Govindasamy Naa

Naa. Govindasamy (1946-1999), popularly known as Naa.Go., was a multi-faceted contributor to the Tamil community. He was a writer, educator, literary activist, the creator of the 'Kaniyan' Tamil computer keyboard, and a pioneer who helped place Tamil onto the Internet.

Born in Singapore, Govindasamy obtained a diploma from the Teachers’ Training College in 19.. and joined Alexandra Hill Primary School as a Tamil teacher. Later, he completed a Bachelor's degree in Tamil Literature at Madras University and joined the National Institute of Education (NIE) as a lecturer in 1981. During his 18-year-long career in NIE, Govindasamy made significant contributions. He researched and developed the Kaniyan Tamil keyboard for computer usage, authored research articles on Tamil language pedagogy both individually and jointly with trainee teachers under his tutelage, educated both current and trainee teachers in Tamil language pedagogical methods, and created online toolkits for teachers.

Tamil literature was Govindasamy’s other passion. His short stories and novels, which depicted Tamil life in Singapore, won him several local prizes as well as the S.E.A Write Award (1994). He was also a founding member of the Association of Singapore Tamil Writers, and he was instrumental in setting up a Tamil literary collective to encourage and enhance good writing in Tamil among young authors. Govindasamy’s articles such as 'The Development of Singapore Tamil Literature - A Sociological Perspective' (1979), were among the first research writings on Tamil literature in Singapore. In 1990, he started a publishing house called Orchid Pathippagam, which facilitated Tamil literary publishing in Singapore.

Govindasamy integrated his expertise in Tamil with computing technology and the fast-growing Internet of the 1990s.  Despite having no formal technological training, he taught himself computing and created the 'Kaniyan' keyboard, a computer keyboard for the Tamil language. He also designed the fonts for the keyboard himself. Professor Tan Tin Wee, another Tamil internet pioneer, praised Govindasamy’s keyboard configuration with his own font encoding as the most advanced technology available at the time. The collaboration between Tan and Govindasamy led to the inclusion of Tamil along with English, Mandarin, and Malay in Singapore’s first multi-lingual poetry website, Journeys: Words, Home and Nation - Anthology of Singapore Poetry, in 1995. Some hold that Kaniyan’s use declined over time, after Govindasamy’s untimely death, partly because he declined to amend some of its elements to adapt to the standardisation of various Tamil keyboards.

Govindasamy’s trailblazing achievements in Tamil education, Tamil literature, Tamil computing and Tamil internet technology in Singapore have been recognized with several prestigious awards including the Pondicherry University's Scientific Award for Best Keyboard in 1995. His contributions have inspired many aspirants in these fields to follow in his footsteps and pursue their passions.



For more information
Koh, Tommy, Timothy Auger and Jimmy Yap. Singapore: The Encyclopedia. Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2007.

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The information in this article is valid as of August 2025 and correct as far as we are able to ascertain from our sources. It is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete history of the subject. If you have any feedback on this article, please submit here.