The SIG ``Indic Texts'' has been created, and we have a short mission
statement:
The purpose of the TEI Special Interest Group “Indic Texts” is to allow
scholars engaged in the study of Indic texts to develop and document
best practices in applying the TEI’s Guidelines to these kinds of
texts. To participate, please join the mailing list at
[http://lists.lists.tei-c.org/mailman/listinfo/indic-texts].
There are several respects in which the applicability of the TEI
guidelines to these texts is less than obvious. These relate to
distinctive features of Indic textuality, including:
• the use of syllabic scripts, and the non-coincidence of grapheme-
(syllable-) and word-boundaries;
• the application of phonotactic rules (sandhi) that further obscures
the boundaries between words; extensive compounding;
• the use of distinctive media and writing supports (such as birch bark,
palm leaves, and copper plates);
• distinctive metrical patterns with different types of caesuras;
• the prominence of the commentary as a genre, and the depth of
intertextual relations this implies;
• the frequent reuse of texts in other texts, which requires careful and
deliberate application of the "quoteLike" module.
The expected outcome of the SIG’s work is a practical guide that
analyzes common cases in the markup of Indic texts and proposes ways in
which the analytical tools provided by the TEI Guidelines might best be
used in these cases, discussing benefits and drawbacks of the solutions
possible. Ideally, this guide will become a part of the TEI Guidelines.
See [https://wiki.tei-c.org/index.php/SIG:IndicTexts] for our TEI Wiki
page.
śubham!
--
Patrick McAllister
