1. G.O. (Ms)No.3, Information Technology, dated.19.2.99
2. From the Vice-Chairman, Tamilnadu State Council for Higher Education and Chairman, Sub-Commitee on Tamil in Information Technology, Latter dated.1.6.99

ORDER:

1. In the Government Order first read above, a Working Group and an International Technical Committee were constitued to evaluate the technical issues and finalise coding standards for Tamil, based on the consensus arrived at during the International Conference and Seminar on Tamil in Information Technology (TamilNet 99) held at Chennai on 7th and 8th February 1999. To facilitate this process, the TamilNet 99 recommendations were made available on a dedicated internet website www. tamilnet99.org from mid-February 1999.

2. Considerable feedback was received from researchers, software developers and enthusiasts throughout the world and these were first analysed by the Working Group and later by the members of the International Technical Committee. Based on the final suggestions of the International Technical Committee, the Sub-Comittee on Tamil in Information Technology of the State Information Technology Task Force has proposed monolingual and bilingual encoding schemes for Tamil glyphs and a standard Tamil Keyboard Layout. The Chairman of this Sub- Committee has recommended these to the Government for approval.

3. The Government, after careful consideration, approve the schemes of encoding Tamil glyphs as wel as the layout for TamilKeyboard submitted by the Chairman of Sub-Committee on Tamil in Information Technology as detailed below:

a)Tamil Keyboard:

1. The aproved layout for keyboard is at Annexure - 1 and it may be named as "Tamil99" Keyboard in English and "îI›99" M¬êŠðô¬è in Tamil;
2. The key sequence for the "Tamil99" Keyboaard is at Annexure - ii ;
3. The present layout and sequencing of mechanical typewriter (Remington) keyboard is to be maintained excepting the replacement of the sign " " with the so as to make the sign "ý" so as to make the letter "ý" avalibale for typing and to ensure and easy transition to the existing users: and,
4. No standard needs to be recommended now for the Romanised keyboard.

(b) Glyph Coding Schenes:

1. The Monolingual Glyph coding schemes for Tamil is at Annexure=III. This will be useful for meeting the needs of software developmentthe desktop and printing industry The fonts based on this scheme will have "TAM" prefixed to the font names, since "TA" is an internationally accepted abbreviation for Tamil in the Information Technology industry and "M" denotes monolingual;
2. The Billingual Glyph coding scheme for Tamil is at Annesure - iv. This wil be useful for meting the needs of software development for simple applications like text- procesing, e-mail etc. The fonts based on this scheme will have "TAB"prefixed to the font names, "TA" being the abbreviation for Tamil and "B" denoting billingual; and
3. Tamil Software developers can provide Tamil numerals as symbol fonts.

4. Character Coding Standard:

In order to facilitate the submission of a refvised character coding standard for Tamil to 'UNICODE', the Government of Tamilnadu have become an Associate Member in the Unicode Consortium, USA. On finalisation of the proposal for revising the character coding standard by the Sub-Committee on Tamil in Information Technology, further actrion wil be taken by the Information Technology Departmentfor sending thies prosal to 'UNECODE' for adoption.

5. Tamil Keyboard manufacturers and Tamil Software develoopers are expected to use the specifications in para 3 above in their products. Future Purchases of Tamil Keyboards and Tamil Software by Government Departments/ Undertakings/ Corpporations/ Boards etc., while subject to codal formalities, will be made only from manufacturers who certify that their products conform to these specifications.

(By Order of the Governor)

D. PRAKASH
Secretary to Government

To

The Chief Secretary to Government, Chennai-9,
All Secretaries to Government, Chennai - 9,
All Heads of Departments.
Vice-Chairman, State Information Technology Task Force.
Chairman, Sub- Committee on Tamil in Information Technology of State IT Task Force.
All Members of State Information Technology Task Force.
All Members of Sub-Committee on Tamil In Information Technology.

copy to:

The Chairman and Managing Derector, Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu Limited. Secretary to Hon'ble Chief Minister (TRR), chennai-9.
Additional Secretary to Hon'ble Chief Minister (KR), chennai-9.
Hon'ble Chilef Minister's Office, Chennai-9.
The President, Kani Tamil Sangam.
The President, Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology, Southern Reigion. The Presidient, National Association of Software and Sercice Companies, New Delhi.

/Forwarded / by order/

Section Officer

Annexure - I

Annexure - II

KEYSTROKE SEQUENCES FOR THE PHONETIC KEYBOARD -TAMIL99

1. The keyboard has the twelve vowels Ü to å÷ , the aaytam,the eighteen pureTamil consonants combined with the first vowel Ü, the five grandga consonants combined with the vowel a (sa, sha, ja, ha, and ksha), and the letter shri. The puli which symbolizes a pure consonant is provied as a separate key (lower case f). Let us call aconsonant combined with the vowel Ü as a consonant symbol.

2. A consonant symbol followed by the puli produces apure consonant. E.g.

è + (¹œO) ->‚

3. Aconsonant symbol followed by a vowel other than the forst vowel , produces a vowelised consonant. e.g.

ñ + Ý ->ñ£
î + Þ ->F
è + æ ->«è£

4. Aconsonant symbol follwed by the same consonant symbol automaticaly puts a pulli for the first consonant symbol. e.g.

è + è ->‚è

5. After putting a pulli automatically, this feature of automatic putting of pullie willbe desabled temporarily for one stroke. That is, when the same consonant symbol is typed three times continuously one after another, then the first consonant symbol alone gets the pulli automatically and the second consonant symbol does not get a pulli, since when the third consonant symbol is typed the automatic pulli feature is temporarily disabled. This feature will be restored immediately after that. e.g.

è + è + è ->‚èè
è + è + è + è ->‚è‚è

6. When the first vowel is typed after a consonant symbol, it simply confirms that the previous stroke is an akarameria uirmei. This disables temporarily the combining of any other stroke with the previous strike. Hence typing any vowel wil not join with the previous consonant symbol. Similarly the automatic pulli feature will also be disabled just for the next stroke. This automatic pulllie feature gets restored immediately after the next stroke. The vowel works as the delinking symbol. e,g.

è + Ü + Þ ->èÞ
è + Ü + è ->èè
è + Ü + è + è ->è‚è

7. The same behavioue is also seen when a soft consonant symbol is followed by the corresponding hard consonant symbol.(é, è), (ë, ê), (ï, î), (í, ì), (ñ, ð), (ù, ø) are the soft and hard consonants pairs. e.g.

é + è ->ƒè
ï + î + î ->‰îî
ï + î + î + î ->‰îˆî ;
ï + Ü + î ->ïî
ï + Ü + î + î ->ïˆî

8. Avowel after anything other than a consonant symbol remains a vowel. e.g.

Ý + Þ ->ÝÞ
ð + Ý + Þ ->ð£Þ
(Þ¬ìªõO) + à ->(Þ¬ìªõO)à
# + Ü ->#Ü

9. The glyphs like kombu etc., which work as a vowel modifiers, can be got by typing the caret sign first and then the corresponding vowel. The caret sign can be got by typing it twice.

10. The special symbols for bullet and copyright are made available in the proposed font schemes. They can be got as follows. The bullet can be got by typing the caret sign
and the full stop. The copyright sign can be got by typing the caret sign followed by the letter C.

11. To obtain single and double quote the following sequence may be used.
Caret +7-> Left single quote
Caret +8-> Right single quote
Caret +9-> Left double quote
Caret +0-> Right double quote
Caret +S-> Non breaking space

12. The treatment of delete and backspace keys is left to the individual developers.

Annexure - III

Annexure - IV

G.O. Ms. No. 17 | G.O. Ms. No. 28 | Proposed Typewritter Layout