What suffix is used for Burmese list markers?

[r12a]

Currently browsers use a period for the numeric myanmar style.

၁.
၂.
၃.
၄.

I received a query from a browser implementer that suggested that ။ [U+104B MYANMAR SIGN SECTION] might be more appropriate.

၁။
၂။
၃။
၄။

Can anyone confirm whether:
a. this usage is attested?
b. this usage is preferred over the period?
c. there are other suffixes that are used?

Thanks. cc @ohbendy

[andjc]

a. Yes it is attested, but normally i see it used in counters in headings or sections rather than ordered lists

b. Period is not used in print publications that I have observed. Section marker as a suffix is used in certain contexts. A few of us have implemented CSS and JS solutions.

c. The most common affix set are parentheses:

(၁)
(၂)
(၃)
(၄)

This is what is normally used.

Additionally, consonant markers and doubled consonant markers, are used in Burmese, and common in print publications.

When I get home I will post the css rules we are currently using for Myanmar ordered lists and unordered lists.

For unordered lists, bullets are rarely used (except on the web), it is more likely to be a dash/hyphen. My personal preference, and that of a couple of Myanmar developers I collaborate with is to use en-dash for this, but not sure if there is a hard and fast rule.

[andjc]

@counter-style myanmar-paren {
    system: extends myanmar;
    prefix: \0028;
    suffix: \0029\0020;
    fallback: myanmar;
}

@counter-style myanmar-msm {
    system: extends myanmar;
    suffix: \104B\0020;
    fallback: myanmar;
}

@counter-style burmese-consonant {
    system: alphabetic;
    symbols: '\1000' '\1001' '\1002' '\1003' '\1004' '\1005' '\1006' '\1007' '\1008' '\100A' '\100B' '\100C' '\100D' '\100E' '\100F' '\1010' '\1011' '\1012' '\1013' '\1014' '\1015' '\1016' '\1017' '\1018' '\1019' '\101A' '\101B' '\101C' '\101D' '\101E' '\101F' '\10020' '\1021';
    /* symbols: က ခ ဂ ဃ င စ ဆ ဇ ဈ ည ဋ ဌ ဍ ဎ ဏ တ ထ ဒ ဓ န ပ ဖ ဗ ဘ မ ယ ရ လ ဝ သ ဟ ဠ အ; */
    prefix: \0028;
    suffix: \0029\0020;
}

@counter-style burmese-consonant-double {
    system: alphabetic;
    symbols: '\1000 \1000' '\1001 \1001' '\1002 \1002' '\1003 \1003' '\1004 \1004' '\1005 \1005' '\1006 \1006' '\1007 \1007' '\1008 \1008' '\100A \100A' '\100B \100B' '\100C \100C' '\100D \100D' '\100E \100E' '\100F \100F' '\1010 \1010' '\1011 \1011' '\1012 \1012' '\1013 \1013' '\1014 \1014' '\1015 \1015' '\1016 \1016' '\1017 \1017' '\1018 \1018' '\1019 \1019' '\101A \101A' '\101B \101B' '\101C \101C' '\101D \101D' '\101E \101E' '\101F \101F' '\1020 \1020' '\1021 \1021';
    /* symbols: ကက ခခ ဂဂ ဃဃ ငင စစ ဆဆ ဇဇ ဈဈ ညည ဋဋ ဌဌ ဍဍ ဎဎ ဏဏ တတ ထထ ဒဒ ဓဓ နန ပပ ဖဖ ဗဗ ဘဘ မမ ယယ ရရ လလ ဝဝ သသ ဟဟ ဠဠ အအ; */
    prefix: \0028;
    suffix: \0029\0020;
}

@counter-style endash {
    system: cyclic;
    symbols: \2013;
    /* – */
    suffix: " ";
}

It is best if browsers continue to support Myanmar lists as is, changing it would impact existing solutions and workarounds that are out there. Once blink has its act together with @counter-style life will be easier. Especially since you also need to take into count the shan counters as well, and all the various language specofoc alphabetic/consonant counters.

[ohbendy]

Agree with Andrew. I just checked some books here; one uses the ။ after the numbers of sections in a contents list, and three use the (၁) format for numbered lists. I also saw -၁- for page numbers, but that might not be widespread.

See also the second and third images in this comment: #11 (comment) for how the doubled consonants are nested in the hierarchy.

[r12a]

This is all very helpful. Thanks!

[andjc]

For other Myanmar script languages, our internal CSS frameworks include:

@counter-style shan-paren {
    system: extends shan;
    prefix: \0028;
    suffix: \0029\0020;
    fallback: myanmar;
}

@counter-style mon-consonant {
    system: alphabetic;
    symbols: '\1000''\1001''\1002''\1003''\105A''\1005''\1006''\1007''\105B''\1009''\100A''\100B''\100C''\100D''\100E''\100F''\1010''\1011''\1012''\1013''\1014''\1015''\1016''\1017''\1018''\1019''\101A''\101B''\101C''\101D''\101E''\101F''\1020''\105C''\1021''\105D';
    /* symbols: က ခ ဂ ဃ ၚ စ ဆ ဇ ၛ ဉ ည ဋ ဌ ဍ ဎ ဏ တ ထ ဒ ဓ န ပ ဖ ဗ ဘ မ ယ ရ လ ဝ သ ဟ ဠ ၜ အ ၝ; */
    prefix: \0028;
    suffix: \0029\0020;
}

@counter-style sgaw-consonant {
    system: alphabetic;
    symbols: '\1000' '\1001' '\1002' '\1003' '\1004' '\1005' '\1006' '\1061' '\100A' '\1010' '\1011' '\1012' '\1014' '\1015' '\1016' '\1018' '\1019' '\101A' '\101B' '\101C' '\101D' '\101E' '\101F' '\1021' '\1027';
    /* symbols: က ခ ဂ ဃ င စ ဆ ၡ ည တ ထ ဒ န ပ ဖ ဘ မ ယ ရ လ ဝ သ ဟ အ ဧ */
    prefix: \0028;
    suffix: \0029\0020;
}

@counter-style westerm-pwo-consonant {
    system: alphabetic;
    symbols: \1000 '\1001 '\1002 '\100E '\1004 '\1005 '\1006 '\1007 '\100A '\1061 '\1010 '\1011 '\1012 '\1014 '\1015 '\1016 '\1018 '\1019 '\101A '\101B '\101C '\101D '\1065 '\101F '\1021 '\1027 '\1066;
    /* symbols: က ခ ဂ ဎ င စ ဆ ဇ ည ၡ တ ထ ဒ န ပ ဖ ဘ မ ယ ရ လ ဝ ၥ ဟ အ ဧ ၦ  */
    prefix: \0028;
    suffix: \0029\0020;
}

@counter-style eastern-pwo-consonant {
    system: alphabetic;
    symbols:  '\1000' '\1001' '\1002' '\1003' '\1004' '\1005' '\1006' '\1007' '\1008' '\100A' '\100B' '\100C' '\100D' '\100E' '\106E' '\1010' '\1011' '\1012' '\1013' '\1014' '\1015' '\1016' '\1017' '\1018' '\1019' '\101A' '\101B' '\101C' '\101D' '\101E' '\101F' '\1020' '\1021' '\105C' '\106F' '\1070';
    /* symbols: က ခ ဂ ဃ င စ ဆ ဇ ဈ ည ဋ ဌ ဍ ဎ ၮ တ ထ ဒ ဓ န ပ ဖ ဗ ဘ မ ယ ရ လ ဝ သ ဟ ဠ အ ၜ ၯ ၰ   */
    prefix: \0028;
    suffix: \0029\0020;
}

Although this list in far from complete.

[r12a]

Thanks for that, @andjc. I'll add those to the ready-made counter styles doc, with the other info about Burmese.

Before that, i just need to check that these are sequences that you've seen used in the wild, rather than just lists of characters arranged per the alphabet. We only add counter styles to the doc that are used. (I'm guessing that we're ok here, but i need to check each time.)

[ohbendy]

In the @counter-styles, westerm -> western

[r12a]

@andjc @ohbendy would you be able to send scans of these styles in the wild (like w3c/predefined-counter-styles#27) ? It would be good to have those, and also to add them to our Type Samples repo. We already have #11 (comment) of course, so i'm mostly keen on the other stuff.

[r12a]

Pull request at w3c/predefined-counter-styles#33

[andjc]

@r12a can you hold off on merging the PR while I obtain examples and confirm counters?

Communications are difficult at moment because of the coup. So may take a bit of time.

[r12a]

ok

[ohbendy]

A couple more examples.

Here's Tai Khamti:

Top level is alphabetic, enclosed in parentheses. Second level uses Shan numerals with a double danda suffix.

Here's Eastern Pwo Karen:

DIgits are suffixed with the double danda again. I'm submitting a proposal for these numerals soon.

[r12a]

A brief update.

First, the important news that Blink browsers now support custom counter styles, which means that it works in Chrome and Edge and Android browsers as well as Firefox. Webkit and iOS browsers still need to enable it, however.

https://w3c.github.io/predefined-counter-styles/ has been republished (/TR version at https://www.w3.org/TR/predefined-counter-styles/), and the approach changed so that separate styles are not created each time a prefix/suffix is different. This should make things much better, going forward. Information about prefixes/suffixes is still included, however. In https://w3c.github.io/predefined-counter-styles/#myanmar-styles i changed the default prefix/suffix to parens, and there's a note about using section sign (or others, in future) instead.

Haven't yet added any of the other language styles.

Any improvement yet on chances to get the examples and confirmations mentioned in #50 (comment) ?