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eng2tam - English to Tamil Unicode transliterator

Filed under: My software by Hari
Posted on Tue, Apr 10, 2007 at 12:51 IST (last updated: Thu, May 7, 2009 @ 21:04 IST)

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I've created a simple command-line program to convert phonetic English into Tamil (Unicode) in Linux. I found that there are plenty of language tools available for Indian languages, but nothing which comes close to being a simple phonetic translator. This script is not exactly feature-rich, but it does the job. It uses a simple one-to-one character conversion, so the phonetic conversion might not be too intuitive at first, but with a bit of learning, you'll be tying in double quick time.

It's usage is simple:
eng2tam <infile> <outfile>
Here's an example of the English input file:
`oru `Uril~ `oru raja `irun~tab~. `avb~ periy mkab~. vIrp~puli. cOk~kt~tg~km~.
And here's the Tamil output (you should see this in a Unicode aware browser with any unicode tamil font):
ஒரு ஊரில் ஒரு ராஜா இருந்தான். அவன் பெரிய மகான். வீரப்புலி. சோக்கத்தங்கம்.
Where <infile> contains the English phonetic script and <outfile> will be the file containing the transliterated unicode text in Tamil. The README file gives the complete character conversion table. The C++ source code is included with the tarred archive and you should be able to compile this program easily on other platforms as well.

Download: eng2tam.tar.gz (10.9 kB)

Dependencies: libc, libstdc++

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15 comment(s)

  1. That's ace! The only translator program I've ever done before was to convert English to Pig Latin haha! Oh and that was using VB too :P It was for some stupid project back in school...

    Comment by princess banter (visitor) on Wed, Apr 11, 2007 @ 15:16 IST #
  2. Thanks, princess banter. :grin:

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Wed, Apr 11, 2007 @ 18:43 IST #
  3. Where's the "This program is free software" yada yada section of all GPL-licensed software and the licence itself there? :P Hehe!Very nicely done, Hari! Although, as I told you earlier this afternoon, I have no idea what your latest posts mean as a result of it :D

    Comment by J_K9 (visitor) on Thu, Apr 12, 2007 @ 23:26 IST #
  4. The GPL declaration is in the source code, Max. :)

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Fri, Apr 13, 2007 @ 07:58 IST #
  5. :-P

    Comment by shanthi (visitor) on Sat, Apr 11, 2009 @ 11:16 IST #
  6. HI Hari,

    Can U help me to convert english to hindi

    Thanks,
    Pratyus

    Comment by priya (visitor) on Wed, Jul 15, 2009 @ 12:28 IST #
  7. Hi, priya, I have not written any English to Hindi transliterator tool or software as I am not too familiar with the Hindi script.

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on Wed, Jul 15, 2009 @ 14:50 IST #
  8. is any code available for this software in vb

    Comment by raja (visitor) on Fri, Sep 4, 2009 @ 16:34 IST #
  9. No, raja, I don't have Visual Basic and don't use it.

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on Fri, Sep 4, 2009 @ 16:48 IST #
  10. Hi,

    Is there any code sample available for this software in C#.Net

    Comment by Sathish (visitor) on Tue, Oct 13, 2009 @ 15:30 IST #
  11. No. Sathish, there is no sample in C#.net.

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on Wed, Oct 14, 2009 @ 16:22 IST #
  12. Can you please translate this from tamil to english?
    Ungal pay anam eppadi? nanraga mudinthatha? virginia beachil yar irukaanga? ungal ammaiyara?

    Comment by Molly (visitor) on Mon, Jul 19, 2010 @ 18:39 IST #
  13. excellent. I want to one clarification. How to use this code in vb.net . please give me detail

    Comment by somu (visitor) on Wed, Sep 29, 2010 @ 14:30 IST #
  14. No idea. I have never used vb.net myself. :-(

    Comment by Hari (blog owner) on Thu, Sep 30, 2010 @ 14:21 IST #
  15. Hi friends
    I am doing ine project. i want to display the print in tamil. How to translate english to tamil using C#.net windows application?

    Thanks in advance

    Comment by devasena (visitor) on Tue, Dec 6, 2011 @ 09:51 IST #

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