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The first vowel அ is implicit in the consonants, so typing this vowel after a consonant will display this as a standalone vowel, and not combine it with the consonant. The vowel diacritics பெ ( n), பே ( N) and பை ( i) will not be displayed until a consonant is typed (in the preceding examples the consonant ப is shown). When the vowel component appears above, below or to the right of a consonant, it should be typed after the consonant. When a vowel or part of a vowel appears before a consonant, it should be typed first. In general, characters should be entered with this keyboard in the same order as they would be written on paper. This is the case whether the vowel component appears to the left or right of, above or below the consonant. Moving the cursor to the left of a combinant character and pressing Delete will erase the whole character, but if you move the cursor to the right of a combinant and press Backspace, only the vowel component will be erased. This means that while two (or more) keystrokes are required to display most consonant-vowel combinants, when you use the arrow keys to move the cursor through the text, only a single keystroke is needed to move past each character. The vowel ஔ is typed using a combination of keystrokes.Īlthough Tamil characters are typed using separate keys for consonants and diacritics, the characters that appear on screen will be combinants, which the computer sees as a single character. The full keyboard layout consists of the eighteen consonants க ங ச ஞ ட ண த ந ப ம ய ர ல வ ழ ள ற ன, four Grantha consonants ஸ ஷ ஜ ஹ ( க்ஷ and ஸ்ரீ are typed with key combinations), eleven vowels அ ஆ இ ஈ உ ஊ எ ஏ ஐ ஒ ஓ, vowel diacritics ி ீ ா ர் பெ பே பை, combinants and components சூ கூ மூ டூ ரூ ஞ று நு சு வு லு ரு ழு யு ளு னு கு பு து மு டு ணு டி டீ and the Pulli ் and Aytham ஃ marks, as well as various punctuation marks.
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