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Thamiza New Tamil Typewriter (deprecated) Keyboard Help

This keyboard is designed for the Tamil language and based on the new Tamil typewriter layout. The keyboard is designed for users who are familiar with both this layout and the Tamil script, and is intended for use with a normal QWERTY (English) keyboard.

Desktop Keyboard layout

Layout

Quickstart

This keyboard layout is based on the Tamil typewriter, with separate keys for consonants, vowels and vowel components. Most of the characters used in Tamil are combinations of consonants and vowels, and these do not appear on the keyboard. Instead, the appropriate vowel component is typed before or after the consonant depending on its position.

For example, the standalone vowel is entered by typing ,, but in combination with a consonant, the ி component (p key) is usually typed instead, after the consonant, and the consonant-vowel combinant will be displayed. Pressing Backspace once will delete only the vowel component, so the character displayed on the screen will change back to the consonant, and change again if a different component is typed.

Grantha letters, which are used for typing Sanskrit, appear on the keyboard and are treated as normal consonants.

Examples

Language Phrase Meaning Type the following keys
Tamil தமிழ் "Tamil" jkpH;

Keyboard Details

The visible keyboard layout consists of the eighteen consonants க ங ச ஞ ட ண த ந ப ம ய ர ல வ ழ ள ற ன, the five Grantha consonants and SRiiஸ ஷ ஜ ஹ க்ஷ ஸ்ரீ, eleven vowels அ ஆ இ ஈ உ ஊ எ ஏ ஐ ஒ ஓ, a range of vowel components and combinants characters, and the Pulli and Aytham marks, as well as various punctuation marks. The majority of characters are typed using a combination of keystrokes.

Although many Tamil characters are typed using separate keys for consonants and components, the characters that appear on screen will be combinants, which the computer sees as a single character. This means that while two (or more) keystrokes are required to display most consonant-vowel combinants, when you use the arrow keys to move the cursor through the text, only a single keystroke is needed to move past each character. Moving the cursor to the left of a combinant character and pressing Delete will erase the whole character, but if you move the cursor to the right of a combinant and press Backspace, only the last-typed component will be erased.

Vowels and Pulli Marks

The standalone vowel characters which are on the keyboard will produce that character and will not combine with consonants. Long vowels have their own keys. Vowel-consonant combinant characters are entered either by typing a specific key for that combinant or by typing the consonant and vowel components separately.

Vowel components that combine with consonants are typed either before or after the consonants, depending on whether the vowel component appears to the left or right of the consonant component.

Because the consonants contain the implicit vowel , to produce a pure consonant it is necessary to add the Pulli mark by typing a semicolon ; immediately after the consonant. In every case, a consonant-Pulli mark combinant behaves the same way as a consonant-vowel combinant when you use the arrow, Backspace and Delete keys. Any vowel component that is typed immediately after typing the Pulli mark will not be combined with the consonant. Also, typing a semicolon after a standalone vowel or a space will produce a semicolon, not the Pulli mark.

The SRii Character

This character is entered by typing _ (Shift+Underscore or Shift+Hyphen). Currently, some browsers do not display this character correctly.

Keystroke Examples

Note: for a complete table of characters and keystrokes, click here.

The following table gives specific examples of how to input characters based on the consonant . The Grantha consonants, which are entered with [S*] key combinations, use the same input method. Examples of these with the consonant are also given below.


Tamil Consonants Grantha Consonants
ConsonantVowel/PulliCombinantKeystrokes ConsonantVowel/PulliCombinantKeystrokes
க்f; ஜ்$;
க‍f ஜ‍$
காfh ஜா$h
கிfp ஜி$p
கீfP ஜீ$P
குF ஜு
கூT ஜூ
கெbf ஜெb$
கேnf ஜேn$
கைif ஜைi$
கொbfh ஜொb$h
கோnfh ஜோn$h
கௌbfs ஜௌ$fs

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