> >
> > - sheelpoon: no clue... Sounds English but...

You could probably disregard any Unicode label or transliteration
for certain Tamil vowels. I do. Got me lots of criticism last
spring too. Try the Adami transliteration scheme invented by a
fellow Canadian, Srinivasan.

What you have written as 'ee' is somewhere between 'ai' in sail
and 'e' in sell. It is ususally transliterated as E. I think that
the English CVC structure of this first syllable is shifting the
pronunciation of 'ai' to short 'e'.

Likewise what you have written as 'oo' sounds like the long 'o' in
boat. It has no connection to 'oo' in boot. It is transliterated
as O.

The phoneme for 'p' covers many letters in English and causes much
difficulty for the Tamil. It is not only 'p' but two or three other
sounds as well. As to 'sh' - well the Tamil like to use that
consonant for the English letter 'c' even though there is no sound
difference in English between 's' and soft 'c'.

Don't mean too sound too teacherlike, I do, but forgive me.
However, 'ee' and 'oo' indicate long 'i' and long 'u' repectively,
so you can't really mix them up with long 'e' and long 'o'.

Cheers,
Suzanne