tamil online dictionaries retrospective digitization of tamil dictionaries thomas malten institute...

Tamil Online Dictionaries

Retrospective Digitization of Tamil dictionaries

Thomas MaltenInstitute of Indology & Tamil Studies

Cologne Universityth.malten@uni-koeln.de

Tamil (and Sanskrit) Online Dictionaries

1. Tamil Online Dictionaries in Chennai and Chicago

-- Tamil Virtual University, Chennai-- Digital Dictionaries of South Asia, Chicago University

2. Online Dictionaries at Cologne University

-- OTL, Cologne Online Tamil Lexicon (Tamil interface) (Classical Tamil Literature Online [Tamil interface])

3. Current Developments

a) Tamil Lexicon Scans: pdf – online scan – searchable scanb) Winslow Scans: searchable scan – online toolc) Cologne Digital Sanskrit Lexicon

Proposal for a new Online Tamil Lexicon

1. Based on Tamil Lexicon (text sources)

2. Academic and research dictionary

3. Retrospective

4. Collaborative

Dictionary Sources

• More than 1000 Tamil Dictionaries

• Bibliographies and bibliographical Databases of Dictionaries

• Physical Identification of Tamil Dictionaries in Libraries

• Classification and Ordering of Tamil Dictionaries:

Tamil sample – Sanskrit sample

Digitizing

1.The Scanned Image, Sample 1 2 3

2. The Searchable Image 1 2

3. Keyboarding (Sample TL: text -- image)

• Tagging

• XML Conversion

• Dictionary Database

Postscript

• Tamil Dictionary on Mobile Phone

• Tamil Novel on Ebook Reader