Does Kannada actually use nukta?

James Puckett

Kannada has a nukta, u+0CBC. But I can’t confirm that nukta is actually used in Kannada. Bright doesn’t mention it in The World’s Writing Systems, Ziegler doesn’t mention it, and neither do the relevant Wikipedia entries. I ran a search on the Parallel Bible Corpus and it doesn’t come up. Is the nukta used with the Kannada script for writing Kannada?

Erin McLaughlin

I haven't seen it yet. But the concept of nukta is to represent sounds that aren't inherent in the writing system, just as in the Devanagari you made. And it's in Unicode, so I think you should put it in the font! I think (in addition to John), you should ask Vaishnavi, and some other actual Kannadigas! Don't know how many are on Typedrawers...

James Puckett

I think (in addition to John), you should ask Vaishnavi, and some other actual Kannadigas! Don't know how many are on Typedrawers... 

I know, but I ask here so that the next person who wonders about this can find an answer with a search.

John Hudson

I did a bit of digging, and found the earliest reference to the Kannada nukta in the UTC document registry, from 2001: 'Feedback on Unicode Standard 3.0', originally published in the Newsletter of the TDIL Programme of Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India. This document suggested a number of additions for various Indic scripts, not all of which were eventually approved by Unicode. Unfortunately, while the document includes contact information for contributing experts, it does not provide examples of use.

The next mention I find is in CV Srinatha Sastry's 'General Information & Description' of Unicode Kannada (2003). This is discussed initially on page 7, and again on page [10]. Srinatha Sastry notes two foreign phonemes in Kannada that are regularly written with the nukta:

ಜ಼ = Za
ಫ಼ = Fa

In addition to Kannada, ScriptSource identifies ten minority languages that use the script, and it is possible that other letters may carry nukta in the orthographies of these languages. Unfortunately, little information is available regarding these orthographies.

Handling the Kannada nukta in fonts is tricky. Providing an anchor for it on base letters is easy enough, but one needs to also handle syllabic ligatures (filtering the nukta so that it doesn't prevent ligature formation, and then anchoring on the appropriate part of the ligature glyph) and presumably accommodate nukta on both base and subsequent consonants in conjunct shaping (although perhaps it would be sufficient to accept explicit virama in such conjuncts and avoid subscripts/postscripts?)

James Puckett

Thanks, John. 

Providing an anchor for it on base letters is easy enough, but one needs to also handle syllabic ligatures… 

I think that part of the project will have to wait until 2016. Georg will probably have it worked out by then anyway