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Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 19:24:23 +0200
From: "Dr.K. Kalyanasundaram"
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Subject: [agathiyar] Re: ukara, UkAra uyirmey ezhuththu uruva mARRam.
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Dear Dr. Ganesan:

Thanks a lot for your interesting post on possible tamil script reform.
We had earlier similar propositions from Prof. Selvakumar also.

The forthcoming Tamilnet2000 / TamilInaiyam2000 conference
(to be held in Colombo during March 2000) has allocated specific
sessions on the topic of Language and Script reform.
I quote below relevant sections from the website
:

> Topic 1: Language and Education:
> 1) Tamil Script: A script is not laid down in concrete. It keeps
> constantly evolving to suit the needs of its sustaining society.
>
> a. Improvement: While maintaining the main graphical form of the
> letter improving its presentation
> b. Change: Change the graphical form of the letter to improve
> presentation.
> c. New letters: Create new letters to represent sounds not found
> in the Tamil alphabet.

Tamilnet97 and Tamilnet99 conferences had a fairly heavy minister-level
attendances. There may be similar participation from govt.
representatives in Colombo as well. So, if I may, I would like
to suggest that you and Prof. Selvakumar submit papers for this
conference on this topic of script reform and possibly present it
in person at the conference.

Tamilinaiyam2000 website has even an email discussion forum on this
topic. I am even cited (without my knowledge!) as one of the
coordinators to take responsibility on the topic of "script reform"!

Personally I not very convinced as to whether Tamilnet conferences
should take up discussions on politically loaded topics like
language/script reform. More appropriate forums could be Annual
Tamil Conferences organized by TNF and even govt. agencies.

At the last Tamilnet99 conference I had rumours on the corridors
that the present Tamilnadu Govt conside "inclusion of Tamil
numerals" in the proposed glyph encoding scheme as a political bomb.
So it was no surprise to me to find that these disappeared in the
final officially recommended TAM, TAB encodings!

Good luck to you and to Prof. Selvakumar.

anbudan,
Kalyan