My areas of specialization include Tamil language, linguistics and literature. My fields of interest in linguistics include syntax, phonology, computational linguistics and language teaching.

My current interest in the area of Tamil language and linguistics is writing software for learning Tamil and natural language processing, such as development of morphological tagger, machine translation system etc. Following are some of the projects I am involved in.

Don't forget to check out my current project work on Web Assisted Learning and Teaching of Tamil (WALTT) at Penn Language Center.



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Tamil learning programs for beginning and intermediate level students. This includes a sample machine translation system from English to Tamil, paradigm genarator for Tamil verbs and a flashcard program. Click here to download pulavan.zip



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Tamil morphological tagger. This program identifies suffixes in transliterated input Tamil word(s), labels them and separates the root. This version processes sentences from text files. Ideal for any Natural Language Processing work related to Tamil. This is an ongoing project by the author.



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Tamil langauge Courses I teach

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Hindi morphological tagger. This is an online Hindi tagger that I am working on now.



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Tamil transliteration and viewer program. This program converts Tamil document written in Roman script to Tamil script. (pctamil.zip)

Click here to download these programs from the ftp site: clr.nmsu.edu/CLR/multiling/indian/Tamil

Click here to download my HyperCard program (Macintosh) for learning Tamil in a multimedia environment (See below for a description). (By the way, don't tell me that you don't use Macintosh!!!!)

Some of the features of this software include the following.

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• Allows one to listen to Tamil speech while reading the corresponding text on screen simultaneously.
  

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• Contains graded lessons with grammar, from beginning to advanced level of Tamil.
  

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• Easy to consult pop-up fields with explanations on grammar, cultural notes and translations.
  

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• Separate screens for Tamil sentences in formal written style and informal spoken style.
  

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• Provides an exposure to daily conversations in simplified form.
  

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• Allows one to listen to entire dialogue or a particular segment of the dialogue just by the click of a mouse.
  

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• Comprehension exercise after every lesson to test the skill acquired from each lesson.

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• Easy to use navigation buttons to navigate through different lessons.
  

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• 105 lessons arranged from beginning level to advanced level in a carefully graded fashion.
  

This software is available for students to use at the University of Pennsylvania through MMETS server. Look for MMETS server under apple menu in any macintosh computer connected to local network at the University of Pennsylvania.

This software is also accessible to students at the University of Michigan through their server at the Language Resource Center (LRC). Look for this server under the apple menu in any macintosh computer connected to MichNet at the University of Michigan.