Sinhala Use of ZWJ/ZWNJ

Questions

There is background information below.

The questions are:

  1. How common are the sequences that use \u200D and \u200C (ZWJ/NJ)?

  2. If the 200D and 200C are omitted, is the text still understandable?

  3. If the 200D and 200C are omitted, can it change a valid word into a different valid word?

  4. If so, how common does this happen?

Background Information.

The following extracts text from SLS 1134 that describes the use of ZWJ and ZWNJ. For reference, it also adds Unicode literal versions of the text.

5.6 Rakaransaya and Yansaya

The rakaransaya and yansaya are forms of conjunct letters

.

ක්‍රෙ = \u0D9A\u0DCA\u200D\u0DBB\u0DD9

ක්රෙ = \u0D9A\u0DCA\u0DBB\u0DD9

ක්‍යෝ = \u0D9A\u0DCA\u200D\u0DBA\u0DDD

ක්යෝ = \u0D9A\u0DCA\u0DBA\u0DDD

NOTES:

...

2. The yansaya and rakaransaya are required in normal Sinhala text. However, if for

some reason, it is desired not to use the rakaransaya or yansaya, the zwj should be

omitted.

5.7 Repaya

කර්‍ම = \u0D9A\u0DBB\u0DCA\u200D\u0DB8

කර්ම = \u0D9A\u0DBB\u0DCA\u0DB8

5.8 Other conjunct letters

ක්‍ෂේ = \u0D9A\u0DCA\u200D\u0DC2\u0DDA

ක්ෂේ = \u0D9A\u0DCA\u0DC2\u0DDA

න්‍ද්‍රා = \u0DB1\u0DCA\u200D\u0DAF\u0DCA\u200D\u0DBB\u0DCF

න්ද්රා = \u0DB1\u0DCA\u0DAF\u0DCA\u0DBB\u0DCF