Very interesting! I could also imagine a TEI-backed customization coming out of this. Raff On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 10:22 AM, Hugh Cayless wrote:

Dear All,

A new SIG proposal. Sounds interesting. Any thoughts?

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Patrick McAllister Subject: Proposal for creation of a TEI SIG “Indic Texts”

Dear Hugh Cayless,

I'm writing to you, the director of the TEI technical council, because Andrew Ollett (see CC) and I would like to start a TEI Special Interest Group focused on Indic texts.

Our plan for this SIG is as follows:

##########

The proposed SIG “Indic Texts” aims to coordinate scholars engaged in the study of Indic texts so as to establish a consensus on best practices for using the TEI’s Guidelines to analyze these kinds of 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, which could perhaps be added to the TEI Guidelines, 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.

##########

The SIG coordinators should be Andrew Ollett and I.

We would like to add that we have already spoken to quite a few colleagues specialized in various areas of our field who are eager to join this group and would welcome its creation. We hope that the proposal, though quite general, will be accepted. Please let us know if you need anything more to decide on this.

With best wishes,

-- Patrick McAllister

Email: patrick.mcallister@oeaw.ac.at Phone: + 43 1 51581 6423

Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia (IKGA) Austrian Academy of Sciences Hollandstraße 11-13, 2nd floor 1020 Vienna, Austria

http://www.ikga.oeaw.ac.at/ -- tei-council mailing list tei-council@lists.tei-c.org http://lists.lists.tei-c.org/mailman/listinfo/tei-council

PLEASE NOTE: postings to this list are publicly archived