Category: tamil computing

Is there a (free) English – Tamil translation software for download / online?

The answer is YES. Visit Google Translate for translating Tamil to and from many languages. This is an alpha version so you may not get the best result always.

There are some long running machine based translation research projects at Universities. But none have given usable product yet. Google is the first to offer translation services for tamil. They also give a translation toolkit that can be used for any language. Wikibhasha is another translation toolkit for Wikipedia developed by Microsoft. Right now thier efficiency for Tamil translation is very rudimentary. It is supposed to get better when more users use it.

Google says that it can bring better automatic machine based translation for Tamil too, if it can get millions of pages of documents with English and Tamil translation side by side. One place where such translated documents may reside with the legal department of the country. It’s in the Government’s hands to give them for public research if not to a private company like Google.

Related posts:

* கூகுள் தானியிங்கித் தமிழாக்கம்

* English to Tamil translation freelancer resources

* English to Tamil dictionary websites

Tamil computing forums:

1. Free Tamil computing group – Free Tamil computing group is a good place to discuss, announce various topics related to Tamil computing. The group is quite active and has lot of friendly people.

2. INFITT – INFITT is a well known Think-Tank  for Tamil computing. The group has lot of veterans and plays a key role world for policy decisions regarding Tamil computing and Tamil Internet. It is a must for any Tamil computing enthusiast to know what’s happening.

List of Tamil Text to Speech synthesizer tools. All these software can be downloaded or used for free:

1. Tamil Text to Speech tool from MILE lab, IISc – This converter is a recent invention by Dr. A. G. Ramakrishnan and his group. Kudos for them. The converter is in beta stage and exceeded my expectation in its quality.

2. Dhvani – The conversion quality is not as good as software from MILE lab, IISc. But Dhvani is a free software for Linux that can be used offline and provides support for many Indian languages.

3. eSpeak – A free speech synthesizer for many Indian languages. You can watch an inspiring story of a government blind school benefiting from this software.

4. Auvai Text to speech converter from Gopi – This tool by Gopi is still in development. I expect it to be a promising one considering Gopi’s other tools. I am linking it here so that interested people can work together.

If the current alpha level technology grows, it can be useful for everyone including the blind people. Do you any other tool for text to speech conversion that works for Tamil and Indian languages in general?

A list of Free Tamil fontsdownload websites. These will help you to read and write Tamil in various encodings like Unicode, Bamini etc., in Microsoft Windows, Linux, MS Word and Adobe products :

1. Technology development for Indian Languages (TDIL) is a Government of India initiative under Indian Language Data center (ILDC). ILDC provides Open type and True Type Tamil fonts for download from Centre for Development of Advanced computing (C-DAC), Chennai Kavigal, Cadgraf Digitals Pvt. Ltd., Modular Infotech Pvt. Ltd., Pune.

2. Tamil Wikipedia Font Help page gives detailed instructions on how to install Tamil fonts across all operating systems.

3. Tamilnadu Government provides Open type Tamil fonts, True Type Tamil fonts and Tamilnet99 compatible keyboards drivers and data conversion utility for free download.

4. Electronics corporation of Tamil Nadu Limited (ELCOT), a Government of Tamil Nadu undertaking, provides lot of free Tamil fonts, keyboard drivers and other tools.

5. TAB and TAM fonts from Tamil Virtual University. These Tamil fonts help in viewing many of the Government of Tamilnadu websites and old non-unicode Tamil web pages.

6. WAZU Japan’s gallery of Tamil Unicode fonts

7. Alanwood list for downloading Unicode Tamil fonts

8. Unicode Tamil fonts download page from South Asia Language Resource Centre of University of Chicago

Related posts:

* Tamil font converters
* Tamil in Android mobile phones
* Tamil typing software

List of Tamil font converters :

1. NHM Converter is available as both online and offline versions. Converts Unicode, Bamini, Vanavil, ShreeLipi, TSCII, DiaCritic, TAB, TAM, SoftView fonts to one another. The software is very robust and even large data conversion can be done seamlessly.

2. Suratha PonguTamil is one of  the earliest free online tamil font converters. This has a new user friendly version at http://www.jaffnalibrary.com/tools/tamilconverter.htm .Focuses mainly fonts of online Tamil magazines. Converts IndoWeb, Murasoli, WebUlagam, DhinaThanthi,  DinaMani, DhinaBoomi, Anjal, ThatsTamil, Libi, Amutham / Dinakaran, Mylai, Vikatan (Old), Tab, Tam (Kumudam / Vikatan), Bamini, TSC, Romanised, Koeln, anu graphics (pallavar), nakkeeran (senthamiz). However, it can be noted that many of the sites mentioned here have already migrated to Unicode fonts. 

3. Azhagi– Unicode – TSCII bulk converter. 

4. ELCOT Tamil font converters for Linux and Windows.

5. Sarma has a paid software for converting Tamil fonts.

6. Bamini – Unicode and Unicode – Bamini Font converters from University of Colombo, School of computing

7. Adhiyaman – Converts TSCII, TAM, TAB, TUNE, DailyThanthi, Dinamani, Chenet, Kambar, Kalaham, Keeravani, Kambar fonts to Unicode.

Related posts:

* Tamil in Android mobile phones
* Tamil typing software
* Download free Tamil fonts

Popular Tamil software websites:

Offline / Desktop Tamil software products

1. Thamizha

Provides E-kalappai, a popular tamil typing software. Initiates and organizes localization of free software like Firefox, OpenOffice, TuxPaint in Tamil.

2. NHM software

Makers of NHM Writer, NHM converter and NHM Lister. They help in Tamil typing, font conversion, word counting.

3. Sarma

Provide English-Tamil dictionary, Indian language computing services, Unicode font conversion, Grammar and Spell checker for Tamil.

4. Kanithamiz

Provide Word Processors, Business software, Educational Multimedia products, Dictionary in Tamil.

5. Azhagi

Gives English to Tamil transliteration software. Has both free and paid software.

6. Murasu – Makers of Murasu Anjal and Sellinam software.

Murasu Anjal helps you email, chat, write and publish in Tamil. Has both paid and free versions.

Sellinam helps you send sms in Tamil.

Online Tamil software products

1. Suratha

Tamil typing in Unicode, Bamini formats

Unicode font conversion services.

2. HiGopi

English to Indian language transliteration in Unicode format.

 Firefox extensions for Tamil

Tamil software discussion websites

1. Free Tamil Computing Group

2. INFITT

NHM Converter is a free-of-cost Tamil font encoding converter tool available for download from the makers of NHM writer.

Now, NHM Converter is available online too. Since this is browser dependent, now we have a converter for Linux, Mac operating systems too. Earlier, Suratha‘s Pongu Tamil was the only available tool.

The downloadble version is available for Windows and will be soon made available for Linux too.

Some of the features of NHM converter are:

1. Embedded fonts. You don’t need to install any fonts.

2. Speed of the conversion as conversion takes place at client side. We used NHM converter for the Tamil Wiktionary Automation project and it helped us convert font encoding of large MB files with ease.

3. Auto detect encoding

4. Extendability

5. Sometimes it will be helpful, if you want to type in a 8 -bit encoding without any font. (another usage of font embedding feature)

Related posts:

Download Tamil fonts

Tamil font converters

Download NHM Writer

Tamil software websites

 

 

• A free and robust optical character recognition software. The one we have now, Ponvizhi, is inadequate.
• A text-to-voice converter for Tamil to help blind and dumb people.
• A voice-to-text converter for Tamil to help deaf people.
• A spell checker module – both online and off line.
• A Multilingual-Tamil- Multilingual dictionary module – both online and off line and also for electronic dictionaries.
• A Multilingual – Tamil – Multilingual machinised translation software.
• A Tamil specific search engine to search online and off line documents using any encoding.
• Tamil specific keypad designs for mobile phones.
• Tamil input and display software for mobile phones.

and more if only software students, professionals and bureaucrats of Tamilnadu focus on the needs of the local people than writing applications for a global client.

Reading and typing Tamil online and off line, Tamil blogs and aggregators are not milestones of Tamil computing !!! They are just localization of a global phenomenon called Internet.

• You can type, read Tamil in any computer with any operating system like Windows, Mac, Linux.
• You don’t need to buy any software or new keyboard to type in Tamil. You get free softwares to do it and you can use the same qwerty / asdf English keyboard that you have to type in Tamil. You don’t even need to have stickers of tamil letters on your keyboard to memorize the Tamil keyboard layout. Just looking at a print out of Tamil keyboard for 2 days would help you memorize.
• Typing ammaa to get ????? is not the only way to type in Tamil. That is called anjal / romanised / thaminglish keyboard. You have more and better ways to type in Tamil. I recommend Tamil99 keyboard layout.
• You can type in Tamil in any computer application – Both off line and online.
• You can have a free and complete Tamil interface for your computer if you use Linux.
• You can name your files and folders in Tamil.
• You can print Tamil documents without any problem.
• You can search the internet in Tamil in any of the search engines like Google, Yahoo.
• You can write and publish websites in Tamil.
• You can send and receive emails in Tamil.
• To read Tamil you don’t need to install any fonts.

You can but only if you will !