Standardization Activities in Thailand

Thaweesak KoanantakoolNational Electronics and Computer Technology Center

21 November 2000.

21 November 2000 AHTS-2

2

TIS 620 And Its Future

UCS is not well supported yet

TIS 620 is the practical code set for information interchange

Microsoft Windows– UCS in Office 97 and later

– code page 874 (TIS 620 extension) in other applications

MacOS– MacThai (TIS 620 extension)

21 November 2000 AHTS-2

3

TIS 620 And Its Future

GNU/Linux– code page 874 file system module

– TIS-620 for th_TH locale in GNU C library

– TIS620.2533 charset in th_TH.TACTIS X11 locale

– TIS620.2529 and TIS620.2533 in Thai X bitmap fonts

– TIS620.2529 and TIS620.2533 supported in GTK+

– ISO8859-11 and TIS620 supported in Qt

– ISO8859-11, with TIS620.2529 and TIS620.2533 aliases in XFree86 font server

21 November 2000 AHTS-2

4

TIS 620 And Its Future

Internet: ad hoc solutions– iso8859-1 exploit

– x-user-defined

Internet: vendor-specific/authorized solution– windows-874 for Microsoft Windows platform

– cp-874 for Lotus Notes

– tis-620 registered to IANA (Mozilla, Internet Explorer, Outlook)

21 November 2000 AHTS-2

5

TIS 620 And Its Future

Problems to solve– TIS 620 needs to be better known to developers, for better support

– The diversity of names (tis620, tis620.2529, tis620.2533) and variations (windows-874, cp-874, MacThai, iso8859-11)

– Availability of resources, such as repertoire map in Unicode database

21 November 2000 AHTS-2

6

TIS 620 And Its Future

ISO/IEC 8859-11– Based on TIS 620

– FDIS under preparation

– Hoped to be much help in promotion of Thai support in 8-bit environments, the ones practically used in the country

– A consistent Thai support among proprietary standards

21 November 2000 AHTS-2

7

Tai Scripts Study

A meeting of specialists arranged by NECTEC in April 2000 (Purpose: survey, make acquaintance)

Keeping track of a Tai study group for ISO/IEC 10646 proposal (http://www.egt.ie/standards/iso10646/pdf/tai-scripts.html)

21 November 2000 AHTS-2

8

Status of Tai Scripts Study for Standardization

Territory Script Thawee ISO/IEC 10646 Evidence RemarksAhom Font ProposalKhamti Font ProposalPhake - Proposal

India

Aiton - -Thai Yai(Shan)

Font - Shan Herald Agency for News (S.H.A.N) NewspaperMyanmar

Khoen Font - ³Suwanna Wua Luang´�book by Anatole-RogerPELTIER

Dehong Font Proposal (TaiNua)

Dehong DictionaryChina

New Tai Lue Font Draft ³Nong Tung´�JournalThai Dam(Black Thai)

Font

Thai Khao(White Thai)

Font

Vietnam

Thai Dang(Red Thai)

Font

Draft (Viet Thai)

Vientian Laos Font Standard OfficialOld Laos Font -

Laos

Laos Dharma Font -Siamese Thai - Standard OfficialLanna Font Analyzed Lanna DictionaryThai Noi Font -NortheasternDharma

Font -

Thailand

Lao Song Font -

21 November 2000 AHTS-2

9

A Survey of Lanna Thai in Northern Region

Used in many places in Chiangmai, mostly for decoration purpose

Two institutions provide Lanna courses: Chiangmai University, Rachabhat Institute Chiangmai

Mostly studied through informal education: temples, clubs, senior people

10 Lanna books in bookstores, a few in public libraries, 50 in Chiangmai University library

21 November 2000 AHTS-2

10

A Survey of Lanna Thai in Northern Region

Notices– Most, except religious, documents are transliterated and published

in central Thai script

– Lanna letters are written by hand, due to the lack of printing system

– Most documents are published by local publishers, making it not so widespread

21 November 2000 AHTS-2

11

Future Works

Template topics to study for each script:– Writing system (consonants, vowels, tones, digits, direction,

syllable composition)

– Encoding (alphabetic elements, interchange vs. presentation, composing marks)

– Input method (key availability, input sequence, keyboard layout)

– Output method (display levels, font metrics, shaping, font encoding)

– Sorting order (alphabetic order, classes of character weights)

– Word boundary (word/phrase/sentence delimiters, requirements of word boundary analysis)

This document was created with Win2PDF available at http://www.daneprairie.com.The unregistered version of Win2PDF is for evaluation or non-commercial use only.