Spelling mistakes in Tamil/English writings

Spelling words correctly in Tamil and in English writings

Most of us don't read Tamil writings (newspapaers, magazines, Web articles,
blogs) on a regular basis.

It is interesting to note that most of the middle class families in TN
subscribe to only English newspapers.

IN TN there is also the feeling that if you read a Tamil daily, you are
considered not college educated.

Most of the college-educated folks can write or speak on many topics in
English than in Tamil.

Other than having written some letters to their parents in Tamil, most of
them

don't have much experience in writing something on their own (their
opinions, thoughts

feelings or arguments) in Tamil.

(This doesn't apply to those who are good writers in Tamil as well as in
English)

IN my opinion those who can write several page articles in Tamil are a
minority among

Tamil speakers. I maybe wrong but I doubt it..

For the occasional writers of Tamil the issue of spelling of the word can be
problematic

For example in Tamil we have the issue with ன், ண்,ர்,ற்,ல்,ள்

We don't have a simple clean cut word for spelling எழுத்துக் கோர்வை,
எழுத்துக்கோவை

எழுத்துக்கூட்டு, சொல்லியெழுதல்

Can we use the word spell as a verb?

no ..

how do you spell the word? (say it in Tamil?)

We say it in a round about manner

இந்த வார்த்தையின் எழுத்துக்கோர்வை எப்படின்னு சொல்லுங்க

ஒரு சின்ன குழந்தையிடம்

it is easy to ask "how do you spell the word lion?"

Try that in Tamil

ஏன் பையா சிங்கம் என்கிற வார்த்தையின் எழுத்துக்கோர்வையை சொல்லு பார்ப்போம்?

I don't recall I ever having had oral discussion of Tamil spelling in a
class

it was always கோடிட்ட இடத்தை நிரப்பு

However most of us are comfortable with our spellings in English

Yes English spelling is tough similar to that of Tamil

Take for example

budget...budjet
education---educashion, ejucation
College...collage ( yes there is another word)
recently...resently
congratulation..congradualtion, congrajulation
buttock..buttux, buttack

It too can drive us crazy

but for the most part we overcome it by practice

How?

Our eyes get used to seeing the correct spelling while we read English
writings.

So we make it a point to spell it correctly

It is also considered a mark of poor education if you make mistakes in your

spelling in English

More importantly

We have nice spellcheckers in English

These checkers are well integrated with MS Word and MS outlook or outlook
express emails

and I believe some of the Web email clients also offer the spellchecking

TN is supposed to have super duper programmers

Unfortunately I have not seen any spellcheckers that integrate nicely with
MS Word, Outlook or Outlook express

Kural has a spellchecker but you have to do cut and paste and back again

It is not easy to input all the Tamil words

We have the issue of சந்தி

Every word has to have different சந்தி permutations

for example

we have தமிழ்(க்) காப்பாளன், தமிழ்ப் பிரியன் தமிழ்ச் செல்வன்

In addition to the word Tamil we have to have all the சந்திசேர்த்த தமிழ் as
a word

That will certainly make the dictionary file bloated. We can even claim to
have more words

in our dictionary file than any other language in the world!

Most of the standard Tamil- English dictionaries have only about 30,000
unique Tamil words

In the case of English-Tamil dictionaries they may have as many words as
English words

They will just define or cook up multiword equivalents for any English word
and call it an equivalent Tamil expression

On top of all this we have the problem created by the usage of phonetic
Tamil keyboard usage like ( Murasu Anjal)

Here you use the same letter n or shifted n or l or shifted l or r or
shifted r

to produce the letters ன்,ண்,ல்,ள்,ர்,ற்

typos are easily created by pressing the wrong letters in the wrong places

Most of us don't want to invest money to buy a current Tamil-English
dictionary ( like Kiriya's)

We feel that it is our mother tongue and so we should not have to use it

Also, strangely we don't feel so bad when we make spelling mistake in Tamil

as we do when we do so when we write in English ( I wonder why it is so)

Perhaps we may have the feeling

See here I have bothered to write more than 3 lines in Tamil

That itself is an accomplishment. So the readers need to excuse or overlook
my spelling mistakes...

So many dilemmas and thoughts when we think

about spelling mistakes in our Tamil /English writing and our attitude
toward it

( I am going to run my spellchecker before I send this out)

I hope I haven't offended anyone's sentiments by having expressed my
dilemmas about this topic

Indy Ram