Tamil Typing - Introduction to the Tamil script and its components

The Tamil script is a complex and beautiful writing system used primarily for writing the Tamil language, as well as other languages like Malayalam. It has a long history dating back over 2,000 years and is renowned for its unique features and characters. To understand Tamil typing, it's important to have a basic understanding of the Tamil script and its components:

Tamil script and its components:

1. Alphabets (Aksharas): The Tamil script consists of 12 vowels and 18 consonants, resulting in a total of 30 basic characters. These are the building blocks of Tamil words. Unlike many other scripts, Tamil has separate characters for vowel consonant combinations, known as "compound characters" or "digraphs."

2. Vowels (Uyir Ezhuthu): Tamil vowels are known as "uyir ezhuthu." They are pure sounds and are represented by standalone characters. Here are the Tamil vowel characters:

அ (a)

ஆ (ā)

இ (i)

ஈ (ī)

உ (u)

ஊ (ū)

எ (e)

ஏ (ē)

ஐ (ai)

ஒ (o)

ஓ (ō)

ஔ (au)

3. Consonants (Mei Ezhuthu): Tamil consonants are known as "mei ezhuthu." They represent consonant sounds and are usually combined with vowel characters to form syllables. Here are the Tamil consonant characters:

க (ka)

ங (ṅa)

ச (cha)

ஞ (ṉa)

ட (ṭa)

ண (ṇa)

த (tha)

ந (na)

ப (pa)

ம (ma)

ய (ya)

ர (ra)

ல (la)

வ (va)

ழ (ḻa)

ள (ḷa)

ஷ (ṣa)

ஸ (sa)

ஹ (ha)

4. Compound Characters (Uyir Mei Ezhuthu): These are characters that combine a consonant and a vowel sound into a single unit. Tamil has a set of compound characters to represent consonant-vowel combinations, such as "ka," "na," "pa," etc.

5. Special Characters: Tamil also includes special characters for sounds that don't have equivalents in English, including retroflex sounds and unique nasal sounds.

ற (ṟa)

ன (ṉa)

ஸ்ரீ (śrī)

ஃ (ḥ)

When typing in Tamil, you'll use a keyboard layout or input method that allows you to type these characters. The keyboard layout corresponds to the arrangement of Tamil characters on your physical or virtual keyboard. Different layouts provide various methods for typing Tamil characters, including phonetic typing, transliteration, and traditional layouts like InScript.

To type in Tamil, you'll typically combine consonants and vowels to form syllables and words. Additionally, Tamil text is often read from left to right, similar to English. Understanding the structure of the script and its components is essential for efficient and accurate Tamil typing.