Being a native Bengali writer, we rely on Unicode Bengali characters. Unicode, an extension of ASCII, includes all ASCII characters and additional glyphs from around the world for languages like Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, and Javanese.
However, when it comes to Bengali, using font-size: 100%
for English characters is not sufficient due to the unique positioning of Bengali glyphs within grids, as illustrated below:
While English characters easily fit into a grid, Bengali characters are compressed to accommodate other vowel sign glyphs.
Therefore, although using body{font-size: 100%}
works well for English fonts, it causes Bengali fonts to appear smaller with the same CSS styling.
POTENTIAL SOLUTION
Currently, a common approach is to use a font that supports both English and Bengali characters effectively, such as "Siyam Rupali." However, this only partially addresses the issue.
FRESH PERSPECTIVE
Consider this innovative idea:
» Why not target specific Unicode glyphs and apply custom CSS exclusively to them?
For instance, if the Unicode serial numbers #0048 4614 5784 4578
represent the first Bengali character and #0048 4614 5784 9999
represent the last, we could implement targeted CSS like:
Unicode[glyph="0048461457844578" - "0048461457849999"]{
font-size: 150%;
}
REALITY CHECK: While CSS does not currently support this functionality, is there a feasible method to apply unique styles to specific glyphs?
If a workaround exists, it could greatly benefit Bengali Unicode users, especially online Bengali newspapers seeking dynamic content control.