The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Lack of English knowledge no longer barrier to use computer

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Thursday, Jan 28, 2010
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Lack of English knowledge no longer barrier to use computer

Staff Reporter

Firm hits the right key to propel Indian languages into the digital age

Bangalore: Consider this: there are things that can be effectively conveyed only in one’s mother tongue. Or you want to print something in an Indian language. Hitherto, keying in was a cumbersome process, but now bilingual keyboards by Brahmi Computing ensure that typing in Indian languages is easy.

The firm’s Chief Executive Officer, Mahesh Jayachandra, said such bilingual keyboards are available in Hindi, Kannada, Oriya, Telugu, Tamil, Assamese, Bengali, Konkani, Punjabi and Gujarati, along with English.

“For example, the Hindi/English keyboard is instantly usable by any literate Hindi speaker. Users can immediately type their names and achieve fast typing speeds with minimal practice,” he said.

In these bilingual keyboards, the vowels are located on the top row and consonants are placed below in sets of five vargas. The non-varga row is at the bottom on the right.

Users have to follow three simple rules while typing. To switch between English and the other Indian language offered, users have to press the Caps Lock key. For the vowel diacritical marks (matras), users have to press the Shift key with the appropriate Vowel key. Consonants can be joined by pressing the Halant key that is next to the Enter key.

Dr. Jayachandra said that the phonetic keyboard, Inscript, developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing is the basis of most local language keyboards currently in use in the country.

“There also are several transliteration software available. However, to be able to use them, one needs to have basic knowledge of English. It is not the case with the Brahmi keyboard,” he said.

His company’s vision is to bring Indian languages into the digital age, get people to generate content and digitise all classical works in Indian languages.

“We are also launching the Brahmi Indika, an out-of-the-box local language computer. For the first time, all Indians literate in their languages will be able to instantly use computers. English is no longer a barrier for non-English-speaking Indians to use a computer,” he added.

For details, visit www.brahmicomputing.in

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