The Anjal Paangu or Anjal phonetic keyboard layout was developed in the 1990s in association with the Murasu Anjal software for Tamil typing on QWERTY keyboards. Here, vowels are distributed across the bottom row and the consonant-u conjuncts are accessed via the Shift key. The Bamini keyboard is based on the layout of Tamil characters on old Tamil typewriters. The Tamil99 keyboard was approved by the Tamil Nadu state government in 1999 and like its predecessor, the Indian InScript keyboard, has all of the vowels clustered on the left-hand side and the consonants on the right. All of of these programs include Tamil99, Anjal phonetic, and Bamini keyboard options. eKalappai and NHM Writer work exclusively on Windows, whereas Azhagi works on Mac, Linux, and Android mobile devices as well. eKalappai focuses exclusively on Tamil, and its latest version on GitHub is dated 2015. Both Azhagi and NHM Writer have been kept up to date and include the ability to type in languages other than Tamil. These include, but are not limited to Azhagi (which also supports typing in fifteen other Indian scripts), eKalappai, and NHM Writer.
For modern Tamil scripts there are a number of free downloadable software programs that allow you to easily toggle between your native keyboard and one with Tamil script without having to download specialized keyboards or font packages.
However, having downloaded various keyboards and built my own using the Microsoft Keyboard Layout creator, I also know that this deceptively simple process can lead to a host of other issues. Typing in Tamil can be as simple as downloading and installing a Tamil keyboard of your choice and toggling on and off between this and your native keyboard. Here, I’ll discuss software that I regularly use for typing in Tamil on a QWERTY keyboard, as well as some new fonts and online resources that have been developed for representing Tamil in Tamil-Brahmi and Vaṭṭeḻuttu scripts.
Like other languages which use non-Roman scripts, downloading or crafting a keyboard to facilitate typing can often present its own set of challenges. Tamil is one of the twenty-two official languages spoken in India and its representation in writing dates back to the early centuries BCE. Digital Orientalist’s 2022 Conference “Infrastructures”.The Digital Orientalist’s Virtual Workshop and Conference 2021.
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