with Basic Latin & Latin-1:
If you call these ‘standard’, it implies that all others are non-standard.
Source:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otfntdev/standot/appen.aspx
Danish
Dutch
English
Faroese
Finish
Flemish
German
Icelandic
Irish
Italian
Norwegian
Portuguese
Spanish
SwedishAnd here is the ‘second class’, if you please:
Also Standard but have problems:
languages with Unicode Extended Latin:
Afrikaans
Basque
Breton
Catalan
Croatian
Czech
Esperanto
Estonian
French
Frisian
Greenlandic
Hungarian
Latin
Latvian
Lithuanian
Maltese
Polish
Provencal
Rhaeto-Romantic
Romanian
Romany
Slovak
Slovenian
Sorbian (Lower)
Sorbian (Upper)
Turkish
Welsh
VietnameseThe next classifications are by me:
The third Class:
Chinese
Japanese
KoreanFourth Class:
Arabic and HebrewFifth Class
Abugidas (All Indics and Sinhala Unicode block.==============================
It seems like you are suggesting German is second class to itself. Romanized Sinhala is an adaptation of Icelandic.Icelandic is a ‘first class’ script.
c) There are existing implementations
– This is important for two reasons. One, is that it is a practical solution, not just a theoretical solution. Two, it minimises the latency before it is available in the market, thus becoming widely adopted.Romanized Sinhala:
garu siyaluðenaa veþayi,oba mata liyuvoþ mama obata evannam font eka.
þaraha ganna epaa. namuþ meeka þaraGayak novee. meeka lákaavee anaagaþa parapura koyiþaram hoðin lookee anikuþ aya samaGa karata kara þaraGa kaariiva iðiriyata yanna uðavvak veyiða baaðhaavak veeða kiyaa soyaa balana avasþaavak. obee hoo magee þaavakaalika ðinuma pæraðuma væni ðee apa siþin ivaþ kara yuþuya kiyaa mama siþanavaa.
aþana meþana karalaa þibuna paliyata meeka þamayi karanna oone kiyana eka bhayaanaka ðeyak. ehenam, api aaµdu venas nokara eka pakxayak kala ðeema iðiriyata genayanavaaða næþinam væraði maarga aþa hæra ðamaa aøuþ maarga haa krama anuva yali iðiriyata yanavaaða?
rooman akuru síhalen ðæn paali suuþra liyaagena yanavaa. noyek jaaþikayan eya ihalin anumaþa karaa. kisikenek eya pahala ðæmuvee nææ.
mee siyalla mama liyuvee vindoos nootpææd ekeyi.
sþuþiyi.
-
JC Ahangama
Wait!
You talk about latency. Latency is the fancy technical word that says delay.
Out of the three we have, romanized Sinhala is already there. here’s the jaaþika giiya:
===============
namoo namoo maþaaapa zrii lákaa namoo namoo namoo namoo maaþaa
sunðara siri barinii surænði aþi soobhamaana lákaa
ðhaanya ðhanaya neka mal palaþuru piri jaya bhuumiya lákaaapa hata sæpa siri seþa saðanaa jiivanayee maaþaa
piliganumæna apa bhakþi puujaa namoo namoo maaþaa
apa zrii lákaa namoo namoo namoo namoo maaþaaobavee apa viðyaa
obamaya apa saþyaa
obavee apa zakþii
apa haða þula bhakþiioba apa aalookee
apagee anupraanee
oba apa jiivanavee
apa mukþiya obaveenava jiivana ðeminee niþina apa pubuðu karan maaþaa
jçaana viirya vadavamina rægena yanu mæna jaya bhuumi karaaeka mavakage ðaru kæla bævinaa
yamu yamu vii nopamaa
preema vadaa sæma beeðha ðuræralaa
namoo namoo maaþaa
apa zrii lákaa namoo namoo namoo namoo maaþaa
=============== -
JC Ahangama
PROOF OF THE PUDDING
Proof of the pudding is in the eating. The romanized alphabet was developed with the oversight of a Buddhist monk who is nearly computer illiterate and very weak in English. He can bring up web pages and read them and barely could use email. He became extremely enthusiastic seeing the prospect of the ability to write email in Sinhala. He knows the English alphabet as anyone who walks this earth. He knows Sinhala and Pali (and Japanese and Sanskrit). He provided the top grammar references to get the romanized alphabet going. He uses it daily in Latin characters because his computer cannot show the font correctly. That’s the ultimate test!
Now, those who saw the romanized Sinhala, react in this Anglo-centric way:
This is not Sinhala; This is not English; What are those funny characters; I don’t know what they are; I’ll have to learn the Sinhala alphabet; Who is going to judge it as correct or not; Could I ever learn these; Won’t it look funny, especially to my native English friend, now that they could read it to some extent? Etc.The French guy who wrote-in a few days back won’t see it as such because he is French and uses Latin characters for HIS own language which is not English and uses some of these funny characters himself.
This withdrawal is natural, especially because Lankans identify Latin characters with English. One person said, “apita ígirisi bææ, sinhalen liyanna bærinam liyanna epaa” or something like that in response to something I wrote at the Unicode Sinhala group of Google. Romanized Sinhala is such a threat that wherever I use it people try to get rid of me. It works already and it is pretty complete. It has no shortcomings except advantages.
And, it has a bonus! It can be written in Sinhala script too. Not everywhere, because technology is nascent. It is at par with Sinhala Unicode block based script in these matters. But we are working with Microsoft daily to resolve them. We are not waiting Unicode or MS to tell us what we should do.
-
Harsula you teaching algebra for the pre O/L students.
You take weeks to post a reply may waiting for god to send the instructions
Now you are sending”Proposed collation elements” It is the same old unicode sinhala or SLSI1134.
“Proposed collation elements” set “DU” or even typewriter part is not there.
You talk about my code points. (you are going into to the tentative allocation figures)
Quote from SLSI
“However, specific collation algorithms (not specified in this standard)
are required to correctly collate text encoded in this code.”
unquoteQuote
“then an additional lookup is done *internally* in the font.””
unquoteThis is the hidden area where they have palced the code points
Other than DONALD’S CODE no one in Sri Lanka ever published a set of Complete SInhala Character allocation Table.If there is a standard one cannot have an area of “(not specified in this standard)”
This is a game of monopoly.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
JC Ahangama
ANY TAKERS?
The Sinhala alphabet and its romanized form is described here:
http://www.sinhalaheritage.comHow can you judge something that you have not seen?
Why don’t you read it and hack it to death? I am ready to answer any question, take any insult. I plead you to give it your best hearing AND RETURN YOUR COMMENTS here.
-
Harshula
Hi JC Ahangama,
JC Ahangama on Jul 20th, 2006 at 2:29 am wrote:
—————————————————————————
a) Encoding scheme is internally consistent in the provided example.
Please explain, if necessary with an example.
I know its all English. But it has no discernible meaning, granted tech sounding words.
—————————————————————————By “internally consistent”, it means that all the letters are represented uniquely and there are no collisions. e.g. The codepoint for ‘m’ and ‘r’ are *not* the same.
JC Ahangama on Jul 20th, 2006 at 2:29 am wrote:
—————————————————————————
Here’s the sample:
[Sinhala]
mee vacana síhala bhaaxaaveni. harzula magee miþurekya. jayaveevaa!
[English]
This is English. English rules if you like it or not. So, stay near English if you care about your future.
—————————————————————————Remember that language and script are two separate issues.
You have *not* written with the Sinhala *script* at all. You have written two *languages* using the *same* Latin script. Remember the requirement is to allow:
“b) Sinhala script and Latin script visible at the same time in a text file.”
And your scheme has failed to achieve this because you chose to overlap your encoding scheme in the Latin region. Your scheme can *not* display both the Sinhala script and Latin script in a text file at the same time. The text editor will automatically display the Latin script only by default. That is why your scheme relegates Sinhala script to second class status.
Most of the people that want to use the Sinhala language with computers also want to use the Sinhala script to write the language.
Regards,
Harshula -
Harshula
Hi Donald,
Donald Gaminitillake on Jul 20th, 2006 at 7:30 am wrote:
———————————————————————–
Now you are sending”Proposed collation elements” It is the same old unicode sinhala or SLSI1134.“Proposed collation elements” set “DU” or even typewriter part is not there.
…
If there is a standard one cannot have an area of “(not specified in this standard)”
———————————————————————–Like I asked earlier, do you even understand what collation is? Please tell me what you think it means.
Donald Gaminitillake on Jul 20th, 2006 at 7:30 am wrote:
———————————————————————–
Quote
“then an additional lookup is done *internally* in the font.””
unquoteThis is the hidden area where they have palced the code points
Other than DONALD’S CODE no one in Sri Lanka ever published a set of Complete SInhala Character allocation Table.
———————————————————————–Donald, are you deaf? It is not a *hidden area* and there aren’t any “code points” hidden there either! If you choose to open your eyes you will see it for yourself.
The reason why “no one in Sri Lanka ever published a set of Complete SInhala Character allocation Table” other than Donaldcode, is because it is a *stupid* solution. It is technically backward and completely unnecessary in computers. The reason why only you have done it is because you come from a printing industry background and do not understand the newer technologies.
Donaldcode is not something you should be proud of, it’s embarrassing. Furthermore, you are taking people for a ride, just like a crooked politician.
Regards,
Harshula -
Harshula,
You said,
============
By “internally consistent”, it means that all the letters are represented uniquely and there are no collisions. e.g. The codepoint for ‘m’ and ‘r’ are *not* the same.
============
I agree m is definitely not r. Yes. The code points are different, because otherwise, either m could show as r or r could show as m. That would have been a hell of a confusion, err, collision. Wow! That did not occur to me until now. And, that’s what is meant by ‘internally consistent’? I am getting too old for these new terms. They indeed are too complex to understand without the m and r enlightenment. Thank you.You,
============================
Remember that language and script are two separate issues.
You have *not* written with the Sinhala *script* at all. You have written two *languages* using the *same* Latin script. Remember the requirement is to allow:
“b) Sinhala script and Latin script visible at the same time in a text file.”Ok. Romanized Sinhala has to be in Latin when it is written alongside English when using this web application we are using now.
You win.
Applause!
I lose.
Louder applause!!Now, may I ask in common American English,
WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?Know English letters Know Sinhala = Can read romanized Sinhala
ígriisi hoodiyee akuru noðanna kenek kohomaða komputarayak paavicci kalee?We are not actually writing in any script. If you are a programmer or anyone that had any experience in computer science, you’ll understand that. We send commands from the keyboard that evoke some action in the computer to show a character out of a font on the screen.
If the font say, at Unicode code point 65 has a Latin character A, then you see the letter A. If the font has a shape like that of a Sinhala ayanna, that would show on the screen. This is the fundamental thing that the people in Sri Lanka did not ask themselves when someone made the proposal for a Unicode page in 1992. They even lied about Sinhala. Read:
http://www.unicode.org/Public/TEXT/UTR-2.TXT
kumbhakarµayaa niði avuruðu ðahayak!
කුම්භකර්ණයා නිදි අවුරුදු දහයක්I can guarantee that above Sinhala Unicode characters would decompose after upload. (But, we shouldn’t make little boys cry by pointing to that as a loss for someone).
Unicode and ISO guys had a good old boys meeting in the US at that time and mapped out a strategy to exploit the Third World that they (mainly European ISO) are masters at exploiting. (Not their fault — our weakness) What is the big idea on this manufactured requirement of two languages, two scripts? Think of English and French and apply the same rule. I am not wasting time on this. Read my earlier entries on this matter.
Harshula, if you are genuine, you should read my entries without making me repeat. Also, you should educate yourself on romanized Sinhala if you want to challenge it. Bring up something that we have not addressed at SinhalaHeritage.com. And remember, I haven’t challenged you on Snhala Unicode. The one time I talked about it you said …sometning… No. period.
You,
=================
And your scheme has failed to achieve this because you chose to overlap your encoding scheme in the Latin region. Your scheme can *not* display both the Sinhala script and Latin script in a text file at the same time. The text editor will automatically display the Latin script only by default. That is why your scheme relegates Sinhala script to second class status.
=================Of course, Latin script and Sinhala script can coexist in the same text file. Just select the fonts for each. Oh, I see, you are talking about some text editor. Text editors are rudimentary applications. Who wants to be making mult-language documents in text editors? They are Plain Text applications. That’s the term you might want to use when talking technical, Sir. Plain text.
Okay, I am glad you brought it up. The email client is a text editor. Now you write an email message to me with the two languages and email it to me. I’ll only see a bunch of question marks for Sinhala.
On the other hand, folks, if you write in English and romanized Sinhala, and send out an email, you’ll see the entire message. And if you are too lazy to read in romanized Sinhala, copy and paste it to Notepad and change the font to the Sinhala smart font and read it in Sinhala script!
I do the reverse of it all the time: write inside Notepad using Sinhala smart font and then copy and paste into the email message. But the monks who do not have the latest kind of computer just write in romanized Sinhala. It is just like the prosperous German guy writing in his Windows 98 computer.
Though the Latin alphabet was so hard to learn for you, Harshula, these monks know it quite well though they cannot speak English.
People use Word Processors to make documents. That is where work is not done for Unicode. I hope you are keeping up with technical updates on this.You
============
Most of the people that want to use the Sinhala language with computers also want to use the Sinhala script to write the language.
==============That’s true. However, most of the people do not have the means to use the Sinhala script on their computers either because they don’t want to risk their computers to go through major transformation just to be able to write some letter or they simply can’t afford computers that support Unicode, which you rich guys have.
So, they’d rather use romanized Sinhala which can be typed in ANY computer without nearly killing them and more importantly, electronically transport it to another computer without degradation.
More responses later.
-
Quote
Donaldcode is not something you should be proud of, it’s embarrassing. Furthermore, you are taking people for a ride, just like a crooked politician.
unquoteI have not taken any one for a ride. Over 20 years of your Dinos work still no one can use sinhala on each and every OS platform. You guys are taking people for a ride using the public funds.
Quote
The reason why “no one in Sri Lanka ever published a set of Complete SInhala Character allocation Table” other than Donaldcode,
UnquoteThanks for the comment. This also confirm only Donald have published a Character allocation Table for Sinhala. This will help me to bring you to give evidance if neccessary to prove Donalds unique Character allocation Table.
Quote
is because it is a *stupid* solution.
unquoteThankyou once again for accepting Donalds Code is also a Solution to the issue.
You have named it as *stupid* solution. Great It the a Solution for your SLSI1134.Quote
because you come from a printing industry background
unquoteThe characters come from the Printing and publishing industry and not from typewriter
See the evolution of type set for any language. Printing and publishing industry is the pillers of type set and characters. As I have written before you guys have no kowledge in typology and typography Please visit Ingrin and take few lessons on this subject. Else go to The Netherlands and obtain your lessons. They are the best in this subjectDonald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Harshula
Hi JC Ahangama,
JC Ahangama on Jul 21st, 2006 at 6:42 am wrote:
———————————————————————–
WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL?
———————————————————————–In the lower layers of applications and operating systems, there’s a reliance on using pure text. In most of those cases there’s no facility to specify the font. Hence both Latin and Sinhala scripts must be usable simultaneously in text files.
JC Ahangama on Jul 21st, 2006 at 6:42 am wrote:
———————————————————————–
We are not actually writing in any script. If you are a programmer or anyone that had any experience in computer science, you’ll understand that. We send commands from the keyboard that evoke some action in the computer to show a character out of a font on the screen.
———————————————————————–Actually, you are writing in a ‘script’, the codepoints map to a particular script. When you save to a file the bytes that you save represent a script. Now don’t get language and script mixed up.
JC Ahangama on Jul 21st, 2006 at 6:42 am wrote:
———————————————————————–
Unicode and ISO guys had a good old boys meeting in the US at that time and mapped out a strategy to exploit the Third World that they (mainly European ISO) are masters at exploiting.
———————————————————————–I don’t understand why you make such outlandish statements. Having unique codepoints for Sinhala gives Sinhala first class status. Sharing the codepoints with Latin, like in your solution, gives Sinhala second class status because the Sinhala script will not be usable everywhere in the operating system.
JC Ahangama on Jul 21st, 2006 at 6:42 am wrote:
———————————————————————–
Bring up something that we have not addressed at SinhalaHeritage.com.
———————————————————————–I’ll construct another round of Unicode Vs Donaldcode Vs JCcode, hopefully examples such as that are more useful for illustrating the issues.
JC Ahangama on Jul 21st, 2006 at 6:42 am wrote:
———————————————————————–
Oh, I see, you are talking about some text editor. Text editors are rudimentary applications. Who wants to be making mult-language documents in text editors? They are Plain Text applications. That’s the term you might want to use when talking technical, Sir. Plain text.
———————————————————————–No, we are not talking about “text editors” nor “Plain Text”. Please read this so you understand why text files are important:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_fileJC Ahangama on Jul 21st, 2006 at 6:42 am wrote:
———————————————————————–
And if you are too lazy to read in romanized Sinhala, copy and paste it to Notepad and change the font to the Sinhala smart font and read it in Sinhala script!
———————————————————————–This is exactly how your scheme gives the Sinhala script a second class status.
Regards,
Harshula -
Harshula
Hi Donald,
Donald Gaminitillake on Jul 21st, 2006 at 7:33 am wrote:
—————————————————————————
I have not taken any one for a ride.
—————————————————————————What about all those newspapers that you took for a ride in 2004-2005. Now that they realise you took them for a ride, they aren’t publishing your fiction.
One thing you are best known for is misquoting!
Donald Gaminitillake on Jul 14th, 2006 at 11:05 pm wrote:
———————————————————–
You were the people who said there are “elements” and “unions” after the joiner but failed to give the code points after the joiner.
———————————————————–Show me a quote where I say there are such things “after the joiner”. If you can NOT, feel free to apologise for lying.
Donald Gaminitillake on May 13th, 2006 at 3:53 pm (post number 60) wrote:
—————————————————————————
Quote from “”http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html#comb”” UCS
What are combining characters?
—————————————————————————Donald Gaminitillake on May 17th, 2006 at 2:29 pm (post number 93) wrote:
—————————————————————————
I have quoted the URLsee the tread; This URL was given by Wasantha
Quote from “”http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html#comb”” UCS
—————————————————————————Wasantha did *NOT* give the URL. You did. There’s probably more misquoting by you than genuine quotes.
And now we have the latest and greatest example …
Donald Gaminitillake on Jul 21st, 2006 at 7:33 am wrote:
—————————————————————————
Quote
The reason why “no one in Sri Lanka ever published a set of Complete SInhala Character allocation Table” other than Donaldcode,
UnquoteThanks for the comment. This also confirm only Donald have published a Character allocation Table for Sinhala. This will help me to bring you to give evidance if neccessary to prove Donalds unique Character allocation Table.
Quote
is because it is a *stupid* solution.
unquoteThankyou once again for accepting Donalds Code is also a Solution to the issue.
You have named it as *stupid* solution. Great It the a Solution for your SLSI1134.
—————————————————————————This is laughable, I’ve quoted you saying:
“no one in Sri Lanka ever published a set of Complete SInhala Character allocation Table”, so you’d have to give your own quote as evidence.If you wanted to travel from Colombo to Matara, a *stupid* solution is to swim. A *smarter* solution, using modern technology is to catch a bus. This is exactly like Donaldcode, Donaldcode is the *stupid* solution and a *smarter* solution using modern computer technlogy, is Unicode Sinhala.
Regards,
Harshula -
Quote
they aren’t publishing your fiction.
UnquoteLirneAsia is doing that job, Until the truth is exposed and Archived the content.
Quote
“after the joiner”.
unquoteI dug into past history from Linux site
quote
This union produces a set of encodings containing all the basic elements (letters). Ironically, this union not only contains your 1660 letters, it also includes baendi akuru. You should also note that the basic elements are not encoded by a fixed number of bits.
Unquote
Linux talk of a union.Also SLSI 1134
“However, specific collation algorithms (not specified in this standard)
are required to correctly collate text encoded in this code.”Also
Quote
then an additional lookup is done *internally* in the font
unquoteAll above functions are talking after “joiner”
Quote
The reason why “no one in Sri Lanka ever published a set of Complete SInhala Character allocation Table” other than Donaldcode, is because it is a *stupid* solution.
unquoteOther than Donald no one else ever published a a set of Complete SInhala Character allocation Table.
Whether the Solution is *stupid* solution ot “Smart” Solution is decided by the pubic or usersYou all are great at twisting words and focus the subject to different destination
Do not forget the “the Rabbit and the Hare” story.
I talk of a Total Solution for IT is Sri Lanka and you are talking using a computer as a typewriter
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Quote from “”http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html#comb”” UCS
—————————————————————————
Wasantha did *NOT* give the URL. You did. There’s probably more misquoting by you than genuine quotes.*******
Why worry now after two months and on 3rd set. You should have claimed then not after sleeping for two months.
This clearly confirm the fact you guys are going through all the content that I wrote and trying your best to find some technical question.
Why so worry about a “Stupid” Solution swiming towards Matara.
You know I have the truth and Microdsoft understood it.The Total Solution for IT Sinhala is with me. That is why you guys are so worry reading day and night the archives.
Please study the Character allocation table the total solution.
When Latin Characters are spread on several unicode pages you guys are not worried.
They have a total solution as well as the CJK groupWhen I tell that the Sinhala character should spread among several unicode pages that bites you.
There is no Total Solution for SInhala without a correct full character allocation table or Donalds Code.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Harshula and everybody,
I understand what you say about text files. A text file is a file that is devoid of any formatting. The technical term used is Plain text. That is why Wiki says that the article you mentioned should be merged with Plain text. (Read the top of that page).
Plain text is more a MS term but gaining acceptance. It is because it aslo defines along with it what is technically a text editor. The page on Plain text explains what is (technically) a text editor.
That Wiki page you gave
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_file
is going be axed in favor of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_text
Read the discussion. It says that it is too much like a dictionary entry.Any way, folks, not that it matters to you, but perhaps I should say that I come from a mainframe-mini-PC background with experience of teaching 370 Assembly down to computer litearcy at University level. So, I only ask you to give a bit of sympathetic listening to the old man. He might say something actually useful to know maybe some months later (hopefully not too late).
This is a vain fight — wastes my time.
Please listen:
I am talking about Windows in particular but the concepts apply to other PC OSs too.
A PC has two user interfaces: Text and Graphical.When you run the black command window, you use the text interface. Do the following:
Start -> Run -> cmd / command
‘cmd’ is for Windows NT and XP and ‘command’ is for earlier ones.
The black screen you get is the Text interface. It accepts input from the keyboard according to what is termed the active code page. The default font Harshula is talking about is actually the default Code Page. If you issue the command ‘chcp’, it will reply with the number of the current code page. This is usually 437 (OEM United States).Change your keyboard layout from Sinhala to English and type something in the black screen. (Remember to click on the title bar of the command window to change the focus back to it). You see Latin characters. Now, hold down the right-hand side ALT key and try some more keys. (n, m etc.). You’ll see the accented characters.
Now change the keyboard layout to Unicode Sinhala. Go back to the command screen and type anything. You’ll see question marks!
Now if you want to know if there is a code page for Sinhala or any Abiguda script, go here and look:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/intl/unicode_81rn.asp
The numbers over 950 do not apply to MS.You can actually change the code page using the following command:
MODE CON CODEPAGE SELECT=xxx
where, xxx is a 3-digit code page. You won’t break your computer doing this. Make sure you issue the command again to change back to code page 437 or just reboot the PC before your boss fires you. -
Harshula said,
===========
Actually, you are writing in a ’script’, the codepoints map to a particular script. When you save to a file the bytes that you save represent a script. Now don’t get language and script mixed up.
===========I understand where you are coming from, Harshula. You are right in that sense. Actually, you refer to the font file. Yes. the OpenType font file has its private glyph index and their Unicode mappings. So, when the guys who made the Sinhala characters for Unicode Sinhala, they created the glyphs in locations within the Sinhala Unicode code block area. This is a fact. I looked inside the Potha font. They actually used the template made by Microsoft who used MS VOLT. There is one person from ðinamina who actually did the work himself (or got help from the other group). But, the whole exercise is useless for Lakehouse, I think.
The font we made use the Basic Latin and Latin-1 code blocks. We had to do the programming ourselves to give it a little intelligence re Pali orthography.
Where you are making a mistake is when you say that
“When you save to a file the bytes that you save represent a script.”
That’s not so. The characters inside it are from Unicode just as a file that used my font. It is abinary file.Try this:
Open Notepad, write something using Unicode Sinhala and try to save it. You can’t save it as a default text file. Now, Divakar and Samarajiva can do this other test if you can get them to do it, whereever the country they live in (I’can’t make out the flag). They can type Sinhala using my font and save it as a regular text file. No problem. You can even name it in romanized Sinhala (with the funny characters). The only copy of our font in Sri Lanka is with Donald. He says he works only with Macs, understandably, being a printer.Our font is written in the Sinhala script and Unicode Sinhala too is written in Sinhala script. When we save the file with our font it saves it as an ordinary text file, although it uses Unicode code points inside it which are all under 255. So, ours is a text file. However, the computer does not know if it is English, Icelandic or Sinhala.
The Unicode Sinhala file has codes that are way over 255 and therefore, the computer realizes that it is not in a native file format. The user needs to tell the computer what format it has to be saved in: UTF-8 or Unicode are ok, the computer is clueless. Then the stupid computer does not know if your file is Sinhala or Kannada.
So, let’s say Unicode Sinhala is special. Special than English and all the Latin based languages. Like them, romanized Sinhala is just ordinary. It’s a bit awkward to talk too much about classes living in this almost classless society.
-
Harshula and everyone,
The statement in Question:
==============
I don’t understand why you make such outlandish statements. Having unique codepoints for Sinhala gives Sinhala first class status. Sharing the codepoints with Latin, like in your solution, gives Sinhala second class status because the Sinhala script will not be usable everywhere in the operating system.
==============Correction: “Sharing Latin code points with western languages” not “Sharing the codepoints with Latin”. We do it because we can! There’s nobody who says don’t except MY OWN PEOPLE!
(Let’s leave the class analogy aside. It is too colonial. Alright?)
Romanized Sinhala IS useable everywhere inside and outside the system, just as well as German or French or any of the 14 languages I listed earlier classified as Standard / Simple scripts. Give me an example where it fails. You are not allowed to make sweeping declarations and ask for applause, prove it. (I am only kidding in that tone, ok. But I must say I had to do a long sitting before I tackled you, Harshula, my friend.).
-
Another reply:
———————————————————————–
And if you are too lazy to read in romanized Sinhala, copy and paste it to Notepad and change the font to the Sinhala smart font and read it in Sinhala script!
———————————————————————–===================
This is exactly how your scheme gives the Sinhala script a second class status.
===================Grand! We have been awarded the second class status.
And Unicode Sinhala?
Here comes the email. It has English.
And it has the coded Unicode Sinhala, uh, a row of question marks. Good now that is encrypted! It says call the sender and ask what it says.
There is no use copying the question marks into Notepad it gets you first class questions marks there too!! -
AN APOLOGY AND A CORRECTION
=======================My explanation about Plain text and Text is not correct. Please pardon me. It occurred me to go and read some old materila regarding the subject. RFC822 defined them first (officially). Then others further refined them.
Actually Text is a general term that encompasses Plain, flowed, HTML etc. that all are 7-bit or 8-bit (with adjustments). Sinhala Unicode (Abiguda) is NOT Text at all because it is in units larger than 8-bit. However. Basic Latin and Latin-1 *is* (thanks Harshula for teaching this type of emphasis) 8-bit and so qualifies as text. This expalains the behavior of Notepad when you try to save a Notepad file.
Please Read:
RFC numbers 822,1341,2646 etc.
at:
http://www.ietf.org/rfc.htmlWiki on Text / Plain would soon be fixed.
-
Harshula,
===================
I’ll construct another round of Unicode Vs Donaldcode Vs JCcode, hopefully examples such as that are more useful for illustrating the issues.
===================So, you are the grand test paper setter?
May I suggest — one issue at a time?
First, if I may suggest, let’s talk of the users and their respective uses of Sinhala on the computer. Let’s list ONE item and consider it.
With you permission, lets’s define the users of Sinhala on computers. Shall we?
Let me bat first:
I say, those who have computers. Now let’s elaborate… -
Even CJK set can be use as Plain Text.
For eps file tagging is done using this plain text
I have done lots of work on eps tagging using simple editos later use this text on applications like Quark Xpress.Sinhla needs a complete IT solution to use on every format. Only I give this Solution .
Donald Gaminitillake
ColomboPS
I think that we have reached the 500 comment level. Great!!! -
Wow! good, good.
Ok. Donald, and everyone, join in.
QUESTION:
Who are the owners of computers in Sri Lanka or elsewhere THAT WANT TO USE SINHALA ON THEM?DO NOT LIST FOR WHAT PURPOSE YET, ONLY WHO HAS COMPUTERS AND WISH TO USE SINHALA ON THEM FOR ONE PURPOSE OR ANOTHER.
START
=====
1. The Government officers
2. The people in offices that have Internet connections
3. The educated people in SL who have Internet connections (elaborate?)
4. Student living abroad
5. Pali users world over
6. Those who are in the printing industry
7. Those who want to communicate with their relatives/friends abroadPlease copy the above list and expand and place in your message.
Thank you.
-
START
=====
1. The Government officers
2. The people in offices that have Internet connections
3. The educated people in SL who have Internet connections (elaborate?)
4. Student living abroad
5. Pali users world over
6. Those who are in the printing industry
7. Those who want to communicate with their relatives/friends abroad
8. Lawyers
9. Notaries
10. Scan documents for editable text (OCR)
11. Banks
12 Postal service
13. Radio Stations / TV (Text to Voice)
14. Data inputtung (Voice to text)
15.Digital music composing
16.GPS
17.Hanicapped people
18.Water and Harvest Management
19.Accurate Election results
20.Early detection of TAx evations (TAX dept filing of tax retuens using simple text format)
21.Medical industry (voice) warning systems
22. Toy industry
23. Robot
24.Issue of Certifiations
25.Distant education
26.TranslationsDonald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
8 to 26
JC can reedit the content
Donald
-
I don’t live in Sri Lanka and am not qualified to do this. Your effort is appreciated, Donald.
Now may be we can categorize these into broad groups. Please refine (from Sri Lanka):
Administrative work:
=============
1. The Government officers
24.Issue of Certifiations
19.Accurate Election results
20.Early detection of Tax evations (TAX dept filing of tax retuens using simple text format)
18.Water and Harvest ManagementService Industries:
============
25.Distant education
26.Translations
6. Those who are in the printing industry
8. Lawyers
9. Notaries
21.Medical industry (voice) warning systems
10. Scan documents for editable text (OCR)
11. Banks
12 Postal service
13. Radio Stations / TV (Text to Voice)
14. Data inputtung / Transcription service (Voice to text)Manufacturing & Engineering:
====================
22. Toy industry
23. Robotics
15.Digital music composingPersonal:
======
2. The people in offices that have Internet connections
3. The educated people in SL who have Internet connections (elaborate?)
4. Student living abroad
5. Pali users world over
7. Those who want to communicate with their relatives/friends abroad
16.GPS
17.Hanicapped people -
Have I miised
Journalists
Writers
Designers
Civil Engineers
Structural Engineers
Medical professionals
School teachersDonald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Well, we have users as well as USES / APPLICATIONS / NEEDS in the list. It is alright here because now we have enough information to divide the users more meaningfully.
There are things we MUST DO, WANT TO DO and LIKE TO DO.
Let’s keep this as close as possible to MUST DO things.
Going to the beginning, we want to know WHO HAS ACCESS TO COMPUTERS ALREADY and WHY THEY WANT SINHALA IN THEM. The reason is, people get computers only if they need them. They cost money!
This way, we could try to figure out how they might use Sinhala in them. I think Tamil should be considered the same way.
The list broadly indicates the following groups of user who we can safely say HAVE ACCESS TO COMPUTERS NOW:
1. Governments
2. Businesses that interact electronically with the public
3. Businesses that need to electronically communicate with the government in Sinhala
4. Businesses that need to use Sinhala internally due to special circumstances / own policies
5. Businesses that provide computers to the public for personal use
6. Public that needs to electronically communicate with the government in Sinhala
7. Education services that must use Sinhala
8. Information dissemination via electronic means.
9. Owners of Personal computers that have needs for personal communication in Sinhala
10. Users of others computers due to special circumstances but like to use Sinhala on themI propose that we take the group number one next: GOVERNMENTS and discuss why they need Sinhala on their computers.
-
2. Businesses that interact electronically with the public
Banks (Private & Public)
Insurance Companies
Private educational institues
Electricity Companies
Telecommunication Companies
Radio
TV
Communication Centres
Private Hospitals
Law firms
Registered NGO (Rotary, Lions, etc)
News Paper
Publishing Houses
Ad agencies
Airline and Travel related Firms
Consumer products Manufacturers
Super Market chains
Hotel Industry
Leasing Companies
Transport agents
Taxi services
Motor Spare parts dealersDonald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
why they need Sinhala & Tamil on their computers.
Banks (Private & Public)
Check:
Intersts rates, Fixed Deposits, Certificate of Deposits, Savings Certificates, Exchanges rates.
Treasury bill rates, Treasurey Bonds
Forms and Applications
Registration forms, Acknowledgement forms, OD facility forms, Loans,
Checking funds in Accounts, Transfers, Utility payments, Credit card applications and payments, Mail to the bank, Loans repayment schedules-
Locations of the Bank (maps)Insurance Companies
Forms and Applications
Types of policies, Claims, Settlements, Default payments,
Developing & Constructing a policy to suit the need of a customer.The Consumer demand the service.
Locations of the Company (maps)Private educational institues
Forms and Applications
Available Courses, Fees. Durations, Locations, Number of students for a class.
List of the teachers
To post reports directly to the teacher 24/7 basis
Consult assistance 24/7 basis
Accounting and Admin workElectricity Companies &
Telecommunication CompaniesForms and Applications
Rates using Hand held PDA for collecting data (meter reading)
Billing and receivables. Transfers, New Connections and Durations of wating times
Locations of branches (maps)Radio
TVVoice to text and Text to Voice in Broadcasting services
Disaster Managent News and Remote Voice access
Translations, Transcriptions, On demand Subtitles – For Handicapped (for Deaf & Dumb) or handicapped in Langusge of Broadcast.Private Hospitals
Forms and Applications
Keeping the reacords, Medical History, Explanations of the disease,
Availability of Doctors at any given time, Room availability, Facilities, Equipments (CT, MRI etc)
Rates
Locations (maps)Airline and Travel related Firms
Exact Locations of the Plane, BUS or Taxi (GPS)
How long one will have to wait for the bus to reach the halt or Taxi to come (GPS)
Locations (maps)
Forms and Applications
For Admin work to locate the Taxi or BUS.(GPS)Motor Spare parts dealers
Super Market chainsFor Purchasing — to list the purchasing prices for the Farmers to sell the products
On Demand purchases
Just on time delivary of goods
The products will never go out of Stock — PDA data entries
Consumer can check several super chains to decide what to buy at the lowest cost
Locations (maps)List of avaiable motor spare parts. Consumer need not go from one shop to another
List Prices.All this is possible only on.
(tri lingual basis -English ,Sinhala & Tamil Simultaniously- touch of a key can change the language Donald’s Code)
This is not friction but a reality with Donald’s Code.Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Businesses that interact electronically with the public
====================================Okay. You picked No. 2. So let’s go with it.
Let’s break their work to two parts: Internal and External and they could be interdependent.
INTERNAL:
Word processing. You can use romanized Sinhala straight without any change to the computers (Can use Sinhala script too provided they are Windows systems that fully support OpenType). They can even use the older systems as long as it is romanized Sinhala!
First Class Unicode Sinhala fails here because the apps need to support it. The code points are unknown to current applications.Entering customer information into a commercially available application? What are the software they use? Or are there custom made apps, say using MS Access etc? I have no idea. The Lankans should know. Romanized Sinhala/Tamil has no problem there either. Just enter information in Sinhala or Tamil.
First Class Unicode Sinhala fails here because the existing apps do not support it non-ANSI charactersEXTERNAL:
POS systems at Supermarkets. You have the items entered in Sinhala. In this case I can immediately see the advantage of romanized Sinhala over anglicized Sinhala. How do you say Coconut oil? Pol Tel or pol þel?
Again POS systems cannot process codepoints above 255. Unicode Sinhala is 3458 and above! -
IS SINHALA UNICODE RELIABLE??
See the following section demarcated by equal signs. This is a copy and paste of a part o a regular email message I get form a Google group. The top somewhat readable Sinhala row of words and the section that is a list of numbers are both Sinhala Unicode. I have dozens of this kind of messages saved.
This illustrates the compatibility problems Unicode Sinhala. Is there anyone able to explain why they happen and if it would be fixed? I can explain that this is because different applications treat Unicode differently.
This is why I say that we should stay within Latin-1. All applications work with ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standards. Anything else is secondary or mostly irrelevant to software makers. And it is simple: First get out of our heads that Sinhala is a strange language and is an Abugida. Use the regular keyboard to type Sinhala using a Sinhala script. The underlying code s ARE UNICODE but their locations are below 256, Therefore ANSI characters. We can use any program made for English. Why not?
Little Sri Lanka cannot afford to make special software for everything they want to do. They are expensive to get made from abroad and in these discussions I have come to learn that Sri Lankans are weak in computer science. The people who are involved in them are middle level techs. They use the tools (middleware) to make the top-level apps. They have no idea about low level functioning of systems.
=====================
* සිංහල වික ිපීඩියාව ග ොඩ නැගීමට හා වර්ධනය කිරීමට අ =?UTF-8?B?4 – 1 new
http://groups.google.com/group/Sinhala-Unicode/browse_thread/thread/e5a1ae3e9b549a54* ගෲප් එකට දීප&#
3540; මේල් ඇඩ්රස් &
#3473;ක වෙනස් කරන්&
#3505;ෙ ක – 1 new
===================== -
Continuation…
The lower part of the quote reformed somewhat after I uploaded. In my email program this section was entirely numbers:
=============
* ගෲප් එකට දීප&#
3540; මේල් ඇඩ්රස් &
#3473;ක වෙනස් කරන්&
#3505;ෙ ක – 1 new
============= -
Quote
POS systems cannot process codepoints above 255. Unicode Sinhala is 3458 and above!
unquoteCJK works well with POS and PDA (all are above 4000 characters)
This is simply because all have the full character allocation tables with proper code points registered as National Standard.Quote
What are the software they use?
unquote
Applications as “4 dimention” and “filemaker” not heard in Sri Lanka. Very few may know it.
Let the software people reply if they know anything more than “access” or VB or CQuote
Little Sri Lanka cannot afford to make special software for everything they want to do
unquoteWith my proposed system you can use any english program that uses “CJK”
Most of the commercial programs that I am using with “CJK” have no problemYour “JC” romanized Sinhala and the wijesekera will be the basic input methods.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
OK.
Donald’s system is compatible with CJK code points. That is any program written for Japan would be useable in Sri Lanka if Donald’s system is adopted.
Romanized would work with the programs made for America and Europe.
4th Dimension is similar to MSSQL and newer Express set of products now distributed free by MS. This is a good time for developers to get them and start working with them. Going with Microsoft would be the best for Unicode too, if at all the officialdom uses its might to make Unicode Sinhala the dominant base. We’ll be teetering for years, but that’s how things happen in countries where bureaucracy decides for the people. Everyone thinks the money is from someone else.
Next topic:
GOVERNMENTS… -
The advantage with 4th Dimension is once you make the data base it can be converted into machine langauge and the software developer can sell it without any licence fee
Any changes also can be done by the software developer using the original applications without harming the data. Then convert again into the machine language for the customer to use.JC if you have Mac OSX . You can do the following test
Go to System preferance – International – input
Chosse Chinese or Korean or Japanese if you have enough memory all threeSelect you “English only application” – you will be able to use any CJK language
to activate the CJK – Hold applekey and press space bar (this is a troggle key)
Also you can select CJK from the flag on the munu bar. You need this if you have activated all three CJK”s.First try with apple works
Older application will not work. OSX natives will work incl MAC version of Word , Power point , Excell – also the Adobe – When Installing CJK should be on
Quark has several versions. Some compatible to CJK and others notWhy not try with XP I think it should work. If CJKs’ are installed
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
GOVERNMENT
According to the constitution of Sri Lanka we have to use only Sinhala and Tamil
Technically all three languages at the same timeApplication form
Donald will fill in Sinhala
JC willl use English and Shanta will fill in TamilTri lingual–
Birth ,death ,marriage certificates
Driving Licences
Court documentation
Certified copies of court proceedings
(I had to reconstruct my mothers testimentory case -because a court fire distroyed the original file)
House Holders list
Election registration
Identity cards
Customs Documentations
Duty , Fines and TAx receipts
Tax files
Deeds , Plans Land registration. (text abd OCR)
Exact location of land (GPS)
(After Tsunami the bearings were lost and unable to locate the exact place of the building etc)
Application forms
School entrance application forms
Registrations of Vehicles,
Tender proceedings
Police reprots, investigations,
Hansard, Online Gazzette Notifications
Web information.All this is possible only with Donalds Code
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
UNICODE SYSTEM AND A FONT IS NOT ENOUGH
=================================Most applications today are written for the 8-bit character set (UTF-8). That is, only to read and process characters that occupy one standard byte, which is 8 bits long. Unicode is still in its formative stages and wtting programs for it takes time at least two years for the easiest. More than that, there must be a viable market for anybody to make software.
Unicode supports two other character formats: UTF-16 and UTF-32. I think Donald wants UTF-32 type encoding, which needs 4 bytes for each character. Unicode Sinhala uses UTF-16 standard. That means each Unicode Sinhala character such as the ayanna is 16 bits long encoded into two bytes. The phrase ‘encoded into two bytes’ is fatally important.
In a file, ayanna could be encoded as, 0D,9A called Big-endian order or as 9A,0D (Little-endian) order depending on the computer. So, each file has to have a little piece of information that tells which way the characters are encoded. If the reading program does not know how to figure that out there’s no Unicode Sinhala.
This is why we cannot reliably send Sinhala Unicode to receive it the way it was sent out. The receiving computer must have special routines to reorder the bytes according to its own way of doing things. Unfortunately, most existing programs do not know this and their developers don’t care because their market is the West and the West uses the UTF-8 system.
]
Romanized Sinhala is UTF-8 and has absolutely none of these complications. Although English, Fraktur and Sinhala k are shaped entirely different, they occupy the same code point, 6B. All these three languages can use any software written for UTF-8. The best way to accommodate UTF-16 into existing systems is still being debated.síhalen kiyanavaa nam:
maga hoÐata þibeenam
yanna ðææsaþ peneenam
kima bæðivala yannee
mámulaa vuu keneksee? -
GOVERNMENTS:
To use computers, the government needs various software. These either need to be off-the-shelf or custom-built. Romanized Sinhala/Tamil, could be used straight away on off-the-shelf programs.
Some programs, however, need to be network aware too. Today, IT technology is at a stage where applications are compatible across platforms (Windows, Mac, Unix, Unix-like). Java is used to write most standard apps. Network based and database apps are developed using script languages such as Perl, PHP and Python.
Sri Lanka has the talent for this. Romanized Sinhala would help to quickly introduce these open-source technologies to schoolchildren who are not too conversant in English. Translating open-source documentation to romanized Sinhala is not hard. It would give an added impetus to jump starting IT technology for the export market. Perhaps this might be something that the ICTA should consider seriously.
-
We have a very basic issue over here.
SLSI 1134 has not published a correct Sinhala character table
Unless all the Sinhala Characters are published none of the above will be able to work.ICTA do have the funds and working on certain areas buying hardware trying to network using the most expensive ways. All this allow the bureaucracy —
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.One for the master,
One for the dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.The public and the users are fooled by this bureaucracy
Unless the proper code points are listed and given to the public.
There is no IT in Sri LankaOnly I am fighting for these rights. Only I have published a Character Allocation Table for Sri Lanka
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Quote From “Sri Lanka “ready for any tsunami”
Right now you’re spinning in one place. The bottomline about standards is that they have to be accepted by a large number of people. The best standard does not win; the most accepted one does. How good are you at winning people over to your ideas?
unquoteThank you for the vaulable thoughts.
Yes I have being spinning in one place for several years!!!
For large number of people to read this contents we have to translate into Sinhala and Tamil and publish in Sinhala and Tamil News papers. Also have an open TV discussion with visuals.
It is very difficult to convince English speaking group and the English speaking bureaucracy.
This is the reason why Sri Lanka is marching backwards. Yet the public has no voice.“People still without housing and livelihoods” then why are you buying computers and other stuff for US$15 million? Also how much you spend on E Sri Lanka project??? US$ 50 million or more!!!
Also recently spent couple of million LKR to airlift 10 motor vehicles!!!!A fraction of the US$ 65 million is needed for the Standard.
“Three tsunamis in less than two years; over 500 deaths in each case.” These are natural disasters. How many deaths we had during the past eight months because of murder & War like situvation in Sri Lanka. These deaths could have been be prevented.
“The best standard does not win” I will not accept this comment form any one who has studied and having exposed to the world. If the elite in Lanka thinks like this where would be the fuctionally illliterate group head.
When my keyboard gets wet my words become arrows. I know it hurts many.
I know the Elite in Lanka will never permits the lower income group to rise or establish the dignity of labour. Elite make them to toil, toil and toil.
I voice for the people who has no access to internet who speaks Sinhala and Tamil.
I will give the best for them.Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
samarajiva
The best standard does not win.
This is not a value judgment, but a conclusion that is supported by evidence. There\’s a lot of research behind this, but I will only support it with a few examples here:
1. Sony Betamax versus VHS. Videotape standards that competed in the 1970s and 1980s. Most experts felt that Betamax was superior technically, but because of the industry alliances that Sony\’s competitors pulled together more people used VHS. End result: VHS became the dominant standard.
2. Windows versus Mac operating system. What did we say about Windows back then? Windows = Mac plus 5 years. Who won? Why? Because more people adopted Windows and more software was developed for Windows. My university department (one where we had people who studied these things), chose Mac in 1987, but changed over to Windows by 1993-94. Was it because Windows was better? No. It was because more people were using Windows.
Donald, your response illustrates the problem. I have supported the debate and at various times tried to move it forward. You turn people off by unnecessarily attacking them.
Even the comments I made on a different thread was a response to a criticism from you that we were wrong in focusing on the tsunami, when there were more important issues.
You do not engage with ideas. You start calling people names and impugning their motives. Just because someone does not agree with you in toto, that does not mean that they are part of an elite conspiracy. Just because you gave some charity to Wanni and the Mahavilachchiya project, that does not make you the spokesperson of the non-elite.
If you want to debate standards, I will engage, time permitting. But I will not stoop to your debating style of name calling.
I reiterate: we expect civility when people are enjoying our hospitality. Let us reason together in a civilized way.
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Sony Beta MAX and VHS or MAC OS and Microsoft Windows OS cannot be compared with SLSI 1134 or Sinhala Unicode.
The public can make use of all four items you have mentioned and data is compatible.
You can transfer between VHS and Beta as well as Mac OSX data and Microsoft data.
Microsoft still make applications to run on Mac OSX.Hi-end vedio is still runs on Beta.
Sinhala Unicode or SLSI 1134 is in incorrect format and incomplete Sinhala.
From 102 JC and I have listed the user side of Sinhala and Tamil
None of these users will be able to use a computer in Sinhala or Tamil
If you think to use a computer as a typewriter why Sri Lanka spend 65 Million Dollars.The names like “Dino” “Emeritus Professor” “Emirates Airlines… sorry, Emeritus Professor” “ageing and ailing dinosaurs” “Tyrannosaurus rex” “big, old and ugly dinosaur” “intellectual and artistic dinosaurs” “a.k.a. Sam the Old Man” “ugly dinosaurs” and many more were used by others. All have now bolted. When I copy and paste these names it is wrong.
This is the general attitude of the Sri Lankans.
“You turn people off by unnecessarily attacking them.”
I have written the facts. They are unable to accept the fact because then they will have to deceive their God Father.
Have they all bowled out.
This is the second time you are talking of a civilized way
My words have been weapons!!! I thank my teachers who thought my languages. (penta lingual) Who gave me the power of words to defend the language that they have thought.
I thank you for spinning me. It gave me an additional booster of momentum wit .
So get back to the question “Where is “DU”?
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
The vacancy for CEO of ICTA has been published
Chief Executive Officer -ICTA. (as per Daily News page 36 July 28, 2006)
or
http://www.icta.lk/Insidepages/Opportunities/Opportunities.asp
I have sent my CV to the Chairman by E-mail
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Samarajiva said:
=========
I reiterate: we expect civility when people are enjoying our hospitality. Let us reason together in a civilized way.
=========This entirely true. I must confess that I too used the word elite and pointed at people who write here. It is not civil to do that and I did offend others. Offending others does not win sympathy to your cause. I descend into sarcasm when I reply immediately. As a precaution, now I’d give it time and come back when emotions have subsided. That only makes my own outlook better, I hope. After all what I am doing here is SELLING an idea. How can you sell if the salesman is detestable? The cause is larger than y’all or me. This is about the future when all of us are gone from this blessed planet.
I win, you loose competition is also bad. Let’s not do that either, if I may request.
In my case, I think I have said everything that need be said about romanized Sinhala that any reasonable person needs to know. The http://www.SinhalaHeritage.com web site is being updated. We’ll have the pages broken up to help downloading easy and soon the font would be put up there too, just in case you are curious.All this is thanks to Donald. He showed me this forum. It’s a nble quality o a person to do that specially knowing that my ideas are not agreemant with his. Compare that with the attitude of the I appeal for everyone to understand Donald’s feelings. I witnessed Donald being insulted in the most lowly fashion that anyone can imagine. This was at the Sinhala Unicode group at Google:
http://groups.google.com/group/Sinhala-Unicode
I objected and tried to write in romanized Sinhala and opposed their Sanskrit for science project. Now, this is what I see there:
==========
Sorry…
The owner of this group has banned you from this group.
==========We have infantile people everywhere. So, let’s be fair in judging Donald, please. There’s plenty of blame to go around including yours truly.
Thank you.
-
Sorry:
The last post got posted before I edited it.
Please accept the correction to the following paragraph:
All this is thanks to Donald. He showed me this forum. It’s a noble quality of a person to do that specially knowing that my ideas are not agreemant with his. Compare that with the attitude of the Sinhala Unicode group. They ban people that disagree with them. I appeal for everyone to understand Donald’s feelings. I witnessed Donald being insulted in the most lowly fashion that anyone can imagine. This was at the Sinhala Unicode group at Google:
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Thank you JC for the compliments & advice
It is natural for people to have different ideas.
The Basics have to be acknowledged.
Collective teamwork is the secret of success.
At initially I too was posting into Sinhala-Unicode group
There was no problem at all.
Later they came with this Linux Sinhala and created a some kind of censor shipThe Battle for Sinhala & Tamil Language to use in computer in Sri Lanka is not over.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
I found the following question placed by a person called pubudu at Sinhala Unicode Developers of Sri Lanka : Tech Stuff Only
” Is there a place that shows all the combinations of sinhala unicode characters that gives all the sinhala characters ?”
—————–
Again I quote from that group
Quote
Sinhala characters must be in the order as how the alphabet order for
the language.Unicode does not have this order for Sinhala language. This causes
many problems and sophisticated software to do sorting, searching,
saving and processing.English encoding has it’s alphabet in order. All European languages
have their alphabets in order. So they can use binary sorting and no
need for extra software support. They can simply use a font, while
Sinhala need software support in addition to font.Unicode Consortium says it doesn’t encode ALL characters but the basic.
But how come then all European accents were encoded?FACT: When Unicode Consortium denied all character encoding for
Chinese, the Chinese government said, it will not allow Unicode to be
used in the premises of greater China. The result, Unicode Consortium
gave space for all character encoding for Chinese.Unicode Constortium says, the sorting is not encoded. Yes its not
encoded for any language. But if you encode the characters in correct
order then the sorting becomes so easy, while if you encode the
characters in wrong order, you have to have additional software
processing for that.Hence Sinhala langauge lacks efficiency compared to Hindi
Dearly,
DHarSHan001Unquote
Answer for both is
SLSI have not pubsihed a “Character allocation Table” for SInhala
Only I have done it.Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
samarajiva
On the standards question:
Donald says:
“Sony Beta MAX and VHS or MAC OS and Microsoft Windows OS cannot be compared with SLSI 1134 or Sinhala Unicode.
The public can make use of all four items you have mentioned and data is compatible.
You can transfer between VHS and Beta as well as Mac OSX data and Microsoft data.
Microsoft still make applications to run on Mac OSX.Hi-end vedio is still runs on Beta.”
Your comment reinforces my conclusion.
Beta and Mac OS survived as niche products. But can a language standard? Ordinary people didn’t buy Beta machines in addition to VHS.
There can be only one language standard. That will emerge either by government fiat or because its proponents do the hard work of building consensus, or in getting to market faster and mobilizing a large number of firms to adopt it.
What are the chances this will be some proprietary product? If you want Donaldcode to win, you’ll have to give it away. And win over applications suppliers.
-
If you look into the contents of SLSI 1134 or Sinhala unicode
There is no place on it that had classified or specified or shows all the combinations of sinhala characters.
And in the SLSI 1134 Clearly specified that one need specific collation algorithms (not specified in this standard) are required to correctly collate text encoded in this code.”
even Harsula has given http://www.ucsc.cmb.ac.lk/ltrl/public/Localization/Sinhala_Collation_&_Encoding_2%5B1%5D.0.pdf
but this too contains only the characters registered in Unicode Sinhala and not the rest of the characters.If you look into the following site
http://www.decodeunicode.org/w3.php?ucHex=0D80It reppresent only a few sinhala characters
there is no “DU”Without the standard no one can make any applications to run on multi platforms
Because of the Law of the land gave me the Copyrights for Donald’s Character allocation table.
When I objected to the SLSI 1134 if they had taken my suggestion and published the Full Character allocation table for SInhala I would not have this special copyrights
It was only Donald publshed a Full Character allocation table for SInhala.
If you think the present unicode forr Sinhala and SLSI 1134 is correct give me the “elements” or the “union” of “DU” registered with the unicode consortium.
Nobody answer the question posted by Pubudu.
Quote
” Is there a place that shows all the combinations of sinhala unicode characters that gives all the sinhala characters ?”
UnquoteThe SLSI 1134 and Sinhala unicode cannot answer this question the standard is incomplete and incorrect.
If the SLSI 1134 and Sinhala unicode is correct why worry about my proprietary product the Donalds Character allocation table.
Like ”DHarSHan001″ clearly wrote “how come then all European accents were encoded?”
Only solution for the present problems faced in Sri Lanka for IT is Donald’s Full Character allocation table for SInhala.
First issue is to accept the errors in SLSI1134 or Sinhala unicode.
Second issue is how to negociate with me for my proprietary rights which was automatically vested to me by the Law of the land.
I find that every one’s focus is on the second issue rather than the first issue.
Why on the second issue ; becuase it is the only “Solution” .Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
VKS
How come Donald’s flag is changed. Are you traveling?
-
Still in Colombo
May be a typing error somewhere
anyway Admin may have an answerDonald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
samarajiva
We have answered this question before. The system picks up where the message connects to the Internet backbone; there is no GPS type capability. Possibly some provider was hauling the traffic to Sweden and linking to Internet.
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Pardon my ignorance but what country are you in Samarajiva?
-
THE ‘DU’ QUESTION
This has full validity in the context of Abugida. Abugidas are these very special complex scripts that have alphabetic letters that have consonants that have the ‘a’ vowel imbedded in them. There must be dozens of doctoral dissertations on this subject.
To make the DU, first you have to take the DA, and isolate the D. and discard the A. This is a special operation that requires the Virama. (I saw a fellow claiming he discovered the Virama in Sinhala!) Then you have to attach the U to D. I can imagine one thesis is about what to do about the A and then there’s this a poem called “And there stands the Virama”.
I have seen the real feelings about Abugida and Virama and complex scripts when some of these guys had their beers soaked in.
Getting back to the question, it makes perfect sense that if DA has its own code point why don’t DAA, DI, DII, DU, DUU, DE, DEE, DIE, DO, DOO, DAU, DANG, DING DUNG, DENG, DONG have their own code points? After all they are also consonant plus vowel pairs.
I suppose for any journey you can take the scenic drive or the direct one. As for me, the direct drive is to treat each vowel and each consonant as base characters. And if some of these happen to need digraphs to represent them, so be it. That’s a matter for collation algorithms. With Latin alphabet, this is not a big deal.
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HeWhoMustNotBeNamed
Donald,
Some people in this world are much cunning than you think.
Do you know Prof. V. K. Samaranayake has used your (Donald’s) own letters to ICTA criticizing it, to chase off Manju from ICTA? That is what I have heard. He has taken all your letters in a bundle and showed the President them saying the number of the mails show how bad Manju’s performance was.
Yes, he has also taken some of the letters written by Mr. Dilantha Withanage.
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JB
Donald,
These are the things you should understand. What you do with good faith result in very bad results. HeWhoMustNotBeNamed is 100% correct. President was cunningly fooled by VKS several times. Not only this VKS has told the president that it was becuase of him Horizon in Mahawilchhciya became world famous!!!!!!!!
Not only this he has also praised you in front of the president!!!!!!
Use your brains. Manju was less harmful compared to Dino.
You can’t win over Dino. This is only a dream. Even if Dino dies, he has his golayas everywhere. You got the wrong man out and made Dino even stronger. Whole country is fooled by Dino’s cunning.
You will NEVER b able to win your DONOLDCODE.
Dilantha wanted to be the CEO of ICTA but he had to give up as his biss CBK was kicked out.
Dino knew who will win and just adjusted his cunning plan.
Indirectly, you have caused your own distruction by helping chase Manju out making VKS stronger!!!!
Wait to see more in coming weeks!!
About your CV to CEO’s post!!!! Prof must have already put it in a comad and flushed!!!!!
JB
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Thank you for the advice
If someone edited my texts and used it —- which is byond me.
But again this type of act is punishable under the criminal lawQuote
caused your own distruction
unquoteNot my distruction but the distruction of the Sinhala Language & Culture.
Quote’
What you do with good faith result in very bad results’
UnquoteThis is because many have no back bone to fight until end.
Scared to voice the correct path.Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
tak tick tuk
Donald,
You have to be very careful in what you do because you deal with a person who is so thick-skinned, who thinks he knows all and assumes he is always correct, who thinks it is fair to do anything to stay one more day in power, who will never listens to anyone and who dictates his own rules, no matter how unethical they are.
A professional would never have thought of exploiting Donald’s letters. (which were on a specific subject and not against anyone personally) However, remember we have a strange animal here who is now in revenge mode and will achieve anything he wants, by hook or by crook.
I can give another example. When this ugly old man came to ICTA he did not have a vehicle. By that time Dilantha Withanage, who was released to Ministry of Education using one ICTA vehicle. So to get that vehicle for his own use this man terminated the services of Dilantha. Imagine how unkind a person should be to terminate another, to get a vehicle for himself.
But that is how ugly old men work. You have to understand that.
-
I will tell you more
Visit the following site
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/res.nsf/db900SID/OCHA-6R6SGB?OpenDocument
I just don’t undersatnd when there are enough young people in Lanka why you want someone from overseas to work in Lanka.
This is the main reason why the Local languages are dropped.
The Latin scripts CJK – JIS codes etc etc were done over 17 years. The frogs in Lanka went on with a type writer. When this was pointed out still they say type writer is the best.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
samarajiva
To JC:
I run a regional research organization; therefore I travel. When I wrote the last message, I was in Singapore; now I am in Manila; Thursday I will be in Colombo.
Does it matter any more where one is, physically?
-
Hey! Samarajiva:
It sounds wonderful! Let me have the privilege of meeting you in your trips to these parts. This applies to anybody from this forum, yes.
You are right about that it doesn’t matter anymore where you are at. But still it is lopsided — this ubiquitousness. I wish the Sri Lankan kids had the same privilege. When resources are limited, everybody fights. Over here, the Lankans seem to dominate chemistry and math – perhaps a kink in the gene pool of the southern part of the Indian sub continent. Recently I learned that the very man who compiled the Vedas, Badrinath Vedavyaasa was a dark skinned man from an island in the south – makes you wonder given the fact that the oldest Brahmi akxara were found in Anuradhapura and Tamil Nadu:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrahmiI sincerely believe that if we make the Internet access easier and available outside Colombo (in libraries, YMB(C)As, schools etc.) we would have kids learning English and technology on their own. Just curiosity and need to know would provide the fuel. That’s how I learned English — reading with a dictionary on the other hand. Go to a site like http://www.php.net and see how many of those young contributors can hardly write but eagerly tell.
Last three weeks, support techs of MS from India connected to my computers and searched the font display problem, worked on them even while I was asleep. When speaking to them, I thought they could very well have been from Lanka.
We need the Internet setup with DSL around the country quickly. It is not expensive. This is the first priority, not the font. This is something I have done repeatedly here: Installing DSLAMs, building T1 links, wireless links, VPNs. Thinking that we already have first class copper installed, it disappoints to think what happens over there.
-
Quote
not the font.
UnquotePlease understand the differance between a “font” and the “Character allocation Table”
If you check the unicode; eg: the latin script ; Arabic; CJK falls into several pages.Likewise all the sinhala characters should fall into several pages of unicode or SLSI 1134
This is the basic “Character allocation Table”Then the software developers can develop software
Only I have done and published the “Character allocation Table” for Sinhala
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Quote
A further, connected aspect is the evidence at Anuradhapura for the development of writing systems within South Asia. The earlier prophetic work of Deraniyagala at Anuradhapura suggested for the first time that Brahmi, the ancestor of many of South Asia’s vernacular scripts occurred a number of centuries earlier than previously thought (Deraniyagala, 1990). It had been generally accepted that this script had been derived from a Semetic script, developed in Northern India under the Buddhist emperor, Asoka, in the third century BC and then spread southwards through the peninsula until it reached Sri Lanka (Buhler, 1896; Winternitz, 1927; Dani, 1963; Von Hinuber, 1990). Our own work has now supported Deraniyagala’s earlier hypothesis and evidence of Brahmi script dating to the beginning of the fourth century BC is presented in the second volume of the project. This discovery, the earliest example of its kind in South Asia, has enabled a reassessment of the traditionally accepted theories and to suggest fresh hypotheses for its development and spread through trade (Coningham, Allchin, Batt & Lucy, 1996). These combined archaeological factors help to overturn Sri Lanka’s cultural stereotype, which suggests that as it is situated at the southern tip of the peninsula it was the latest recipient of any innovation. As such a theoretical paradigm appears to have been widely accepted, all resultant formulations of relative chronologies have naturally followed its directive. The growing use of chronometric dating within Sri Lanka is helping to establish its position, not as a cultural cul-de-sac, but as a pivotal point of South Asia.
Unquoteabove from
http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/archsci/depart/resgrp/southasia/anuradhapura.phpAre we going to distroy this development of Sinhala with incomplete SLSI134 or incomplete Sinhala unicode?
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
VKS
All those who are interested.
A series of articles on this subject (Sinhala for computers) is carried in Mawbima Sunday Newspaper. Look for this. Why don’t you guys try having a similar discussion in English newspapers too.
VK Swamy
-
VK:
My hand is high up. I am interested!
It is great to hear that the Sinhala newspapers are discussing these matters. I would like to participate too (English too).
Would you put up some pointers such as an address and especially the telephone number here of Mawbima paper for the benefit of cultural fossils like me too, Sir? Though only few people in Sri Lanka care about it, there are uses of Sinhala for certain groups of people outside of Sri Lanka who even do not associate the script with Lanka.
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Donald,
It is a great web site. Thank you. Yes, history may need to be re-written.
You consistently talk about character allocation table. The purpose of it is to assign a number and a name for each base character of each language. What is a base character of course is decided by the users of that language. For it to have meaning, the list needs to be included in the Unicode chart. Now, from what I understand, the list of Sinhala characters is the entire list of letters, first the vowels and then each consonant and its own list of vowel-added versions. The alphabet is only a abbreviated depiction of the entire repertoire of Sinhala letters.
So, if you have this list you should SUBMIT IT to Unicode for consideration. There are mechanisms to do it. Stay up one night and call the number on Unicode web site and ask them how. Otherwise, search the site. It has all the help. You should do that now. You can persuade them to have a second list for Sinhala too, but need to convince them. It is a US corporation, remember.
Now, there are two questions regarding this whole matter of number and name for a character. Foremost, the idea of a name and a special place for each letter of the languages of the world is of dubious utility. One would say, so that we can identify Sinhala ayanna from English a. Then what? OK, then how do you differentiate English a, Spanish a and French a in North America? This whole idea is a farce to get us into a trap — a sales ploy. (My saying this evoked an angry retort from a University professor from Sri Lanka. I did not mean to make anybody so extremely upset — just an opinion in the free world).
Whether you like it or not, ANSI is the core character set that has the passport to any place: UTF-8 — single byte characters. This is why, each country is porting their alphabets to Latin-1. Iranians have it. Turkey is fully romanized. The reason is simply that they want to communicate electronically anywhere. UTF-16 cannot go everywhere and will NEVER. Its the way it is out there. You cannot beg the World bank to go and change every private server to accept UTF-16 by developing software for them. (Besides World Bank is not going to look at you too kindly. They’ll say why don’t you do it yourself if you think it is good for the world. Paul Wolfowicz is its new chairman, the same guy who wrote the theory that you forcibly make one Arab country ‘democratic’ and the rest would follow, I think during Reagan days. You see it in action. (Pardon me, but just facts.)
Again Donald, work with Unicode not Sri Lankan government. You are at par with Sri Lanka government as far as Unicode Corporation is concerned.
-
Quote
if you have this list you should SUBMIT IT to Unicode for consideration.
unquoteUnicode accept only National standard.
Our national std is SLSI1134 = unicode SinhalaSince this standard is incomplete and incorrect we have to revise the National Standard.
Once this is done Unicode Consortium will have to honour it uncoditionally.Nokia is going to have Nokia std for Nokia phones in Sinhala soon
Mobitel will have its own SMS Sinhala for mobitel but this works at a higher level.
Dialog has its own sinhala limited to certain handsetsSoon we will have another “achcharu” of Sinhala SMS
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
JC Ahangama
Donald,
Where did you read about Unicode Inc. accepting only National Standards? That is ISO – the European outfit. Unicode is AN AMERICAN COMPANY. It does not belong to th US Government or have AUTHORITY OVER ANYBODY and DEFINITELY NOT THE INTERNET. It is just a Consortium of corporations. It’s Directors are powerful American Corporations that develop software. Profit through succes is their sole criteria. Here if you do not succeed you go under. Billionaires, (NOTE=>even the president’s buddy’s) go to jail if they do bad stuff, I feel so heart broken.
This is a sort of a one-stop place for them to bring all customers’ needs together and to have a common solution so that they can make software in a uniform manner (not to go the path the Beta Max and VHS went as Samarajiva explained). MS Windows and Mac OSX is software. The US anti-monopoly laws are strict, very strict. This consortium is the closest they can come to a monopoly. It’s better that Bill gates leaves.
Your company can become a member of Unicode by paying dues. They won’t ask you why. They’ll tell you “pay up”, and very politely too. That’s it and then you are a member who will have all member benefits. The private member-only area would be open for you. You can become an individual member (just you) by paying $150 and your name would be published on the Unicode ver. 6 book maybe in 2008. Had you paid it before June 30 you’d have been in the Ver. 5 book (look for my name there).
Go to the following link and make your proposal. It has examples too so that you don’t need to pay lawyers. Most of all, you don’t have to cow down to anyone in Sri Lanka. In the eyes of Unicode Inc., everyone is equal as long as they can agree that you are reasonable.
http://std.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/summaryform.html
Here is the number to call:
1-650-693-3921 (They will answer. No waiting, no machine)
or fax:
1-650-693-3010My suspicion is they’ll request you to use the Private code space for your software — OCR etc. In that case I wouldn’t even bother but just do it and define your code points in the BMP (Basic Multi-lingual Plane) Private Use area Hex E000-F8FF. That has 6400 code points. Sinhala probably needs 4000 if you want to encode every possible combination including ligatures.
I feel like a (unpaid) member of your group, but here’s what I think you should do:
Write the OCR and other software make two transliterations from Sinhala/Tamil Unicode and romanized Sinhala to your code space. You’ll be in business in no time! Nobody would make derogatory remarks at you because the work is yours and they pay and buy the software because it works! -
Quote
So what is the difference between Unicode and ISO 10646?The Unicode Standard published by the Unicode Consortium corresponds to ISO 10646 at implementation level 3. All characters are at the same positions and have the same names in both standards.
The Unicode Standard defines in addition much more semantics associated with some of the characters and is in general a better reference for implementors of high-quality typographic publishing systems. Unicode specifies algorithms for rendering presentation forms of some scripts (say Arabic), handling of bi-directional texts that mix for instance Latin and Hebrew, algorithms for sorting and string comparison, and much more.
unquote
many more on
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html#comb
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Dharma Gamage
My dear Donald,
You have the same backward statist mind set of an average Sri Lanka.
You think when the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) imposes a standard everyone else will follow.
Why should they?
Why should Nokia or Motorola have to follow any standards GOSL imposes? These are two massive business entities and by size, they are much bigger then the GOSL, so why should they have to follow what GOSL wants?
It does not matter it is Unicode or Donaldcode. These companies will select whatever that will be good for their business models. If they think selecting a proprietary system is good for their business they will go for it. There is nothing you can do.
The bottom line is the winner out of Unicode, Donaldcode, JCcode and all others will be decided by the market. GOSL has nothing to do with it.
So at least stop begging at the doors of ICTA or GOSL.
If you think you have a system, put it to the market. If it is good people will take it. If it is useless, they will reject. That is all.
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samarajiva
I agree with Dharma. This how standards get established in the real world in the 21st century.
What is accepted by most first wins. Ranting at government does not get this done. Building coalitions, sweet-talking people does. But for any of that, working product must exist.
-
Quote
working product must exist.
unquoteTo have a working model and a product to be used in cross media is two different issues.
If the product cannot be used across a media like the Latin script or the CJK or Arabic
we have to correct error the basicWe have enough working models for the Latin script or the CJK or Arabic
Why they have success working products — the basics have been done.We have a wrong foundation No choice we got to rebuild the foundation.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
samarajiva
I think we’ve made it clear that we’re not interested in language standards in and of themselves, but as means to an end: serving the needs of the people of the Asia.
In this context, I wonder if the commenters on this thread have any reactions to the following quotation from CK Prahalad’s The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid (Wharton School/Pearson Education, 2005, pp. 102-03:
ITC worked hard to create interfaces in the farmers’ native language, Hindi. It also provided software that made it possible to type Hindi characters using a standard English keyboard. The preferred language for writing e-mails and other electronic communication, however, is “Hinglish,” or Hindi typed with English characters. The reason for this is that combining vowels and consonants to create Hindi letters is a very cumbersome affair on the keyboard. It sometimes takes three keystrokes to render one letter. All the sanchalaks we spoke to agreed that this was the only aspect of computer usage they had not yet been able to master.
Sanchlak is the leading ICT user among the farmers in the highly successful and commercially viable e-choupal program of the Indian Tobacco Company (ITC).
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HeWhoMustNotBeNamed
Guys,
I do not have to say that Loku Mahattaya of the Agency is not very amused about some of the posts in this site.
As a matter of fact, during some recent internal meetings at the Agency, Loku Mahattaya has spoken his heart out. He has indicated without any ambiguity, that he is very angry about what has been posted here and he will definitely take action, if he can find out who is behind them. I do not have to tell you what actions he has in mind.
No matter how he boasts, Loku Mahattaya is a coward, so he would never take the issue up with LIRNE. Instead, he will try to reach the users.
I do not also have to say how vicious this particular ugly old man is. No scorpion in the world has the venom he has inside him. Please do not take risks. He shows no sympathy. One bite and next moment you will be history. You all have seen what happened to the Punchi Mahattaya of the Agency.
The interesting thing is even people like Loku Mahattaya cannot control the situation created by the new electronic media. Whether Loku Mahattaya likes it or not, people will continue expressing their views. If there is no LIRNE, they will find some other way. Loku Mahattaya can never shut their mouths. That is e-democracy of our times.
However guys, please be careful. Please do not take unnecessary risks. You are playing with a dangerous snake.
Donald, I guess you have taken a life insurance. :-)
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JC Ahangama
Dharma,
There is NO JC CODE,
It is just a font that shows anything typed as regular roman characters in Sinhala alphabetic letters. Just like changing the font from Arial to Times new Roman. We now have about 40 people using it.
*Microsoft* tested and said just make sure you have added files for complex scripts in Regional and Language settings. They said, again, *Microsoft* said, that this font works in Windows 2000 SP4 upwards! So, you add these files from the CD and copy the font to the Fonts folder and you have Sinhala in NOTEPAD. This is because no application has general Uniscribe support except Notepad in current Windows. They say Windows Vista will have full support.
Sinhala character display requires instructions imbedded inside the font. This font was created as a Smart font. Say you want to type your name,
Type ð
that shows the Sinhala hal-ðayanna (ð as in ðannavaa = know)
then we type h
Now the display changes from hal-ðayanna to hal-mahapraana ðayanna
type a
This makes the cap like ispilla vanish
Type r
Now you have, mahapraana ðyanna followed by hal-rayanna
Type m
You have mahapraan ðayanna, hal-rayanna, hal mayanna
Type a
= mahapraana ðayanna, hal-rayanna, mayanna (hal-kiriiva went away)
Type a
adds aælapilla to the above string.It is simple in that you did not put any extraneous things into the computer than the font and adjusted the Windows settings for font rendering.
The text is editable and readable in roman characters too. It does not change to question marks or bunches of numbers. You save the file as a normal Text file, not as UFT-this or Unicode that.
I reiterate, Sinhala and Tamil CAN survive in the Latin space and glow in brightness because they could be read in two scripts: Latin and Sinhala/Tamil. More importantly, manipulation of its underlying character codes is simple and straightforward and it is MIME compliant, meaning will go anywhere and survive unscathed. They are ideal for DHML and XML documents; the future of text recording.
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JC Ahangama
Samarajiva:
Yes! I have an answer,
All Indic languages that have Unicode code pages have multiple Ns and Ls and too many vowels that makes it imposssible to represent them in Latin, EXCEPT Tamil and Sinhala.
Just go to http://www.unicode.org/charts/ and read code page of each Indic language and count the vowels and consonants. Then compare them to the US-International repertoire.
What happened was the Indo-European (IE) absorbed many Dravidian sounds too. The most prominent set of these is the typical retroflex D and T found in every Indic except Sinhala. (Note no Indo-European, West or East has retroflex D and T except the Indics)
So, for simplicity Tamil plus North Indic = too many phonemes. For some reason though the Sinhalese and Tamils live together (and kill together), neither added sounds from the other. Tamil has the shortest phoneme set in all Indic: ideal for romanizing — no brainer. There is a group of Tamils that regret that they were steamrolled by the Northerners. Latin code points are the preferred set of code point set for any language for technical reasons. That’s what CKP means.
CKP says,
combining vowels and consonants to create Hindi letters is a very cumbersome affair on the keyboard.Very cumbersome indeed. Sometimes people are, looking at the wrong place for the solution. Ligatures inside fonts is not a new thing ( f f i = ffi in script fonts). Unicode, trying to make everything backward and forward possible, standardized this too. Now, Smart fonts can do the consonant and vowel combination for you in the background. That is what Sumangala.ttf does.
CKP:
[it is hard to] type Hindi characters using a standard English keyboard.True, sorry. It is true even now for Hindi. But Hindi is not the standard for all Indic, certainly not for Sinhala and Tamil. There are Sinhala and Tamil farmers too. Samarajiva, you are groping in the dark, don’t get offended. Try that font I sent you. Just copy it to the Fonts folder and test it inside Notepad and ask me questions. (You must enable complex script files from Windows CD if you do not have Unicode Sinhala or just try it on a far eastern computer when you are there).
Well reply to me Samarajiva.
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quote
Donald, I guess you have taken a life insurance
unquoteThis quote is a better than a life insurance
Criminal investigation department can easily take in the people connected
There is a forum going for printing industry and this queston of Sinhala characters is taken up
and the next phase will commence soonDonald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
tak tick tuk
I have also heard that Sam had asked some of his friends, why he is being referred as Dino or Dinosaurs in the LIRNEasia blog when he is so young and so lively. :-)
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samarajiva
JC: I have no reason to be offended. I have no immediate need for local language fonts in my work.
I was simply interested in finding out what people had to say about the typing in Sinhala, Tamil or whatever text using Latin fonts.
-
Today at the 8th forum of Asiapacific Graphic arts technology meeting in the section of cross media development this issue of Sinhala language was taken up.
Lets see how far I will be able to move this issue from that angle.
quote
what people had to say about the typing in Sinhala, Tamil or whatever text using Latin fonts
unquoteThe Keyword is “typing” —the Solutiion that I am presenting is not only for “typing” . “typing” is just one segment of information technology. With the exsisting system of Sinhala unicode even correct “typing” is not possible
quote
no immediate need for local language fonts in my work
unquoteThis is the other problem that I am faced with. How can I convince a group of people who say that they need not have a local langauge to perform their work. If I have a group to say his or her performance or productivity would increase if he or she can use a local langauage; Then it will be very easy to convince that group.
Lets see how far I could go with this new angle. “cross media”
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
JC Ahangama
Samarajiva:
So Samarajiva, do I make sense? Its true that Devanagari cannot be romanized just like our friend says but Tamil and Sinhala are different. Sinhala phoneme inventory is about the same size as a Western European language because it retained its IE identity without mixing with Tamil. And Tamil did not swallow Indo European. All you got to do is to go and count the letters, and you’ll be enlightened. The Sinhala romanized alphabet was given here earlier. So that is the proof. As I said earlier, Tamil is shorter. So, tell me what you think?
Isn’t this a group of spectators? Donald and JC are the regular players. Harshula also comes on for a gibe when he thinks he can score. He is more like the biased umpire, though, with his own side show.
The rest of you are like watching the game, make comments cheer, jeer. And, if someone seems to err, do some armchair quarterbacking. It’s amazing that NO ONE form this group asked for the smart font. And I sent it to three people who are least interested in it. Divakar, Donald and Samarajiva.
Donald:
Symantics about typing. You can type on the computer too. Samarajiva’s question is very valid. But then someone should test it don’t you think? Well, we are making an installation package that can be downloaded anonymously. Hopefully at least Dharma Gamage would then come and get it on behalf of this group.Nobody, please be offended. I am a bit tired that makes me lament. pardon me. Digest the message that’s what’s important.
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Yes JC you can type on a computer. The isue here is not only typing but the IT stucture for Sri Lanka (Sinhala language) To achive this one need the complete Sinhala character allocation table
For Tamil you need only 247 characters plus some granta characters to represent old tamil text -‘Solokha’s” etc
Do not worry about the flag I am on the move.
Donald Gamnitillake
Singapore -
JC , I cannot test your fonts – I have only Apples
Donald -
Confirmed News Network CNN
HeWhoMustNotBeNamed is right. Prof Sam has hired 4 journalists and now hunting for the persoanl lives of Donald, Wanni and the key Horizon students to attack.
In the near future, their images will be smashed using local newspapers rather than blogs. Prof tries his best to block any suppport going through ICTA to Horizon project too.
Prof sees Wanni is a big threat to him than Donald. More attacks will be diverted to Wanni and the children than Donald. Prof is conspiring with a dirty friend of his on how to cut Wanni into size. Cutting into size would mean even ‘putting an end’ to Wanni.
CNN
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JC Ahangama
Donald,
I have tested the font on Macs. Are your computers old Apple computers?
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I am using G4 10.3.9
Send the data to the personal e-mail addressI am moving around
Donald Gaminitillake
Japan -
Thanks confiremd news net works
Since my CV is given to ICTA Journerlist can go in search of data
any false report on `Donald`— will ask 10.000 times of my value as compensation.
Read this blog and expand a bit, the journerlist can write a book on Sinhala Akuru and make some silver.
Take care
Donald Gaminitillake
Japan -
I had a discussion, you need all the code points to be published correctly for sinhala
this is the solution to develop the IT in Sri LankaDonald Gaminitillake
Japan -
Dharma Gamage
Donald,
[quote] any false report on `Donald`— will ask 10.000 times of my value as compensation. [unquote]
10,000 x zero = zero
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quote
zero
unquoteGood value Dharama
Quote
` hired 4 journalists and now hunting for the persoanl lives of Donald
unquoteThen why one need to hire people.Is it to find about the `zero`value???
Donald Gaminitillake
Japan -
Everything is now moving towards the ISO std.
in ISO you can accomodate any number of code pointsThe solution for Sinhala is to amalgamate the present set with my set
The full characters which are not listed in the present ISO and unicode can be register with the ISO. Using this method one can save his face value and all can use Sinhala language. I will make the IME type of application to run on windows and MAC with a grant from ICTA.The ball is with the ICTA
Donald Gaminitillake
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JC (Just Curious)
This has little to do with Sinhala standardisation, but I am just curious.
Below is a comment appears in one SL blog about another blog site.
[quote] Moju.lk is a web forum run by a NGO called Info-share (guarantee) limited who’s “stated objective” is to develop the ICT facilities in rural Sri Lanka. They get billions of rupees from foreign countries on this “stated objective” but we can’t see any activities they’ve done so far in this capacity. Instead, they are running this moju.lk site which is totally out of focus of what their “stated objectives”. [unquote]
This is what Moju.lk site says.
[quote] Moju is a collaborative blog and interactive community space for members of Sri Lankan civil society. We hope to become, over time, a place where there can exist a genuine exchange of ideas and experiences, about challenges faced and lessons learned. [unquote]
Can someone please tell me;
(a) Does Moju.lk (or anyone behind it) actually do anything to develop the ICT facilities in rural Sri Lanka?
(b) Do they have any ongoing projects?
(c) If so what are they?
(d) Assuming Moju.lk is involved in taking ICT to village levels, from where I can get more details?
Thanks in advance.
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samarajiva
Billions of rupees seems an overstatement.
A billion = 1,000,000,000 rupees. In USD this is slightly less than USD 10 million.
Is it being claimed that Moju gets funds in excess of USD 20 million? Or is this a manifestation of the corrosive Weerawansaization of public discourse?
Having said that, why isn’t this question asked directly from Moju? Why here?
We have nothing to do with Moju/InfoShare, other than seeing some of their posts on Kottu.org.
Our philosophy is that we do our thing without poking our fingers into other people’s business. The world’s work is complex enough. There is room for many actors and approaches. We achieve more by doing something productive than by spending energy attacking others.
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JC (Just Curious)
I apologise if my mail has created an inadvertent stir.
All I want to know who moju.lk is and if they really involved in ICT development work in Sri Lanka. There was no intention of poking fingers or attacking anyone.
The reason I post it here was that so IT professionals visit this thread and I thought they could educate me. That was all.
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Dharma Gamage
This is an interesting development from Bangladesh.
They have developed what they call “font converters”. Means anything typed in a proprietary font can be converted in to Unicode easily.
Please check this link. http://thpbd.org/bangla/v1.0/index.html
Do we have anything like this to convert proprietary Sinhala fonts to Sinhala Unicode?
If there are converters like this it will solve the incompatibility problems to large extent till all major OSes start supporting Sinhala Unicode.
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JC,
If you were really after an education, I would have imagined you could have emailed me, anyone else from InfoShare, or as Rohan states, posted your query on Moju.lk itself. We also have our website – http://www.info-share.org – which is, we are assume, serves an educational purpose.
I do not wish to respond here to confounded farragos of and wild incantations of individuals in the SL blogosphere. After all, anyone with a blog is welcome to the public display of their private madness.
Let me just add to Rohan’s response to say that what we are interested in is strategic complementarity, not some cloak and dagger game of insinuations, allegations and counter-allegations.
If, having said all of this, you know more than we do about our funding position and can clearly come up with how we have 20 million US dollars in funding, please come over immediately to our offices for a chat.
Best wishes,
Sanjana
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quote
Word will damage the Bangla when you copy it
unquoteLook dhramma Bengali is too in the wrong track!!!
You need proper code points to represent the language
For sinhala in addition to code points we have to define more
1.the word `display` (based on cross media)
display on paper ,display on CRT2. correction symbols
we have to keep line with the british std and add few sinhala only symbolsISO need these std with the character codes
Donald Gaminitillake
Japan -
Dharma,
Yes, we do have converters. I am not sure whether people taking the maximum out of these yet. One issue still unicode face is lack of publicity. What is needed is more publicity / awareness and adoption of this standard to ensure people understand what Sinhala Unicode is and what’s the importance behind it, and which companies are developing and going to support software/Os’s etc to it. But things are progressing and am not sure whether the speed is good enough.
Further I am quite optimistic that Sinhala Unicode will become popular day by day and will eventually become the standard in real with all sinhala users. I recently did a google search in Sinhala itself in Google Sinhala by searching “Sinhala” in sinhaleese (sinhala unicode) and I was thrilled to see lots of content / web sites / pages appearing in Sinhala which was not the case 1 year ago. So things have progressed and what is needed is to speed up the actions, so there will be enough content sites to applications in Sinhala Unicode.
One good example of people following Sinhala Unicode is Google themselves adopting it nicely. When you use google.lk and search stuff in Sinhala Unicode you will see all important labels of google such as links, simmilar pages, result information etc, in sinhaleese. So google is only one giant who has adopted sinhala unicode there are many likes of Microsoft, Oracle who’s adopting Sinhala Unicode private / public institutions all government department portals, websites and applications in future… then I dont think anyone will have even the option to discuss standardization further rather move ahead with the standard which is emerged and majority been adopted the same.
Also would like to confirm, I manage to cut & paste stuff from the google search results which appeared in Sinhala to Microsoft Word which came out nicely. So if someone is debating, all they have to do is to use non other than #1 google which will route automatically to google.lk if you are in Sri Lanka and switch to Sinhala, search something in Sinhala Unicode and then Cut & Paste the same to Word, or NotePad or any other unicode compliant application. I am sure it works well with Linux applications as well.
So these are realities not Myths where google and MS applications inter operates nicely with Sinhala Unicode.
Harsha / හර්ෂ
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Quote
Sinhala Unicode and then Cut & Paste the same to Word, or NotePad or any other unicode compliant application. I am sure it works well with Linux applications as well.
unquoteIs it possible to cut and paste with note pad into word and then into helawadane and/or Thibas? further into linux?
I talk of unformatted text only.Test this and publish the results.
Donald Gaminitillake
Japan -
JC (Just Curious)
Dear Sanjana,
Thanks for your reply, but you do not have to jump into the defence mode just because somebody ask whether moju.lk is involved in ICT related work. (In fact, this question still remains unanswered.)
Who said anything about USD 20 m? I did not. From where you got that magic figure?
Yes, I could have always written to you;
(a) if you were the person behind Moju.lk
(b) if you have given a contact e-mail address either at moju site or info-share siteWhen somebody does not know who is behind a site or there is no mail address given in the site, how do you expect anyone to write to you?
I cannot understand when I ask a simple question, whether Moju is involved in any ICT work, when everyone jumps the gun alleging me of so many things (without ever trying to answer that question)?
Does one have to be this paranoid?
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Samarajiva
JC:
Interesting that you are accusing people of being paranoid. Just read the loaded language in your original post.
I keep saying this website is part of our home and that we expect civility from all who enter. The Weerawansa language you had used was most unpleasant. I’m sure you’re a nice person; why don’t you simply ask your questions nicely without using attack language? You’re more likely to get proper answers that way.
With the ongoing Weerawansaization of discourse in this country it seem that people are being desensitized about how vicious their language is becoming.
The twenty million USD was calculated from the statement in your post which said that Moju was getting funds in the billions, plural. So it had to be more than 10 million USD, because that would mean a billion LKR. Two billion was a modest assumption.
Sanjana has written under his own name; no paperbag over his head. Suggest you take the discussion off this thread, which is after all about language standards (at least we try to keep it on that subject), and engage directly with the relevant parties.
I am pasting the contact info from their website:
InfoShare
#4/2 Adams Avenue
Colombo 4
Sri Lanka
email info@info-share.org
phone 94 11 4514400-3
fax 94 11 2583552 -
The question I posted in 179 has gone unanswered for more than 12 hours.
Please do not fool the public.
Sinhala unicode is incomplete and incorrect registration.
Donald Gaminitillake
Japan -
Has any one even try….
to cut and paste with note pad into word and then into helawadane and/or Thibas? further into linux? Apple using the sinhala unicode or SLSI 1134
Hope the four hired 4 journalists could perform the task
Hope they are functionally computer literate!!
Donald Gaminitillake
Tokyo -
Dharma Gamage
Looks like I have inadvertently provided some ammunition for Donald, when he ran all of his own.
Anyway, this is an interesting question.
Can Unicode based fonts be cut and paste between different applications/platforms while maintaining the content?
This takes me back to late 1980s. After the phenomenal success of the IBM PS/2, so many manufacturers (starting from Compaq) stared making “IBM compatible PCs”. They ran the same MS-DOS, but infrequently they showed incompatibility problems.
IBM proudly said, “We are the only manufacturer 100% IBM compatible.”
More than 15 years later, do we anymore check whether the PC we purchase, be it a Dell, HP-Compaq or even an unbranded one, is IBM compatible?
No. The differences have been ruled out.
I think the same will happen with Unicode based Sinhala fonts too. One day, nobody will bother. It will just be a matter of time.
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JC Ahangama
Everybody!
JC Ahangama and JC (Just Curious) are two people. So, when you address each of us please say Ahangama and maybe Just Curious.
Jesus Chrsit! What a dagerous place this is.
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Dhrama I need not have any ammunications
This is te truth
Donald Gaminitillake
Singapore -
Quote
I think the same will happen with Unicode based Sinhala fonts too.
unquoteThis will not happen simply because the code points are not defined
I was in Singapore and the Singaporeans say what a beautiful country Sri Lanka was in late 50’s
Quote
nobody will bother. It will just be a matter of time.
unquoteThe Sinhala Language will disappear from this planet
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
I had little time in Singapore and visited the Times Book Shop at Suntec City
I found another intersting book by Thomas Friedman Titled “The World is Flat”
ISBN 0-141-02272-8
Hope you all will be able to read this book
Few years ago Thomas Friedman visited Sri Lanka.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
This is an interesting site giving the future of computer hardware
http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/aug_2006/event/index.html
This was a presentation of Steve jobs at annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC)
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
News
Transitional arrangements at ICTA
The Board of Directors of ICTA at a special meeting set in motion transitional arrangements until such time the CEO is recruited to ensure that the work of ICTA and e-Sri Lanka is continued without interruption.
A Leadership Team, consisting of Programme Directors Reshan Dewapura (Chair), Wasantha Deshapriya, Suresh Bartlett and the Legal Advisor Jayantha Fernando was appointed to take all operational and management decisions that would normally have been taken by the CEO.
Dewapura in his capacity as the Chair of the Leadership team will be the authorised signatory for ICTA, a press release said.
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samarajiva
Good move. But late, isn’t it?
Will the Board or someone take responsibility for not addressing this problem before the previous CEO’s term was ended?
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JC Ahangama
WHO WANTS TO WIN $160,000? FROM MICROSOFT?
This is real and easy too. (Don’t worry. The judging is really impartial whn they do these in the US). You don’t have to be a programmer but imaginative and have the ability to read the help file.
Just write a nice program using Office 2007 that is useful for a Charitable organization:
https://www.developwithoutborders.com/Default.aspx -
JC Ahangama
M$ OFFER
Actually you don’t have to WRITE a program but SUGGEST a solution. Can it get better than that?
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When they lose the battle go for a long silence mode.
Hope cannot recover from the latest Mac developments and the reading the Thomas Friedman’s World is Flat. When India is developing we are just going the other way.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
JC Ahangama
SILENCE IS GOLD
Yes. Indians are thoroughly disappointed. It’s primarily their fault. In 1997 they abandoned code page 8859-12 because they could not agree on how to make ligatures (combining characters). They never tried, say, Bengali or Tamil. So, now we are celebrating the big time discovery — Abugida, alphasyllabary, or syllabics! But then, why blame big brother India. What were we doing with ISO? Nothing.
Sinhala and Tamil do not have the problem of having too many vowels and too many consonants like Devanagari, making it hard to port it to UTF-8 and a reasonable keyboard extension to the QWERTY.
As far as I can see, Sinhala Unicode code page is deviant from ages old orthographies and respected grammars of the language.
The missionaries faithful followed the orthographies. Ever since mechanized typesetting was introduced we tinkered with the Sinhala letters. I remember the Government printer, Mr. Pieris suggesting changes to paapilla. That was perfectly understandable in the fifties. Now, when technology allows any glyph shape and unlimited number of characters, we go and throw a spanner in the works by defining a ligature as a base character!
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Unbiased
Dear Donald,
Please do not try to mislead people here by mentioning Thomas Friedman. You are not the only one who has read that book.
Yes, India has taken a quantum leap in IT, but that is not because India has started working in local languages. In fact, that is because India has taken a conscious decision not to work in local languages. India has never converted its language of education from English and that is how in 1990s India had such a large workforce who can work in English.
Even in India, the use of local languages in the computers is very poor. As a rule, Indians use the local languages to speak and English for all written work.
So if you think the use of Sinhala in computers will develop our local IT industry, that is only a pipe dream which would have been ideal for “Mahinda Chinthana”
It would have been good if we all could use Sinhala in computers, but it is not a necessary condition to the development of local IT field.
Not a single racing paper is published in Sinhala. Still, that has never become a hindrance to horse racing becoming a thriving business in Sri Lanka.
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Quote
but it is not a necessary condition to the development of local IT field.
UnquoteWhy not first propose to change the constitution of Sri Lanka.
We have to work in SInhala and Tamil in Sri Lanka not in EnglishTo work in SInhala is not a pipe dream but the Elite had made it so by registering few Sinhala Characters in the unicode and SLSI 1134.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Quote
Please do not try to mislead people here by mentioning Thomas Friedman.
unquoteI just told you guys to read the book the World is Flat and see how Indians have gone up the ladder.
Where are we? What have the ICTA done with the heaps of funds they have received? First place we cannot use a computer in Sinhala and Tamil. We have an incorrect and incomplete Standard.
When these facts are pointed out You tell I mislead the public.
Please answer the question posted in 183 and then talk
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
JC Ahangama
Unbiased is right. We need to emphasize teaching of English. And, that is hard given the distraction of the inevitable war, its expense and preoccupation with it.
I sincerely believe that unfettered access to the Internet, say, at common computer centers throughout the country would foster self-learning of English.
Delivering Internet access over DSL lines is NOT expensive. DSL signal can live on regular telephone lines even when there is no ongoing call because 1) the telephone line always has a current and 2) the high-pitched DSL signal does not overlap the low-pitched voice signal. (I know this for a fact as I work on these since its invention). The difficult part is how to get a connection to the greater Internet from the telephone exchange to feed the DSLAM (DSL Access Multiplexers).
Looking from outside, the DSLAM is a simple device. It has a connection that goes out to the LAN inside the telephone exchange. Assume that the exchange is connecting to the Internet over a 128kbps ISDN dialup or a connection via satellite. Now, you take a set of telephone lines going out to subscribers and cut them and feed the subscriber side ends to the outgoing ports and the exchange side ends to the inlet ports. Now the Internet becomes available at the customer premises. At customer premises, you plug a DSL modem and tap the DSL signal into the computers or LAN. The signal depletes approaching 17 kilo-feet (about 3 and quarter miles) of wire length. You can control access through authentication made at the DSLAM or just let the subscribers buy the modems and connect if they want Internet.
A common question asked is how can a 128kbps connection service so many users? The answer is packet switching is extremely fast million times faster than human scale of time. It is extremely difficult to fill up a packet network link unless streaming is going on. I’d block video and audio streaming connections to solve this problem. We need passive pages of information going to the subscribers.
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Quote
We need to emphasize teaching of English
Unquote70% of the O/L students fail to obtain a pass mark, The authoritires are unable to find English teachers. We, not only need English but now Chinese and Hindi if one need to do business in the next 10 years. That is the international platform.
But we got to preserve the domestic platform too. To do business and work in Sri Lanka we need to be trilingual. (English, SInhala and Tamil) We have to use a computer in all three languages freely. The same way we use the Latin Script.
All Sinhaa charaters need to be listed in the ISO and the SLSI has to be corrected ASAP.
Hope you had a time to read yesterday’s The Sunday Leader page 15.
http://www.thesundayleader.lk
(you will have to register to read the contents)Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Dharma Gamage
Donald,
Did yesterday’s Sunday Leader say anything about Standardizing Sinhala for IT?
-
Yudishdara on Apr 28th, 2006 at 7:24 pm No 2 of this blog
http://www.lirneasia.net/2006/04/questioning-ict-myths/
The contents of the News paper relavent to the certain comments and the origin of this blog.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
JC Ahangama
Dharma,
The main point to note on what Donald says is about the problem of learning English and the alternate native language, whether Sinhala or Tamil. Most Europeans speak three languages. They don’t have double-size brains. We need exposure to the three languages, not nightly tele dramas. maybe using them…
I met a grad student who arrived here yesterday who failed TOEFL in Sri Lanka. He has been working as an executive in a company over there — a science graduate coming from a suburb of Colombo, not Binþænna. He tried a TOEFL class too but failed. He says the main problem is understanding the accent. This is true. If Sinhala alphabet is taught the way it ought to be, understanding comparative sounds in English is easy. We need to have respect for Sinhala first. And it deserves it because there is NO OTHER LANGUAGE IN THE WORLD that’s got an alphabet so scientifically arranged and described. The west is just discovering finer points of phonetics.
This is serious. We are isolating Lanka from the rest of the world. And then I met this morning a family (our relatives) who lived in SL until 3 months back who cannot speak a single sentence in Sinhala without gliding into English. The two teenage girls don’t speak Sinhala at all though they went to school in SL!
Definitely, these people tell a silent story: There’s a social stigma in speaking Sinhala. Colonial subservience die-hard. I suspect people even here are ashamed to WRITE in Sinhala when romanizing is so easy and intuitive. Compare this to Indians here. Wherever they are they speak in their native language. They are proud to be Indians, rightly so. I don’t write in romanized Sinhala here because they might excommunicate like the Google Unicode group did to me for doing so. anee aniccá kanee kadukká.
To turn to the subject of this forum, proper implementation of IT policies can reverse this trend. Like Donald says, Sinhala language is facing downhill. Without economic reasons to justify it, abandonment would slowly but surely happen.
The Sunday Leader’s way of doing business is illustrative of limited thinking. They still try to sell subscriptions than selling ads. The Internet has long gone past this experiment. How can you increase readership by telling only the few that would pay could read?
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Unbiased
Dear JC,
I do not think anyone should learn a language just because it is the language of your forefathers or just to respect the feelings of a community.
One should learn a language only if it helps one in some way. If the younger generation today thinks that learning Sinhala is of no use, fine. Let them work in English.
Unless otherwise one wants to be a politician or work in a government department, there is absolutely no dire need for anyone to learn Sinhala, apart from few sentences to deal with the office cleaners or three-wheeler drivers. 90% of the content available in Sinhala (both in print and electronic format) is available in English too.
Sir Arthur Clarke has been living in Sri Lanka since 1960s. He cannot still speak more than few words in Sinhala. Did he lose anything because of that? How he survived without ever bothering to learn any of the local languages?
If I have time to learn three languages, I would learn English, French and Japanese/Korean/Chinese. There are important reasons to learn these languages.
For example, if you learn Japanese, you increase your opportunity to get a job in Japan.
On the other hand, if you learn Sinhala, Tamil or Hindi what are the economically important opportunities you get? There are millions and millions of Hindi speaking people in India. Do they stand even a bit of advantage getting a job than a Sri Lankan who speaks only Sinhalese or Tamil?
In another, 20-25 years most of the Asian languages will anyway die a natural death. Languages like Gujarati, Marati, Punjabi, Bengali etc will gradually merge to become a monolithic Hindi version. In South India, Tamil, Telegu, Kannada and Malayalam will merge into one language. This is because of the power of communication. Nobody can stop that.
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Lets go back to 1978-
When Sri Lanka was getting assistance for a Television Station from Japan. Minister Hurulle visited Japan. During this time I too had some connections to Nippon Television (NTV Channel 4). NTV had done a multilingual system for Idi Amin in Uganda. NTV wanted to give this technology to Sri Lanka to have tri lingual simultaneous broadcasting at Rupavahini. The Minister declined the offer.
At least on ICT we got to introduce tri lingual facilities. The Elite again have no interest in the Sinhala Language development. Their intention is to destroy our Language Sinhala.
We had this problem in Polonaruwa era when Kalinga Marg invaded. Repeated during the Portuguese period. Today this is done by the none other than the Sinhalese themselves.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Dharma Gamage
Hi Donald,
I’ve read the Sunday Leader article.
By your earlier post 202, you are pouring Hydrochloric acid over somebody’s wounds. :-)
I guess somebody had to answer lots of questions now. I am sure somebody will not be amused by this type of revelations done by Sunday Leader.
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202 was an answer to 201
But that is where we started this blogHCl or H2SO4 facts will be exposed until the Sinhala language (ISO and SLSI) is corrected.
I think now we have passed 600 level
Lets hope for the best.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Quote
that learning Sinhala is of no use
unquoteWhat a pathetic comment written by a “Sinhalese” — I suppose —
I will not permit the Sinhala language to die.
nor the other ethnic indic languages to die eitherFirst I ony fight for the Sinhala later I will put the rest of the languages into the correct path.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Unbiased
Dear Donald,
If you love Sinhala language so much, you will never take patents for its usage anywhere. By taking a patent you obviously restrict the use of a language and put a berrier to its free use and its development.
If you love your language so much why do not you offer your services free of charge to the nation in designing Sinhala standards and content?
Why do you keep on requesting money from the government?
I thought anybody who loves to see ones language thrive will do some voluntary work rather than keep on ranting for money.
I love my language, but just because I love it, I do not want to force it on anyone else.
If people do not want to learn Sinhala whom I am to force them?
If people are more comfortable with conversing Sinhala using Roman characters let them do it. Whom are we to change that?
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If anyone uses my system and make money why cant they pay a royalty?
This is a right given by the Government of Sri LankaFor R&D and for educatonal work no royalties are paid on any copyright or a patent.
Only it will effect on commercial and Industrial applications
So your argument is not an issue here.
Quote
Why do you keep on requesting money from the government?
Unquote1. They are given funds from WB to develop IT in Sri Lanka.
2. I am not a “Situwaraya” or a “Bodhisatwa” I need funds to develop the R&D Sinhala.What if these rights were taken by the Dinos Group like the DOT LK
Do you know that they have blocked my Akuru (lk).
What right do they have to block my “akuru”It is a very unehetical act by the ICTA.
There is no way to resolve this in Sri Lanka.
We have no Law to fight this and Equal Access to Justice is not there for me.This condition too applies to so many developers in Sri Lanka.(re DOT LK)
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
JC Ahangama
Unbiased,
I think you have not being equitable or logical in your last entry. Perhaps you did not give it enough thought. It seems like you’d pay Microsoft, the foreigner, but not Donald who wants to sell purportedly something useful. You say “offer your services free of charge to the nation”.
Such socialist attitudes only pulled us down to the abyss. (It ruined USSR too). Taiwan and Lanka are comparable in literacy rate and population. Extremely few over there speak English or Japanese. Similarly, Koreans do not speak English. They prosper because they promote indigenous effort. In Lanka, people are openly jealous of success.
I am sure you might have next said that Donald can afford to work free. How would you feel if one tells you that you having sacrificed for some cause?
I thought you were explaining capitalism when you talked prophetically about how economics would eventually kill Sinhala. Sinhala will live if the industrious are allowed to prosper and not hindered by jealousy. Maybe you were not jealous but that is how it came out. I am sorry if I hurt your feelings, but please think about this.
And also, why should anyone use pseudonyms when arguing against Donald or me? Come out and speak. The managers know who you are. They see the email address. Why don’t you tell us too who you are. Whom are you afraid of?
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Last Laugh
Hudee jana pahan sanwegaya udesaa Yudushdara wisin rachana karana lada “VK Wannama” mese newatha mathak kara sitimu.
………………………………………………
Sri Lanka Yudishdara on Apr 28th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
The dismal failure of the Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lankan to deliver the goods, even after many years of its operation, to meet the anticipations at its ceremonial inception, can be largely attributed to the pitiable role played by its current Chairman.
This is an aged Emirates Airlines… sorry, Emeritus Professor beyond the age of seventy and a serious diabetics patient. It is very clear given his health conditions he should be best rest at home and do some social work.
He has been a bright academic in his younger days, no doubt, but as any medical student would tell you the memory cells start failing at the rate of one percent per every year after the age of just thirty. So definitely an elderly and ailing person cannot give leadership to a national level programme of the size of E Sri Lanka. It is high time that this Emirates Airlines… sorry, Emeritus Professor should go home and start doing something religious for the other world, he would visit sooner than later, after respectfully passing the baton to a dynamic and young leader. He is drawing a comfortable pension from the university and he has no family obligations. So there is no need for him to do a job. Unfortunately this power hungry and cash crazy Emirates Airlines… sorry, Emeritus Professor continue to stay beyond his capabilities.
Information and Communication Technology is not the science of the old. It is the science of the young. Michael Dell built a multi million company when he was just 32 years old and Bill Gates wrote Windows at the age of 30 years. The Yahoo founders were in their twenties when they did. It is quite possible Sri Lanka is the only country in the world that this type of old and ailing man controls the interests of the computer industry at the national level while the talented young were blocked from getting involved in the Information and Communication technology activities.
This man is perpetually jealous and feel threatened by the young professionals in the IT industry. (It is a different question why someone at his level should feel threatened by people so young and so junior to him.) He is jealous of so many other bright young professionals in the filed and done everything possible to stop them. This is one of the key reasons why no development in the Information and Communication Technology filed in Sri Lanka. Who wants to develop a field when such align and old avatars blocking every move they take? Who wants to join a programme, when the objectives of the programme are not to do anything good for the society or the country but to build ones own image?
With pure jealousy this man has blocked so many reputed IT companies moving forward. It is a surprise that companies like Virtusa survived in such an environment. Perhaps it is because Virtusa aimed at the international market and not the local market. This Emirates Airlines… sorry, Emeritus Professor seems to think that any local IT company who has to do a project in Sri Lanka has to give a chunk to him. Otherwise his vicious senile mind finds some way of ruing the opportunities for the domestic companies and pave way for a foreign company. He does not feel threatened with foreign companies because they are outsiders. Only locals worry him.
This pathetic person is jealous about anyone who wants to achieve something in ones life. He thinks the sole purpose of his creation is to stop anyone else achieving their ambitions. Like the typical Sri Lankans who perpetually suffer in the guardless pit in the hell, he cunningly pulls the leg of anyone who wants to go up. He does not like other people taking patents for their work. He hates to see anyone taking a patent and does his best to stop that.
Number of patents obtained in a year is an indication that measures the intellectual capacity of a country. Till we get rid of this kind of people, it is difficult to think Sri Lanka will ever be treated by anyone as a country of adequate intellectual capacity.
According to the Tender guidelines any government agency in Sri Lanka should follow the Executive head or the Chairman cannot be a part of the Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) of a deal. This is to prevent any influences to the TEC either political or otherwise. TEC should consist of people only drawn based on their technical capabilities. So it is highly questionable why this Emirates Airlines… sorry, Emeritus Professor so badly wants to be a part of the TEC in a USD 10-15 million deal. Why cannot he just let the technical people give their own decision on the bids than him interfering at the level of TEC?
Before joining the Information and Communication Technology Agency, this pathetic soul was one of the worst critics of the E Sri Lanka project. Not a single aspect about Information and Communication Agency, from the salaries to projects missed his harsh criticism. These came in many different ways. Many a time they came through the press, through his pal journalists going the extra mile. The most modern technologies like internet and email too were not spared. These also went to the level of mud slinging on the basis of religion, when it comes to qualifications. Please note, very conveniently this man was born a Sinhalese Buddhist. Probably this is the only ‘qualification’ now he has to do what he does and earn a sizable salary from the World Bank. After the government changed he forgot all that and went after the powers to grab the available opportunity by both hands. Now he leads the same institution he once criticized so harshly, without changing anything. It is surprising how people change.
This is the high time the Sri Lankan Information and Communication Technology professionals realize that nothing worthwhile can happen to the local IT industry unless bottlenecks like these are removed and the leadership in the Information and Communication Technology industry is given to young and dynamic professionals. May be Viagra can make some things work, but even Viagra cannot make old and ailing serpentine characters like this power hungry man any useful to the country.
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Last Laugh
test
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Last Laugh
Can someone who has a password to this article on Sunday Leader copy and paste the article here? I tried with their site but they ask for a password!!
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Meaningless
Donald,
Don’t think this is the end of Dino. He will survive SundayLeader article. Besides SL is not a widely read newspaper. He will probably say that you hired a journo to write this article and still b the good boy to the president. -
Do you know the total print of the news papers in Sri Lanka for a day?
It is less than 300,000 copies.
We have 19 million people and read less than 300,000 news paper publications per dayNone of the news papers are widely read in Sri Lanka and our reading level is very low.
Also pls note that I have no relationship to the content of the article nor to the writer.
I gave the link as this is relavent to this blog.Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
Hem and Haw
ICTA myths and tender frauds
By Dilrukshi Handunnetti
Overt manipulation and awarding of a tender to a Korean company with the Procurement Board of the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) choosing the highest bidder and paying Rs. 80 million extra for an e development programme has come to light.
The story dates back to year 2003 when Minister Milinda Moragoda wished to undertake a massive e-Sri Lanka drive. The Korean government also wished to make a contribution towards the initiative but with the change of governments, the process hibernated for a while.
Loan from Korea
However, invitation for bids (IFB) was called when the government of Sri Lanka received a loan from the Export-Import Bank of Korea from the resources available at the Economic Development Co-operation (EDCF) of Korea.
The specific amount received for this purpose was US$15 million (approx. Rs. 1,500,000,000) to finance Lanka Government Network (LGN) project of the e-Sri Lanka Development programme. At this point, the ICTA was selected as the implementing agency and the Cabinet Appointed Tender Board (CATB) on November 1, 2005 called for bids for the design, supply, installation and operation of Lanka Government Network (LGN).
It was stated that LGN was a highly available, secure and reliable underlying information infrastructure backbone that would connect all the government organisations of the GOSL in a cost effective and secure manner. Initially, 350 locations were identified for connectivity in three phases.
It was next announced that bidding would be according to International Competitive Bidding (ICB) procedures specified in the “Guidelines for Procurement Under the EDCF Loan, March 2005” and Government Procurement Guidelines. It was open to all bidders from the Republic of Korea.
Minimum qualifications
It was announced that bidders should fulfil the minimum qualification criteria. This meant, the Management Service Provider (MSP) having a minimum of five years experience in the implementation and management of large-scale Wide Area Network (WAN) projects.
Further, the MSP was to have experience in successful implementation of large scale managed network infrastructure projects with a project value exceeding US$ 10 million, experience in managing and co-originating various stakeholders and enjoying a total annual revenue of minimum US$60 million to establish financial credibility.
A significant stipulation was the fact that the foreign MSP should have a local alliance/partnership so that the MSP will have legal liabilities for the project.
Also, it was specified that the MSP should have a registered Sri Lankan business presence or have partners or consortium, operational with adequate staff for a minimum period of five years or more with a proven track record of providing respective managed services.
For the two stage bidding process, a pre bid meeting was called on November 16, 2005 at the ICTA itself. Bids closed on November 30.
At this point, a full-fledged consortium, Korean Telecom Network (KTN) submitted its bid for US$ 13.93 million, Samsung Networks Inc. for US 14. 82 million. The other bidder was Korea Exchange Banking Technologies (KEBT).
According to ICTA sources, it was KTN that submitted a technically convenient bid complete with customers’ sites and survey preparations to the ICTA.
Then Request For Proposal (RFP) was made and KTN submitted a comprehensive proposal with experts being flown in to the island to assist in mastering the technical aspects of the same.
Manipulation
Inside sources say that it was at this level, when evaluation of proposals commenced that serious manipulation began within the ICTA in stark violation of the tender procedures.
In February last year, when a procurement clarification was sought from the ICTA, Procurement Advisor Christy Perera sent an e-mail response to Samsung titled “Inquiry about the second stage technical proposal format.”
Samsung had first questioned whether a partnership and a joint venture would be considered one and the same, and next the difference between partners and sub contractors. “Are they the same or do they have different function/relationship?” the company queried, and Perera replied, “No, they are not the same.”
Further, the clarifying mail sent by ICTA’s Procurement Advisor Perera stated that sub contractors were not involved in signing the contract but should be declared when the proposal is submitted.
It has now transpired that despite the strong backing received, Samsung Networks did not even fulfil the minimum eligibility criteria specified by ICTA.
According to the invitation for bids (IFB) of the e-Sri Lanka Development Project (IFBA; ICTA/GOODS/18) it was mandatory for the foreign Manage Service Provider (MSP) to have a local alliance or partnership to ensure that such MSP will have legal liabilities for the project.
Criteria
Similarly, the said MSP according to stipulated criteria should have a registered Sri Lankan business presence, or have partners or consortium operational with adequate staff for a minimum period of five years or more with a proven track record of providing respective managed services. Samsung did not possess the above two pre-qualifications, though they were able to go to the next level without being disqualified at the very outset.
Other bidders now claim that the technical evaluations on both bidding stages were inaccurate and were full of malpractices which were geared towards granting the contract to an already selected company.
It has now transpired that as per the technical evaluation criteria listed in the tender document, 12 marks were given to experience and expertise of ‘the local partner of the bidder’ whereas Samsung did not actually have a local partner.
The Sunday Leader has reliably learned that in the case of Samsung Networks bid, the 12 marks have been given to subcontractors and not the local partners. (See document)
Not only that, there were other misrepresentations at the technical evaluation. The ineligible company had also received two marks given to the bidders’ experience in implementing Economic Development and Co-operation Fund of Korea (EDCF) projects though Samsung Networks has not implemented any EDCF funded projects. Nevertheless Samsung managed to secure full marks.
There were other issues clouding technical evaluation.
Investigations
Our investigations have revealed that KTN had initially objected to the appointment and formation of a technical evaluation committee (TEC) in violation of government stipulated tender guidelines which fell on deaf ears. KTN had objected on the basis of a public finance circular issued by Treasury Secretary P. B. Jayasundera.
The objection was that according to clause 33.1 of the Procurement Guidelines (as amended by the Public Finance Circular No. 352/10), there was a defect in appointing Chairman, ICTA Prof. V. K. Samaranayake to participate/represent technical evaluation committee of the ICTA itself.
Jayasundera’s public finance circular issued to all secretaries of ministries, heads of government departments, corporations and statutory boards cautioned them against the inclusion of chief executive officers of such organisations in TEC, as it would undermine the role of other TEC members.
Referring o Chapter 111 of the Guidelines of Government Tender Procedures (revised edition August 197) regarding the appointment of TEC members, Jayasundera instructed that, “the members of the TEC should feel free to express their independent views and make recommendations to the Tender Board. In this context, the inclusion of chief executive officers (managing director, general manager, chairman etc.) of organisations in TEC tend to undermine the role of other members of TEC drawn from the same organisation. Therefore, you are kindly requested to refrain from nominating or appointing such officers to TEC.” (See document )
Samsung secures bid
What is more, it has now transpired that Samsung has managed to secure the bid despite furnishing misleading information for technical evaluation purposes. This despite tender documents specifying ‘misrepresentation of information’ being a fraudulent practice which could disqualify a bidder.
According to instructions issued to bidders, what is termed a ‘fraudulent practice’ is “a misrepresentation of facts in order to influence a procurement process or the execution of a contract to the detriment of the borrower and includes collusive practices among bidders (prior to or after submission of bids) designed to establish bid prices at artificial, noncompetitive levels and to deprive the borrower of the benefits of free and open competition.”
Under this stipulation however, it is possible to reject a proposal or to declare ineligibility, either indefinitely or for a stated period of time. However, none of the above occurred in respect of Samsung Networks despite the gross misrepresentations.
Accordingly, Samsung Networks in their answers to clarifications raised by the ICTA at the first stage of LGN bid evaluation, brazenly declared Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) as their ‘local partner.’ Interestingly enough, the TEC had given full marks for the local partner acting on the basis that SLT was indeed a local partner of Samsung whereas it was only a subcontractor.
When questioned on the nature of the local presence of Samsung Networks, the company response was in fact a laugh. In a written clarification Samsung said, “once we are awarded this project, we will set up our office and our staff from Korea will be based in Colombo office. Our office in Colombo, local partners and sub contractors will collaborate for the successful implementation and operation of LGN.”
Local partner
Having stated that, Samsung added, “our principle partner is Sri Lanka Telecom. MIT, Metropolitan, Softlogic and Advantage Technology will be involved in implementation and operation in some degree.”
When the bidding process reached second stage whereupon bidders are required to produce their partnership agreements and financial reports, Samsung Networks also managed to alter their original position and declared that they in fact do not have any local partner fearing disqualification at this stage.
What baffles ICTA insiders themselves is as to why the TEC chose to ignore all the gross misrepresentations, misleading statements and tender procedure violations in this manner. While bidders may try, as they often do, all the tricks in their books, ICTA officials themselves are baffled by the fact that the TEC did not outrightly reject the Samsung bid, but instead lent every possible support for the company to secure the bid.
When subsequent objections were raised against SLT being principal local partner of Samsung and a subcontractor with another, SLT quickly disassociated itself from the Samsung partnership claim. Instead, it wrote to Chairman, CATB, stating its position.
In a letter dated November 28, 2005, Chief Marketing Officer, Sri Lanka Telecom, Kapila Chandrasena announced a partnership with Enterprise Technology (Pvt) Ltd.
More problems
The Samsung bid however encountered more problems than the above. The two stage procurement guidelines were not properly implemented and followed by the ICTA itself. Other competitors allege that if the bidders were acting according to the tender guidelines of the government, the price bid should have been opened only after the completion of the technical evaluations.
At this point, ICTA, it is learned had requested the bidders to include the total price in their technical proposals for Stage 2 bidding purposes.
However, such treatment was not meted out to other competitors. When KTN made representations seeking clarifications from ICTA, not even minutes of the meeting were released to KTN. What is more, the company was also requested to alter their technical solution at this point, according to ICTA insiders.
Naturally, when the matter reached the next stage — it led to the more technically advanced and superior solutions proposed by KT Networks to be rejected without any valid reasons being provided.
KTN’s proposal was a state of the art satellite solution to connect all the 350 government-building locations. Considering the fact that most of the locations happened to be in remote areas, the company’s belief was that satellite communication facility was the most viable and suitable method for deploying high bandwidth connections.
Rejected
What was more, ICTA was to gain the additional benefit of coming to own the equipment. However, for no apparent reason, the solution was rejected and was told to work out a ‘land line’ solution. ICTA inside sources associated with the process confirmed that Samsung Networks Inc. had proposed only a landline solution.
When the final marks were announced, KTN objected and sought a revision in the marks. The grouse the company has is that if the revision was done according to the stipulated marking system, KTN should have secured the highest marks and naturally become the more eligible bidder to win the contract for the project. What is more, marks were verbally announced and were not in writing.
In this highly questionable backdrop, CATB approved Samsung’s proposal and rejected the other two. Following representations made to higher authorities, on May 17, 2006, President’s Secretary Lalith Weeratunga wrote to KT Networks announcing the disqualification of the company to secure the tender. However, it allowed an opening for the company to make representations to the Procurement Appeal Board (PAB).
On May 20 this year, Manager, NI Business Marketing Division, Overseas Business Development Department, KT Networks, Yong Jin Kim formally submitting an appeal drew the PAB’s attention to the irregularities in the tender evaluations and even the fraudulent practices.
Irregularities
Kim whilst highlighting several major irregularities also questioned the eligibility of Samsung Networks, alleging that if the evaluation was just and impartial, KT Networks was of firm belief that the contract should have been awarded to them.
“If the evaluation had been just and impartial, we believe that we should have obtained the highest marks for the technical evaluation. Further, our price bid was substantially less than that of Samsung Networks. If the evaluation has been accurate and impartial, we would have got the recommendation which eventually would save a significant amount of money for the Government of Sri Lanka.
We earnestly request your fair and just evaluation of the representations we are making against the award and recommend our bid which we believe is the technically most compliant and lowest in price.”
Having charged processing fee of Rs. 50,000, PAB did not offer a valid explanation for such rejection, according to angry ICTA insiders.
After such a fiasco of manipulating marks and violating tender procedures to ensure success for one bidder, to this date, the tender remains un-awarded, a fact a source from the CATB confirmed. What is more, the ICTA also agrees that though Samsung secured the bid, contract is yet to be granted and says no more.
The loss to the state is in the range of Rs. 80 million with the selection made, but no matter. KTN and KETB have been unfairly evaluated only to award the tender to the highest bidder. It really must be a sign of a wealthy state, albeit the expenses of war.
Then again, here is a topic that comes directly under President Mahinda Rajapakse himself.
ICTA says…
Speaking to The Sunday Leader, a top ICTA official said that the contract was not awarded to any company yet.
He said that there were no irregularities in deciding to issue the contract and admitted that the tender process had ended.
“The cabinet has decided to give the contract to Samsung Networks, but it has not been awarded yet. Some parties allege that there are irregularities in deciding as to whom the contract should have been awarded to. But the procedure adopted was perfectly fine and there was no irregularity as alleged,” he said.
He said that Samsung Networks had in fact quoted a lesser price than the other company, Korean Telecom Networks (KTN).
“The amount quoted by the company is not known at the moment, but the amount was certainly less than the amount bid by Korean Telecom Network,” he added.
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Spotlight
Oh Man!!!!!!!
What a sensational discovery. Manju must be having the last laugh now. Prof missed a chance of a decent death after his career. Now hero has become the villain. Pity.!!!!!
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Thoppi Velenda
I agree with Meaningless. Dino has a skin 6 inches thick. There is no point trying to beat an animal with such a thick skin. He wont feel anything.
What Donald can do is to use “Heen Seraya”. Find a katussa and put it to Dino’s nose. (As described in that famous book)
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“Heen Seraya” is a mouse getting into the trunk of an elephant.
Dino holds the mouse must request “Sumsung” to make one to run around
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
How nice to see everyone is active again.
Lets get back to the topic
Please answer the question posted in 183.
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo -
This thread is closed for comments. A new thread has been started. Please continue your discussions there.
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Let me repeat this again I am not defending anyone or any masters as we dont work for anyone. But we followed the Sinhala Unicode and technically implemented it for various use of Sinhala in MS & Mobile Platforms. Same thing I beleive people like Linux, MS, IBM, Orcale will be doing.
The technical implementation of finalized unicode standard was started about 1 – 1/2 years ago, if am not mistaken so it will take some time to see all these things in place in the marketplace. Windows will support this in Vista, Linux already supports, Oracle supports Sinhala Unicode and so does many other technical implementations. Win XP supports Sinhala Unicode through an enabling pack however the best implementation for MS will arrive with VISTA.
I think the big mistake ICTA is doing is sleeping rather than coming out and showcasing these solutions to what’s available to general public. If they organize a forum and mini-exhibition to showcase all Sinhala Unicode compliant products/services including emailing among platforms, cut & paste to what not, we can invite all these forum members to showcase the same. Perhaps the same forum can be used to arrange a debate/questioning about the Unicode!
Newspapers
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The best people to answer would be people from ANCL, Wijeya, and Upali where there are 2 people from these organizations who were in the Unicode Task Team if am not mistaken. So they should come and highlight why the papers are not Unicode complaint yet. I dont see an issue but beleive it’s all internal matters which they among themselves needs to finalize.
Dharma for you to see respective Sinhala Unicode based websites in your PC without downloading, you may have to wait for VISTA where you upgrade to it. Even if another standard get’s established there is no way it will just get established in your PC magically. It applies to JC, Donald and whowever who builds another standard, font or way of working in Sinhala. That too has to be technically accomplished.
Finally, if it was Donald’s standard which is been accepted by ALL (MS, Linux, Oracle, Googls to local acedamia and private software companies to government) sometime ago we would have implemented the same. But everyone agreed and accepted to work on Sinhala Unicode (SLSI1134) hence we too have established the same to ensure inter operability and also since it’s feasible to technically implement.
We do have a problem in implementing Sinhala
Please confirm whther you have a hidden “union” of character table apart from the few characters registered in the unicode = Slsi1134.
“yes” or “no”
Even Harsula avoid this question. This was posted last week.(160 and 163 )
Linux group have proved that there is a”union” .
Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo
The best people to answer would be people from ANCL, Wijeya, and Upali where there are 2 people from these organizations who were in the Unicode Task Team if am not mistaken. So they should come and highlight why the papers are not Unicode complaint yet.
[unquote]Yes, the best person to answer this question is Mr. Naveendra Gunaratne from Wijeya Newspapers, who was in the original Sinhala fonts task team and left thoroughly disappointed, because his concerns were never taken seriously by Gihan, Dino and the rest of the team, who had their own agendas. (The ANCL man was only a puppet.)
However, I do not see any logical reason why any newspaper company should shift to Unicode compatible platform.
As I said before, if the Unicode supporters want to make Unicode Sinhala, a standard they should first have enough applications to attract users. As long as they do not, the newspapers will use what will bring them better results. The business leaders take decisions based on market.
Newspapers do not use Oracle or Linux. All they wanted is good font sets to be used in the publishing environment and perhaps relevant applications.
You cannot force anybody to use Unicode compatible Sinhala fonts sets, if that does not given any advantage over the rest. You cannot hold a gun at the head of a press baron and threaten him to use Unicode.
Finally, have you seen anywhere that VISTA will support Sinhala? I have not and given what had happened in the past, I have strong doubts about that.
Since there is no set of full Sinhala characters registered either in SLSI or in Unicode the software developers are deprived to make any software for sinhala.
Only I have done and published this document with code points. Since this was done by me in private capacity I do have the copyrights and a patent is pending.
The code points which are outside the unicode registered area is kept under a blanket called a “UNION” and this list was never published. The content in this “union” differ from one font maker to the other.
As I have previously mentioned in 178
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Only a part is registered balance kept inside a unpublished “union”. Who ever hid these codepoints may had a commercial venure –a monopoly — in the mind or deprive the people in lanka of Sinhala IT education. IT only open for the english speaking group.
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Donald Gaminitillake
Colombo