From: mchundat@essex.ecn.uoknor.edu (Mathai Chundattu)
Subject: Re: malayaaLam aksharamaala
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 18:56:25 GMT
Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA


In article <BxH1wB.Kt8.1@cs.cmu.edu> pjn+@cs.cmu.edu (P J Narayanan) writes:
>
>I think any transliteration scheme should have the following qualities:
>
>   1.	It should represent Malayalam and other Indian language letters
>	unambiguously for someone familiar with the source language.
>	Being unambiguous to a computer program is an additional merit.
>
>   2.	According to the conventions of the target language (in this case,
>	English), the transliterated word should read as closely to how it
>	is pronounced in the source language, for the benefit of someone
>	who either doesn't know the source language or doesn't know the
>	transliteration conventions.

	This is a very good point. And, I tried to incorporate 
	this into my suggestions. The cha in chaaya (tea), tha 
	in thala (head), pha in phalam (result) etc are directly 
	derived from conforming to this rule. A person who is not 
	familiar with any transliteration conventions will also
	follow this groups without any difficulty. 

	In the same fashion, think about the dta in 
	padtanam (study). Firstly, just looking at the 
	combination anyone can see that it is some member of 'ta' 
	group. Just read the letters and you are actually uttering 
	the malayalam letter 'dta' in paadtam (lesson). 'tda'
	also comes from the same thought. Just read it without any 
	preconceived notions and you are done! It is the 'tda' in 
	stdalam (place).

	Let me insert my sugestions again. At this time I am trying 
	to incorpoarate the suggestion made by Arun.

 
	malayalam letter
example in malayalam- meaning in English 
double letter if applicable

	a		aa, A		i		ee	
  ala-wave	aana-elephant		ila-leaf	eeta-bamboo
		
	u		oo		r~
   umma-kiss	ooham-guess	r~shi-saint

	e		E		o		O	
eli-rat		Eth-which   oli-sound		Ormma-memory

	ai		ou		am		a:
aikyam-unity	oushadham-medicine	amgam-member adha:pathanam-fall

ka		kha		ga		gha		nGa
kala-art  mukham-face  gaanam-song     mEgham-cloud   maannGa-mango
kka        --------             gga    ----------              nnGa

cha		csa		ja		jha		nJa
chaaya-tea  csaaya-image   jalam-water jhalam-the river	 nJaan- I
ccha        -----------         jja      ---------              nnJa

	The problem here is the second letter. csa in my convention. 
	There is no point in changing the first letter because that 
	is the way it is written by someone who doesn't know the 
	conventions. Any other combination which can be used?

	cherupp (slippers), cheRuth (small) etc are indisputable 
	combinations.

	How shall we write father? I think accsan should do. BTW, 
	who pronounces this word correctly? Everybody in kerala 
	will say acchan, though it sounds like the priest in a 
	church. I feel that there are some more combinations which 
	will look kind of confusing in the beginning. My idea is 
	to use a convenient representations for them. Think about 
	the following words. vanJchi (canoe), manJjuLam (beautiful), 
	aRttdam (meaning) etc. One suggestion is to take away 
	the J, J, t respectively from the words. The resulting 
	groups will also work because there are no other words 
	which need the same combinations. They will look like
	vanchi, manjuLam, aRtdam etc.

da 		dta		da		Dha		Na
kaad-forest padtanam-study  daadi-daddy peeddam-chair	paNam-money
tta          ----------          dda       -------             NNa

	mooDhan (ignorant), viDDhi (fool) etc look good and I 
	think they are easy to read also.

tha		tda		Da		dha		na (?)
thala-head  katda-story   kaDanam-sorrow   dhanam-wealth     naaya-dog
ttha        -----------         DDa         -----------      	nna            

pa		pha		ba		bha		ma
pana-palm   phalam-result    balam-force    bhaaram-weight   mala-hill
ppa         ------------        bba           bbha             mma

ya		  ra		la		va		Sa	
yaagam-sacrifice  ira-victim   ala-wave      vala-net  Sari-correct
yya               --------      lla            vva            SSa


	One note about the va. If you want to represent the sound 
	of u + a use the letter wa. Like in swaram (sound), 
	swaRggam (heaven), swantham (own), jwaala (flame) etc.

   
sha		sa		ha		La		zha
varsham-year sathyam-truth  haranam-division  vaLa-bracelet puzha-river
---------       ssa           ---------         LLa          -------- 

	The most misspelt word in malayalam : aaSamsakaL (good wishes)
	and not aasamSakaL.
 
Ra
thaRa-base
----------
Compound Letters - kooTaksharannGaL

In general, use the first letter of the first malayalam letter and the
second letter in full.

Ex.
patth - 10
aRttdam - meaning
aksharam - letter
andhakaaram - darkness

etc.

chanDrakkala

When the last part of the word is to be stressed use the tilde ~.

Ex.
chill~ - glass
aaR~ - river, six
maNN~ - soil
kaLL~ - toddy
uNd~ - available
uNdu - ate
--------------
Mathai Chundattu   mchundat@essex.ecn.uoknor.edu
--------------------------------------------------------------



>
>In my opinion, the aesthetic point about the use of many capital letters
>is only a minor point. About being close to how the letters are commonly
>written in Malayalam: It is desirable, but obviously not possible due
>to the obvious ambiguity involved with the Ta-vargam and the ta-vargam.
>
>Using "t" for tta as in katt (wind), fails the first test.

	Write kaat or kaat~ and the t is pronounced as in the 
	English word take, pit, tick, ticket etc.

>
>Using csa and tsa and dTa, IMHO, fails the second test.

	What can we do? English doesn't have such sounds.

>
>Using "ca" for "cerupp" (slippers) fails the second test also.

	Only an Italian or northee would read this correctly!

>
>Overall, I think I like the scheme proposed by Arun. I might suggest that
>the cha-vargam be written as "cha chha ja .." etc.

	panJjapaaNdavanmaaR kaTilkkaalupOle moonn~ (2)!

	Great observation.

>
>Arun, can you post the whole aksharamala as it is written in Malayalam?
>
>PJN
>
>-- 
>---
>Robotics Institute, CMU			pjn@cs.cmu.edu
>Pittsburgh, PA 15213
>---

Mathai
-- 


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