Should there be a space before the Devanagari Danda?

[DavidHaslam]

In the Punjabi Bible A search for the regexp \S\x{0964} gave 1547 hits. A search for the regexp \s\x{0964} gave 21326 hits. Here, those without a space are in a minority, being less than 6.8% of the total.

This prompts the question:

Should there be a space before the Devanagari Danda?

cf. In the Assamese Bible, the results are quite the opposite! Those with a space are in a minority, being less than 6.3% of the total.

A search for the regexp \S\x{0964} gave 27756 hits. A search for the regexp \s\x{0964} gave 1855 hits.

NB. These results relate to my fork of the repo after my commits to the master branch.

What is the typographical standard in this matter for the various languages that use an Indic script?

NB. If some sort of space is required before the Danda, it's conceivable that it should be U+2008 PUNCTUATION SPACE rather than an ordinary space.

[DavidHaslam]

If you can provide a definitive answer to the main question, I can readily run a simple bespoke TextPipe filter on the USFM files to ensure that all the occurrences of the Devanagari Danda use the same style.

[joshykurian]

Yes, usually people use a space before the Devanagari Danda because there are some characters that look like danda, and may change the word meaning if there is no space.

On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 1:54 PM, David Frank Haslam < notifications@github.com> wrote:

If you can provide a definitive answer to the main question, I can readily run a simple bespoke TextPipe filter on the USFM files to ensure that all the occurrences of the Devanagari Danda use the same style.

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/FreeBiblesIndia/Punjabi_Bible/issues/1#issuecomment-331384215, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGwo9Pn4OUqElZecJS2CZDZFpj1_330Fks5sk267gaJpZM4PgYRM .

-- Regards and Prayers,

Joshy Kurian

•♥´¨♥•.¸¸.•♥´¨♥•.¸¸.•♥´¨♥•.¸¸.•♥´¨♥•.¸¸.•♥´¨`♥• “എന്റെ ജീവിതം ജീവിച്ചിരിക്കുന്നവരും മരിച്ചു പോയവരുമായ മറ്റുള്ളവരുടെ അദ്ധ്വാനത്തെ അടിസ്ഥാനമാക്കിയുള്ളതാണ്. ഞാന്‍ സ്വീകരിച്ചിട്ടുള്ളതിനും, ഇപ്പോഴും സ്വീകരിച്ചു കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നതിനും തുല്യമായ അളവില്‍ സമൂഹത്തിനു, തിരിച്ചു നല്കാനായി ഞാന്‍ കഠിനശ് രമം നടത്തേണ്ടിയിരിക്കുന്നു. ഈ വസ്തുത ഓരോ ദിവസവും ഒരു നൂറു വട്ടം ഞാന്‍ സ്വയം ഓര്മ്മി പ്പിക്കാറുണ്ട്.. നാം കഴിക്കുന്ന ആഹാരം മറ്റുള്ളവര്‍ കൃഷി ചെയ്തുണ്ടാക്കിയതാണ്, ധരിക്കുന്ന വസ്ത്രങ്ങള്‍ മറ്റുള്ളവര്‍ ഉണ്ടാക്കിയതാണ്, താമസിക്കുന്ന വീട് മറ്റുള്ളവര്‍ നിര്മ്മി ച്ചിട്ടുള്ളതാണ്. നമ്മുടെ അറിവിന്റെകയും വിശ്വാസങ്ങളുടെയും സിംഹഭാഗവും നമുക്ക് മറ്റുള്ളവരില്‍ നിന്നും കൈമാറിക്കിട്ടിയിട്ടുള്ളതാണ്, അതിന്റെ മാധ്യമമായ ഭാഷയും മറ്റുള്ളവര്‍ സൃഷ്ടിച്ചിട്ടുള്ളതാണ്.”

~~ ആല്‍ബെര്‍ട്ട് ഐന്‍സ്റ്റീന്‍ .

•♥´¨♥•.¸¸.•♥´¨♥•.¸¸.•♥´¨♥•.¸¸.•♥´¨♥•.¸¸.•♥´¨`♥•

"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men - living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving." ~~ Albert Einstein.

•♥´¨♥•.¸¸.•♥´¨♥•.¸¸.•♥´¨♥•.¸¸.•♥´¨♥•.¸¸.•♥´¨`♥•

Disclaimer : The information contained in this message may be privileged and confidential. It is intended to be read only by the individual or entity to whom it is addressed or by their designee. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are on notice that any distribution of this message, in any form, is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please immediately notify the sender and delete or destroy any copy of this message.

[DavidHaslam]

Thanks, Joshy.

I will ensure that all the Danda and Double Danda will have a preceding space.

In the Gurmukhi block, there are no characters that really look like the Danda.

However, there are lookalike characters from other writing systems. These include:

• The numeral 1
• Lowercase letter l
• Vertical line |
• Exclamation mark !
• U+09F7 Bengali Currency Numerator Four ৷

See also issue #3

[DavidHaslam]

For those instances of the Danda that are not at the end of a line, how many spaces should there be after the Danda?

After my filter is run, there are:

• 12629 at the End of Line position
• 1264 with 2 spaces after
• 2976 with only 1 space after
• 461 with no space after, of which 457 the next character is a punctuation mark That leaves 4 locations where the Danda is immediately followed by a Gurmukhi letter. These 4 places still require a space inserting.

Some of the above counts would change were I to run the Remove blanks from End of Line filter.

[DavidHaslam]

The question about spaces in my previous comment is no longer relevant.

The preliminary tidy up included the filter

• Remove multiple white space