The Terminal Programmer

Telugu RTS with SCIM

Suraj N. Kurapati

  1. Features
    1. Sunna generation inside a word
      1. Sunna generation at the end of a word
        1. Preventing sunna generation
        2. Requirements
          1. Installation

            I am happy to announce that an implementation of the Telugu RTS transliteration scheme is now available for SCIM! Special thanks to Mr. Naoto TAKAHASHI of m17n-lib, who kindly implemented its state machine.

            Telugu RTS with SCIM in Ubuntu Breezy

            Please try out this transliteration scheme (see instructions below) and notify me about any problems. Also, see this related article about the demonstration video above.

            Features

            In addition to the functionality expected from its elder sibling, Telugu RTS for IIIMF, this one features automatic sunna generation inside a word and, when possbile, at the end of a word.

            Sunna generation inside a word

            Usually you would type ‘gaaMdhi’ to generate ‘గాంధి’, but now you can type more naturally: both ‘gaandhi’ and ‘gaamdhi’ generate ‘గాంధి’.

            Sunna generation at the end of a word

            Instead of typing ‘chakraM’ to generate ‘చక్రం’, you can type more naturally: ‘chakram’ to generate the same thing.

            Preventing sunna generation

            As specified in the RTS, you can manually override this automatic sunna generation by typing an ampersand (&) after an ‘n’ or ‘m’ character.

            For example, ‘vandE’ and ‘vamdE’ yield ‘వందే’, whereas ‘van&dE’ and ‘vam&dE’ yield ‘వన్దే’. Similarly ‘padyam’ yields ‘పద్యం’, whereas ‘padyam&’ yields ‘పద్యమ్’.

            Note that sunna is not generated if a word ends with an ‘n’. So, ending a word with ‘n’ and ‘n&’ yields the same result.

            Requirements

            Get from m17n-lib:

            Get from SCIM:

            Installation

            For the time being, download the state machine from here.

            The m17n-lib developers are planning to create a m17n-contrib package in which they will accept user contributed state machines. I plan to submit this state machine, such that it will be included with the core m17n-lib distribution in the future.

            1. As root, copy the te-rts.mim file into /usr/share/m17n/

            2. As yourself, kill any existing SCIM processes:

              ps aux | grep scim | awk '{print $2}' | xargs kill

            3. Start SCIM:

              export XMODIFIERS='@im=SCIM'
export GTK_IM_MODULE=scim
export QT_IM_MODULE=scim
scim -d &

            4. Launch any GTK2 program, such as gedit, and press Control+Space.

            5. Choose “Telugu > M17N-te-rts” from the gtk2-immodule applet.

            6. Start typing Telugu text using the RTS transliteration scheme!

            Updates