In Sinhala there are some combinations of letters that always require the presence of a Zero Width Joiner to make them considered correct spelling. However there are other words where the presence or absence of a ZWJ is just considered an alternate spelling.
The problem is that FLEx doesn't seem to recognize them as distinct forms, so they end up with erroneous homograph numbers. For example රක්ෂාව is the common form in every day writing, but the "proper" form in formal writing is රක්ෂාව. So I need to include both as this is a learner's dictionary.
I have added both ZWJ and ZWNJ to the character list:
It's not a disaster, but it's confusing to the user. Is there a way to get Flex to fully treat the the ZWJ as a real letter character in the dictionary listing?
The complication is, unfortunately, that the ZWJ should be ignored (as it is currently) when it comes to searching. For example we see this when searching:
This is the correct behaviour for search because someone searching for one word form would always want to find the other form if it existed.
Basically the presence or absence of a ZWJ is a cosmetic difference but an important one. Hope that makes sense.