Call for participation: Tamilex workshops

10 February 2025

Photo: Institut français de Pondichéry

École française d'Extrême-Orient / Institut français de Pondichéry

With an aim toward engaging more volunteers, as well as to make Tamil manuscripts accessible to more people, we will be running two workshops in the three days preceding the conference, 10—12 February, 2025. The morning workshop will be dedicated to reading and transcribing manuscripts, and the afternoon workshop will be dedicated to the grammatical and lexical analysis of Classical Tamil poems.

Workshop on manuscript transcription & collation (20 people)

This workshop will focus on transcribing manuscripts of Classical Tamil texts, and therefore participants should be able to read Tamil script and have some knowledge of Classical Tamil. By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to create TEI XML transcriptions of manuscripts, which can be collated and analyzed by specialized computer software.

Day 1: Introduction to Tamil manuscripts
On the first day, we will look at a variety of Tamil manuscript formats, drawing from the collection of the IFP and the EFEO. Then, participants will make an initial transcription of a Tirukkuṟaḷ poem and commentary.

Day 2: Diplomatic transcription & XML encoding
The second day will be devoted to understanding the importance of diplomatic transcription and learning its conventions. Participants will take the transcriptions made on day 1 and add diplomatic annotations, using TEI XML. We will also explore online repositories of digitized manuscripts and how they can be used as well.

Day 3: Automatic collation and stemmatic analysis
On the final day, participants will take the transcriptions made during the course of the workshop and make a collation, using specialized computer software. We will discuss the variant readings and consider the relationships between the different manuscripts.

Workshop on text analysis, annotation, & translation (20 people)

This workshop will focus on producing word-split versions of Classical Tamil texts, and therefore a good knowledge of the language is a prerequisite. By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to align a metrical text with its word-split equivalent, as well as give a word-by-word gloss, that can then be incorporated into the Tamilex corpus.

Day 1: Introduction to Tamilex conventions
On the first day, we will introduce the conventions used in the Tamilex project for taking metrical texts and splitting them into individual words. We will discuss sandhi resolution, proclitic and enclitic particles, and ambiguous readings. We will then use computer software to align the metrical text with the word split text, which will flag any differences and possible errors.

Day 2: Lexical & grammatical glossing
On the second day, participants will learn how to give grammatical glosses for each word, as well as a word-by-word translation. We will introduce a grammar lookup tool which can aid in this task.

Day 3: Discussion
On the final day, participants will each present the poems that they have worked on during the workshop, and we will discuss them together.

If you are interested in attending either of these workshops, please fill out this form. There is no cost to attend.