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May 25, 2008

Pk's attempt at blogging in Tamil !!

Pk's original post is here.

This is what it says in English:

Hi Vijay,

I always wanted to stay in the United States. Until a few years ago when my pastor visited India. When he did, I became fascinated with the country after I interviewed him for our denominations national magazine.

Now, I really want to visit India. Especially to visit Vijay and his family. The elephants wouldn't hurt.

Blogger's transliteration works well from English to Tamil, but it is intended for writing in Tamil. The author is supposed to type out the sounds of the Tamil words in English and Blogger will attempt to put in the appropriate Tamil letter or word. It doesn't always work well, hence Blogger has provided some edit options, which are really useful with a very helpful Tamil alphabet layout. They've even got the consonant-vowel combination symbols and they go in where they should.

The whole thing obviously goes haywire if the author tries to write an English post using the Tamil alphabet.

I appreciate the effort that Pk put in to write out this short message. The re-transliteration took about half an hour for me. Interesting experience though.

Here is my version of the same message.

ஹாய் விஜய்

ஐ அல்வேய்ஸ் வாண்டேட் டு ஸ்டே இன் தி யுனைடெட் ஸ்டேட்ஸ். அண்டில் எ ஃப்யூ இயர்ஸ் அகோ வெண் மை பாஸ்டர் விசிடெட் இந்தியா. வெண் ஹி டிட் ஐ பிகேம் ஃபெஸ்ஸிநெடெட்வித் தி கண்டறி ஆஃப்டர் ஐ இண்டர்வ்யுட் ஹிம் ஃபார் அவர் டினாமிநெஷன்ஸ் நேஷனல் மெகஜீன்.

நவ் ஐ ரியல்லி வான்ட் டு விசிட் இந்தியா. எஸ்பேஷல்லி டு விசிட் விஜய் அன்ட் ஹிஸ் ஃபெமிலி. தி எலிஃபண்ட்ஸ் வுட் நாட் ஹர்ட்.

And Pk, you're welcome to come visit us anytime :)

1 comment:

Dreaming again said...

It was an odd experience. If I used my normal writing style, words would show up in part english and part Tamil. So I'd have to backspace to change the wording. It wound up sounding more cryptic than I would normally write. I also, because I don't read Tamil, could not go back and proof read it.

It was a fun experience and if you HAD to have it, it is nice to have.

I just read Mary's response on Twitter. That really came out weird. "elephants wouldnt' hurt"
Guess that does sound odd.

Thanks for playing along!