Gujarati

As part of the Root Zone, this LGR includes neither decimal digits nor the HYPHEN-MINUS.

Each code point is tagged with the script or scripts with which the code points is used, one or more other character categories, and one or more references documenting sufficient justification for inclusion in the repertoire; see “References” below.

Variants

According to Section 6, “Variants”, in [Proposal-Gujarati], there are no characters or character sequences in the Gujarati repertoire that look exactly alike. Hence no variants have been defined.

However, Gujarati has some cases of confusingly similar combinations which have been listed in Appendix A in [Proposal-Gujarati].

Character Classes

Gujarati is an alphasyllabary and the heart of the writing system is the Akshar. This is the unit which is instinctively recognized by users of the script. The writing system of Gujarati could be summed up as composed of Consonants, the Implicit Vowel Killer: Halant, Vowels, Anusvara, Candrabindu, Nukta, Visarga and Avagraha.

Consonants: Gujarati consonants contain an implicit vowel schwa /ə/. The traditional classification categorizes them according to their phonetic properties. There are 5 Varga groups (classes) and one non-Varga group. Each varga, which corresponds to a particular stop, contains five consonants classified as per their properties. The first four consonants are classified on the basis of Voicing and Aspiration and the last is the corresponding nasal. More details in Section 3.4.1, “The Consonants” of the [Proposal-Gujarati].

Halant: All consonants contain the implicit vowel (schwa). A special sign is needed to denote that this implicit vowel is stripped off. This is known as the Halant (્). The Halant thus joins two consonants and creates conjuncts, which generally combine 2 to 4 consonants. In rare cases the Halant can join up to 5 consonants. More details in Section 3.4.2, “The Implicit Vowel Killer: Halant” in [Proposal-Gujarati].

Vowels and Matras: Separate symbols exist for all Vowels, which are either pronounced independently at the beginning or attached to a consonant. To indicate the latter (other than the implicit one), a Vowel modifier (matra) is attached to the consonant. Since the consonant has a built-in schwa, there are equivalent Matras for all vowels excepting the અ (U+0A85). More details in Section 3.4.3, “Vowels” in [Proposal-Gujarati].

Anusvara: In Gujarati, the Anusvara has a dual function. On the one hand, it acts as homorganic nasal, that is, it replaces a conjunct group of a Nasal Consonant+Halant+Consonant belonging to that particular varga. On the other hand, before a non-varga consonant the anusvara represents a nasal sound. Gujarati and its dialects prefer the anusvara to the corresponding half-nasal. More details in Section 3.4.4, “The Anusvara” in [Proposal-Gujarati].

Nukta: Traditionally Gujarati does not admit the Nukta. Gujarati grammarians in their inventory of the Gujarati alphabet do not admit this diacritic. However, the Nukta is used to represent content where Perso-Arabic characters have to be transliterated. It follows specific consonants listed in set C1. More details in Section 3.4.6, “Nukta” in [Proposal-Gujarati].

Visarga and Avagraha: The Visarga is frequently used in Sanskrit and represents a sound very close to /h/, as in દુઃખ /du:kh/ sorrow, unhappiness. It is used sparingly in Gujarati with a few words borrowed from Sanskrit. The Avagraha is rarely used and excluded from the LGR. More details in Section 3.4.7, “Visarga and Avagraha” in [Proposal-Gujarati].

Whole Label Evaluation (WLE) and Context Rules

Default Whole Label Evaluation Rules and Actions

The LGR includes the set of required default WLE rules and actions applicable to the Root Zone and defined in [MSR-5]. They are marked with ⍟. The default prohibition on leading combining marks is equivalent to ensuring that a label only starts with a consonant or vowel.

Gujarati-specific Rules

These rules have been drafted to ensure that the prospective Gujarati label conforms to akshar formation norms as desired in Gujarati script. These norms are exclusively presented as context rules.

The following symbols are used in the WLE rules:
C → Consonant
M → Matra
V → Vowel
B → Anusvara
X → Visarga
H → Halant/Virama
N → Nukta
C1 → Consonants used with Nukta

The rules are:

• 1. N: must be preceded by any of the specific set of Consonants (C1)
• 2. H: must be preceded either by C or N
• 3. X: must be preceded by any of V, C, N or M
• 4. B: must be preceded by any of V, C, N or M
• 5. M: must be preceded either by C or N

More details in Section 7, “Whole Label Evaluation Rules (WLE)” in [Proposal-Gujarati].

Methodology and Contributors

The Root Zone LGR for the Gujarati script was developed by the Neo-Brahmi Generation Panel (NBGP) the members of which have experience in linguistics and computational linguistics in a wide variety of languages written with Neo-Brahmi scripts. Under the Neo-Brahmi Generation Panel, there are nine scripts belonging to separate Unicode blocks. Each of these scripts has been assigned a separate LGR, with the Neo-Brahmi GP ensuring that the fundamental philosophy behind building each LGR is in sync with all other Brahmi-derived scripts. For further details on methodology and contributors, see Sections 4 and 8 in [Proposal-Gujarati], as well as [RZ-LGR-5-Overview].

References

The following general references are cited in this document:

[MSR-5]

Integration Panel, “Maximal Starting Repertoire — MSR-5 Overview and Rationale”, 24 June 2021, https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/msr-5-overview-24jun21-en.pdf

[EGIDS]

Lewis and Simons, “EGIDS: Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale,” documented in [SIL-Ethnologue] and summarized here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanded_Graded_Intergenerational_Disruption_Scale_(EGIDS)

[Proposal-Gujarati]

Neo-Brahmi Generation Panel, “Proposal for a Gujarati Script Root Zone Label Generation Ruleset (LGR)”, 6 March 2019, https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/proposal-gujarati-lgr-06mar19-en.pdf

[RFC 7940]

Davies, K. and A. Freytag, “Representing Label Generation Rulesets Using XML”, RFC 7940, August 2016, https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7940

[RZ-LGR-5-Overview]

Integration Panel, “Root Zone Label Generation Rules (RZ LGR-5): Overview and Summary”, 26 May 2022, https://www.icann.org/sites/default/files/lgr/rz-lgr-5-overview-26may22-en.pdf

[RZ-LGR-5]

Integration Panel, “Root Zone Label Generation Rules (RZ-LGR-5)”, 26 May 2022 (XML), https://www.icann.org/sites/default/files/lgr/rz-lgr-5-common-26may22-en.xml
non-normative HTML presentation: https://www.icann.org/sites/default/files/lgr/rz-lgr-5-common-26may22-en.html

[SIL-Ethnologue]

David M. Eberhard, Gary F. Simons & Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2021. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Twenty fourth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version available as https://www.ethnologue.com

[Unicode 11.0]

The Unicode Consortium. The Unicode Standard, Version 11.0.0, (Mountain View, CA: The Unicode Consortium, 2018. ISBN 978-1-936213-19-1) https://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode11.0.0/

For references consulted particularly in designing the repertoire for the Gujarati script for the Root Zone please see details in the Table of References below. Reference [0] refers to the Unicode Standard version in which the corresponding code points were initially encoded. Reference [101] corresponds to a source given in [Proposal-Gujarati] justifying the inclusion of the corresponding code points. Entries in the table may have multiple source reference values.