Why it's better to use transliteration for Indian syllables

[SrinathK]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagar ... literation

You might have noticed I've started using them a lot for my reviews. so it's AbhEri and not abheri, rAmA and not raamaa, but I still prefer neela to nIla.

After a lot of frustrations, I now use transliterated syllables as much as I can, even while writing reviews for this reason.

Why I tend to be particular about stuff like this is that English as it is never does a very good job of ever capturing the correct Indian pronunciations at all - but transliterations capture the sounds well without requiring special characters. I ran into this while making up a list of songs I had listened to - the various English spellings possible made things more and more atrocious. It also makes searching a real pain to deal with.

It is to our great fortune though that our Indian languages do not have English phonetics and our alphabets are much better structured so that what you read is exactly what you speak (tamizh again has no distinction between ka, kha, ga and gha so we need to rely on native experience to guide us, but that's not comparable to the atrocity of the English alphabet) - English often has no correlation between the alphabet used and it's pronunciation in a syllable. In fact, the only device that properly captures English syllables consistently is the phonetic symbology of the International Phonetic Alphabet!

Fortunately it is actually quite simple to encode Indian syllables with English Characters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devanagar ... literation -- There are a few systems here. So I use ITRANS for the most part - it's the easiest of all and needs no special characters.

The only gripe with other systems is that sometimes the distinction between I (ee as in see or the 9th letter I) and small l (l for left) is never clear in most fonts. ca & Ca often also gets slightly counterintuitive - it reminds me too much of the word "car". So I prefer using ee or ii (I find ee more intuitive) and cha & CHa and so ended up with ITRANS.

The traditional zha works for tamizh.

Now I'm not forcing anyone to use, and I know it's a pain to keep switching between caps and small letters on a phone. But it makes it so much easier for many things, including grasping the native pronunciation of Indian names and keeping databases of songs where we need not be confused by multiple spellings. Common spellings that we're familiar with can be given a pass, but more complex ones, especially lyrics are better served transliterated.

Your thoughts? Especially Lakshman, who must really know better than anyone what this is like to deal with.

[Sachi_R]

I posted something some time back here:

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=23653&p=316539&hilit=IAST#p316539

[SrinathK]

I posted something some time back here:

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=23653&p=316539&hilit=IAST#p316539

IAST is great, but you cannot do it on a regular keyboard or a smartphone's keyboard. I was looking for something as simple as possible.

[sureshvv]

Some here have become so enamored by this that even Indian names are spelled using this scheme. So you would be srinAth, for example

[SrinathK]

Why not? Considering the monstrosities of misspelling, mispronunciation and misidentification that my name gets frequently subjected to, I'd welcome a positive change.

Actually it would be SrInAth (letters preserved to protect numerology ).

[Lakshman]

I have been using ITRANS for years now.

[RSR]

Unlike all the other major languages in India, tamizh does not have special characters for the four sounds of a consonant. ( ex) ka, kka, ga, gh-ha. Some sounds like zha, n, nn, N are absent in other languages. I have been raising this issue ever since I joined this forum.
The real test is to give the transliterated english text to a reverse tranliteration engine and see the result. Better still, give it to a native tamil-speaker and ask him to give the tamil version. I have tried that and it is a disaster.
Not so for other Indian languages. I have tried to get the telugu original from the transliterated version of a krithi ( from Savithri madam) and it works almost 100% correctly.

https://sites.google.com/site/dkpattamm ... thyagaraja

because all the languages follow the devanagari phonetic system unlike 'Thamizh'. I am not a 'tamil' chauvinist or anything.
Before giving the transliterated version, it is better to feed it to english-tamil transliteation engine on line and see how it approximated to the uniqueness of tamil language. No way!
I believe that there are very bright computer science experts in this forum, and it will be a real contribution if they invent a special system by discussion.

[Govindaswamy]

People who have not fully understood the variations in the prounciation of the five hard consonants (வல்லினம் -ka, ca, Ta, tha,and pa) are very fond of pointing this out as a major shortcoming. They do not realise that Tamizh is possibly the oldest living spoken language of India. It does not have the hard aspirated sounds kha, gha(maHaprANas and guttural sounds of other languages) which came into existence much later.
For the five hard consonants all other Indian languages have four variations (e.g) ka, kha, ga, gha. Although Tamizh has only one letter ka it takes three sounds depending upon the position of the letter in the word. Incidentally it takes the softest possible pronunciation.
In the beginning of a word it is always the first sound ka (கதவு). In the middle when two of these come together the sound becomes a little hard but not as hard as the aspirated ख (பக்கம்). In the middle and end of the word it is always the third variant ( மகன்-ग). This almost sounds like mahan. When it follows the corresponding nasal consonant it takes the third variant. இங்கே . ingE. This can never be inkhE or inghE as in other languages.
In addition to this no word can start with a consonant and two different consonants can not come together , except in a few cases. This makes Tamizh a very soft language.
It is true that it is not possible to transliterate the sounds of other later languages with Tamizh script. To write Sanskrit text Tamizh Grantham (Pallava grantham) was developed at the same time as Nagari script . This became vaTTeliththu and later on the script of MalayALam. Most of the inscription in Temples are in this script. It is not a bad idea to bring this back into circulation. Most of the announcers in Tamizh TV and Radio channels invariably pronounce the names in other languages wrongly.

P.S. My mother tongue is Telugu. I studied Tamizh and I have some knowledge of the other two South Indian languages, two North Indian lanuages and Sanskrit

[SrinathK]

I believe that there are very bright computer science experts in this forum, and it will be a real contribution if they invent a special system by discussion.

There's one from our local town (not on the forum however) - he's right now the CEO of google and was key in bringing all the major google products we use today. He's also trying.

[RSR]

People who have not fully understood the variations in the prounciation of the five hard consonants (வல்லினம் -ka, ca, Ta, tha,and pa) are very fond of pointing this out as a major shortcoming. They do not realise that Tamizh is possibly the oldest living spoken language of India. It does not have the hard aspirated sounds kha, gha(maHaprANas and guttural sounds of other languages) which came into existence much later.
For the five hard consonants all other Indian languages have four variations (e.g) ka, kha, ga, gha. Although Tamizh has only one letter ka it takes three sounds depending upon the position of the letter in the word. Incidentally it takes the softest possible pronunciation.
In the beginning of a word it is always the first sound ka (கதவு). In the middle when two of these come together the sound becomes a little hard but not as hard as the aspirated ख (பக்கம்). In the middle and end of the word it is always the third variant ( மகன்-ग). This almost sounds like mahan. When it follows the corresponding nasal consonant it takes the third variant. இங்கே . ingE. This can never be inkhE or inghE as in other languages.
In addition to this no word can start with a consonant and two different consonants can not come together , except in a few cases. This makes Tamizh a very soft language.
It is true that it is not possible to transliterate the sounds of other later languages with Tamizh script. To write Sanskrit text Tamizh Grantham (Pallava grantham) was developed at the same time as Nagari script . This became vaTTeliththu and later on the script of MalayALam. Most of the inscription in Temples are in this script. It is not a bad idea to bring this back into circulation. Most of the announcers in Tamizh TV and Radio channels invariably pronounce the names in other languages wrongly.

P.S. My mother tongue is Telugu. I studied Tamizh and I have some knowledge of the other two South Indian languages, two North Indian lanuages and Sanskrit

Very nice Sir. May I add a few more examples?
kadal கடல் ,pakkam பக்கம் thangam தங்கம்
pakal பகல் kappal கப்பல் ambalam அம்பலம்
chapparam சப்பரம் maccham மச்சம் panjam பஞ்சம்
thennai தென்னை patthu பத்து podhu பொது
========================================
I do not think, that any thamizh word can begin with 'ta'
but we can have pattam பட்டம் padam படம்
Nor with 'ra'. There are ofcourse some nice koottaksharams like kutram, matravai, poatri ,
mutram, chutram etc.
குற்றம் ,,மற்றவை, போற்றி , முற்றம், சுற்றம்
-------------------------------------
Luckily, English has sounds like ga, ( ganesan) ,( baa) baagirathi, (ja)jaanakiraman , (dh)
dharmavaan
Otherwise , non-tamils will have trouble in noting the difference between
(கெஞ்சினான் , குஜராத்), ( பாலைவனம், பாலகிருஷ்ண ),( காவலன் , கோகுலம்)
(சக்கரம் சஞ்சலம்)
soft and hard variations of 'ra' also are special.
By long association with Sanskrit, thamizh and malayaLam have assimilated many such nice words from sanskrit. Makes the language sweeter. but only in CM and vaishnava circles. We definitely need a special english-tamil transliteration engine and reverse transliteration too to check up.

,

[RSR]

I believe that there are very bright computer science experts in this forum, and it will be a real contribution if they invent a special system by discussion.

There's one from our local town (not on the forum however) - he's right now the CEO of google and was key in bringing all the major google products we use today. He's also trying.

The english-tamil transliterations engines in many taml dailies like dinamalar, dinakaran, dailythanthi and tamil-thehindu do a better job than the transliteration in gmail.

[sureshvv]

People who have not fully understood the variations in the prounciation of the five hard consonants (வல்லினம் -ka, ca, Ta, tha,and pa) are very fond of pointing this out as a major shortcoming.

Someone recently requested the lyrics of pabanasam sivan's kriti. Do not think this is correct. Does it have to be pappanasam sivan?

[RSR]

Reverse transliteration of tamil2english , back to thamizh , using Google facility.
https://www.google.com/search?q=trevers ... refox-b-ab
---------
pAmAlaikkiNai uNDO subramaNya bhAratiyE nI bhaktiyuDan toDutta
A: pUmAlai maNamazhagum azhiyum kaNam bhuvanamuLLa varaikkum kamazhum eLiya naDai
C: tamizhnADu shei-tavappayanAi vandavatarittAi manidar manam iruLOD-accam tavirttAi
amizdinum inidu nin kavitaiyin nayamE Arkkum taramO undan arputa karpanai nirai

பாமலைக்கினை உண்டோ
சுப்பிரமணிய பாராட்டியே நீ
பக்தியுடன் தொடுத்த

பூமாலை மனமழைகும் அழியும் கணம்
புவனமுள்ள வரைக்கும் கமழும் எளிய நடை

தமிழ்நாடு ஷெய்-தவப்பயனை
வண்டாவதரிட்டை மானிடர் மனம்
இருளோடு-அச்சம் தவிர்ட்டை
அமிஸ்டினும் இனிது நின் கவிதையின் நயமே
ற்கும் தரமோ உந்தன் அற்புத
கற்பனை நிறை
---------------------------------------
unless the reverse transliteration is 100% correct, it is of no use for tamils and non-tamils too to grasp the beauty of the original tamil song.

[RSR]

People who have not fully understood the variations in the prounciation of the five hard consonants (வல்லினம் -ka, ca, Ta, tha,and pa) are very fond of pointing this out as a major shortcoming.

Someone recently requested the lyrics of pabanasam sivan's kriti. Do not think this is correct. Does it have to be pappanasam sivan?

===================
These are the results using the transliteration engine( google)
pApanAsam பாபநாசம்
pabanasam sivan's பாபநாசம் சிவன்'ஸ்?
pappanasam sivan பாபநாசம் சிவன்?
paapanaasam
பாபநாசம்?
======================