[tex-live] mapping files for OpenType fonts which follow the Unicode system

[roger]

Here is the problem from a practical viewpoint. I wanted to produce, using
coded input, i.e. NOT by typing in Cree which as far as I can tell is what
XeTex is all about, a \Tex document containing Cree syllabics.

CTAN has the package casyll:
/usr/share/texmf-dist/fonts/source/public/casyl/casyll10.mf
/usr/share/texmf-dist/fonts/tfm/public/casyl/casyll10.tfm

The casyll fonts are not very nice and so I searched for nicer ones. I
found a whole set of excellent fonts at:

http://www.languagegeek.com/font/fontdownload.html#Full_Unicode

[There are also Cree and many other unicode fonts at:
http://www.wazu.jp/]

I much prefer using plain \Tex and dvips because of the greater control.
This did not pose a problem when using casyll, because that the .mf and
.tfm files were given. I was thus able to generate a font table and then
proceed to define my own macros in a file called [cree.mac]. So, e.g. the
Cree syllable "ma" was referenced via the definition:

(A.) \def\ma{\kern -1.0truept \char237}.

The languagegeek.com fonts are OpenType fonts which follow the Unicode
system for syllabics.

So here is the problem; all the articles, instruction manuals, etc
either assume that there is a map file or that you want to create a mapping
file with fontinstall or manually for Type1 fonts.

But what does one do if one ONLY has:
1. the *.ttf file, which one converts via ttf2tfm,
2. the knowledge of the Unicode for syllabics,
       but NOT
3. the *.map file.

There must be some way of converting (2.)---perhaps even automatically via a
shell command  "unicode2map"---into (3) so that I could proceed as in (A.).

As I said above, I have not found a way of doing this.   I examined quite
a few  *.map files (e.g. Arabic) which were already on my TexLive Linux
installation, but there does not seem to be a uniform set of rules.

Any references or suggestions would be most welcome. A fairly simple way
of creating the map file would provide \TeX users with a new set of fonts
for languages.

Roger Herz-Fischler

P.S. If anyone is interested, my pre-configured <Student Linux>, with my
<Introduction to Octave> (open source, and better, equivalent to Matlab),
pre-loaded aids for Tex and Latex, and other material for students is
available, without---for educational purposes---restrictions, at:

http://web.ncf.ca/en493/
       or via
http://herz-fischler.ca