TAMIL DIGITAL RENAISSANCE

Tamil Internet '99

[see also http://www.tamilvu.org/Tamilnet99/index.htm]

The Tamil digital renaissance gathered momentum in Chennai in February 1999.

The State Level Task Force of the Government of Tamil Nadu on Information Technology under the chairmanship of the Hon'ble Chief Minister, Dr.M.Karunanidhi,   hosted an International Conference and Seminar on the use of Tamil in Information Technology styled as  TamilNet '99  at Chennai on February 7th and 8th 1999. The addresses at the conference/seminar are available in real audio.

Vijay Shankar reporting on TamilNet'99,  from Chennai pointed out:

"Tamil is one of the world's oldest known languages. The classical language has thrived through the millennia and is today spoken by about 80 million people spread over 65 countries. Tamil is one of the official languages of Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka. The Tamil diaspora is estimated at 20 million and like any other, yearns to reach its roots. And this is presented with just such an opportunity, through the magic of the Internet, to learn more about and cement ties with their native land. There are an estimated one million Tamil users on the Internet today besides a vast number that use Tamil on the computer regularly.... (it is estimated) that there are more than 3000 Tamil websites on the internet"

The two-day meeting in which more than one hundred Tamil language and computer experts from various parts of the world and Tamil Nadu participated was directed to stimulate extensive discussions so as to arrive at an internationally accepted consensus on the following:-

(a) Standardisation of the Tamil keyboard
(b) Standardisation of character coding in Tamil script

The Conference was covered on the web at  the  Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu  website and at the official TamilNet'99 website.

The Chairman of the Reception Committee, Mr.Murasoli Maran, M.P. in a special article envisaged the birth of "Electronic Tamil" as a "Fourth Tamil" after Iyal, Isai and Nadagam and declared:

தமிழில் பேசி உரையாடும் ஆற்றலும் கணிப்பொறிக்கு வந்துவிட்டால் தமிழ் நாடு மட்டுமல்ல, தமிழ் கூறும் நல்லுலகே ஒரு குக்கிராம்மாக மாறிவிடும்...இயல் - இசை - நாடகம் - என்று வகுத்து தமிழை முத்தமிழ் என்பார்கள். இப்போது "நான்காவது தமிழ்" உருவாகிறது. அதன் பெயர்தான் கணிப்பொறித்தமிழ்

The Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, in his concluding remarks to the Conference, committed the Tamil Nadu government to nurture 'the Tamil global village in the making'. He declared:

"The Tamil Nadu Government will set up a Tamil Internet Research Centre at a cost of Rs. 5 crores and will take steps to create a World Tamil Internet University and a Tamil Software Fund. For promoting the use of Tamil in computing and Internet, special chairs would be established at Anna University in Chennai, Bharathiyar University in Coimbatore and the Regional Engineering College in Tiruchi... a collaborative Internet project with the London based WorldTel will see the realisation of 1,000 community Internet centres all over the State. Some people may be somewhat reluctant to shift to the new system recommended by  the conference on standardisation of the use of Tamil in computing. But the "phonetic keyboard'' suggested by the conference was very easy to adapt to. One did not need any major training other than an orientation for a few days. The use of shift key was very minimal in this system. If there was any need for change to the decisions of the meet, they could be considered."

The Final Conference Report recommended:

(a) the adoption a  phonetic keyboard for Tamil and that in the interim period till the switchover to the Phonetic keyboard takes place, the Tamil typewriter keyboard should continue without any change from the one proposed by the keyboard committee constituted by the Government of Tamilnadu in 1997.

(b) the adoption of the Romanised keyboard for Tamil as proposed by the keyboard committee for limited use by those who prefer English character for typing Tamil Text

(c) a draft encoding standard, which should be made available to one and all from a website specifically created for this purpose and a timeframe of 100 days from 9th February '99 to facilitate developers to exercise the use of the draft codes in various platforms and software for compatibility and adaptability. The decision on the codes to be adopted as the standard should be taken at a meeting to be held by June 1, 1999.

Details of the recommended draft glyph encoding standards have been posted at the official TamilNet'99 website at http://www.tamilnet99.org   Two encoding schemes have been agreed upon for field tests for a period of three months. One is a 8-bit bilingual glyph encoding called TANSCII  for information interchange through Internet. The second one, called TANSMONO is a 8-bit monolingual glyph encoding, meant mainly to meet stringent requirements of publishing houses.  Dr.K.Kalyanasundaram who participated in the discussions (and who had played a lead role in the move to the TSCII standard for Tamil Computing and who had presented a paper on the TSCII standard at the conference) declared:

" Since ... many possible mono and bilingual schemes were floated at the conference... it was decided that all key participants sit together and work out a collectively agreed encoding scheme(s) that will try to incorporate all major features of various proposals....TANSCII in that sense is the collectively agreed upon encoding. It is not TSCII, though it has most of the key features of TSCII ."

Dr.M.Anandakrishnan, Chairman, Sub- Committee of the State-level Task Force on Information Technology, presenting the Final Conference Report said:

"The Tamil typewriter keyboard will continue as the standard till people shift to the phonetic keyboard from various layouts which are in use at present. The ``Romanised'' keyboard, as proposed by the Keyboard committee of the Tamil Nadu Government during 1997, is suggested for limited use by those who prefer English character for typing Tamil.

The finalised  encoding system for Tamil in computing was conveniently adaptable for both bilingual and monolingual applications. Lack of space impeded the implementation of a single character encoding system and hence more than one system was thought of. The proposed codes were being recommended as draft standard which would be made available at an exclusive website. They would be open for global use at the website for 100 days. This was to facilitate the use of the draft codes in various platforms and software by developers. The final decision on the standard codes will be taken at a meeting to be held before June 1 1999. The process would be monitored by a committee of experts."

The conference presentations including the following:

1.Towards a Total internet solutions for Tamil by Naa. Govindasamy
2.Glyph Based Font Encoding Encoding Scheme, TSCII by Dr.K. Kalyanasundaram and M.Nedumaran
3. »¾ÕÃÓ ÈÀÔ²«¶Õ¡Þ Ù´×´Ôà¡Þ£ »´Â§ ×»ÔÃÕ§ 㥽£ - S.Srinivasan
4. iDNS, a DNS System with Multi lingual support by Janes Seng
5. Tamil Font Encoding Standards by P. Chellappan
6.Computing with Tamil Use of the Vernacular in Design User Interfaces - by Kalyanakrishnan
7. »¾ÕÃÓ ×¼àõ´º¡´Õ§ ä»Õ¿Æ äÞ»§ by C.S. Senthilnathan
8.Towards defining the design goal while placing Tamil in Unicode by Chandrabose
9. »¾ÕÃÓ ´ºÕ¤×½ÔÅÕ ÂÕÙ¶¤½ÁÙ´ ɹ ÇÙ¾é´ÄÕ¨ ѯ Ф½Ô²é- å. ×½Ô¨ÆÙ¡شÔ
10. Multiple Encoding Systems for different Computer Applications
by M. Ganesan
11. Tamil Standard coding Information Interchange by N. Anbarasan
12. A Tamil Speech Synthesis System by -A.G. Ramakrishnan & V. Karthigeyan
13. Tamil in Cyberspace by Ramalingam Shanmugalingam
14. ´ºÕ×¾ÔÃÕ ¶Õ- - å.×½Ô¨ÆÙ¡شÔ