An architecture for the shaping of Indic texts

摘要

There has been virtually no software localization into any of the major languages of India. One important reason for this is the fact that enabling Indic scripts at the base software level involves sophisticated computational process that are far from the traditional font level substitutions that suffice for a number of other world languages. Indian languages are basically phonetic in nature and fortunately, their writing systems are amongst the most logical and are thus highly amenable to being embedded in software. This paper is primarily concerned with the shaping process needed at the kernel level of the operating system so that software systems can include support for enabling Indic scripts. The shaping architecture and computational process described are based on over tow decades of work in trying to build basic support for Indian languages in computer systems. We first present the basic phonetic nature of Indian scripts and the unique characteristic nature of writing in Indian languages. Next the computational process of shaping and a general architecture for its implementation are described. Finally the specific implementation for Unicode encoded texts displayed using TrueType Open fonts is briefly presented.