[HarfBuzz] Mai Kang Lai in Tai Tham, summary draft

[Richard Wordingham]

On Tue, 21 May 2013 15:06:13 +0700
Theppitak Karoonboonyanan <thep at linux.thai.net> wrote:

> On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 2:38 PM, Andrew Cunningham
> <lang.support at gmail.com> wrote:
 
> > I'm wondering how much some of the detail is language based and may
> > be handled using language systems?
 
> - Khuen: never shifted
> - Lao: always shifted
> - Lanna: any of the three (shifted, no shifted, conditionally shifted)
 
> However, all of these are "scripts" rather than "languages".
> At least, both Lao Tham and Lanna Tham can be used to write Thai,
> I suppose Khuen can, too. And all can be used to write Pali.

There's a sample of a 'recent' Tai Khuen printing of part of the
Mangala Sutta on p241 of 'the History and Development of the Shan
Scripts'.  It has *shifted* mai kang lai!

For the most part, the differences in style should match the intended
audience, not the language of the content.  Even so, I am not sure how
one would use the language system to handle reordering issues.  Is
the suggestion that one might (ab)use language to decide on the
reordering rules?  For the 'mai kam' issue (if it cannot be resolved
without reordering support - no-one's reported sorting out the
rendering of <tone mark, AA, MAI KANG> using OpenType techniques), I
suspect the relevant parameter is the degree of Bangkok influence.

Richard.