Gyanpad(Knowledge Kiosk)

Support for  Indian languages  on computers  gained momentum  around 2005 with support of Unicode.   Five   years  have passed  and I continue to hear the same issues about  fonts, input methods for typing in  native languages. Usage of computers through native languages has not gone beyond  a small minority of people  who are  passionate  about their  native tongue.


 In India, computer sales  are growing  year on year  with negligible impact of  the global recession  and mobile  phone density has grown rapidy beyond  expectations.  Net connectivity  through dial up /ADSL modems/Wireless  is  available throughout the country.  Broadband net   connectivity is not growing rapidly primarily due to  high cost, though  people complain of lower speeds.  Low speed connectivity can still  be very helpful, if put to  use for accessing   knowledge  sites  like Wikipedia.  To  clear the input method hurdles,  I present  an application called Gyanpad (Sanskrit word for Knowledge and English  synonym of  Slate), which in its first avatar allows you to select an Indian language  and  search  Wikipedia and sister sites  in a user friendly  way with just on screen keyboards.  So you can   call   all your  family /friends  and introduce them  to native  language use on computers without them  being scared  by   the  big 101 key physical board with just English letters o n it  .

Gyanpad(Knowledge Kiosk)-Hindi InscriptSearch

Gyanpad supports 15 Indian languages. Here is  a mini user guide for Hindi. You can try this out even if you do not know Hindi, and explain easily to your family and friends. Click   Gyanpad application  (here) .  From now on, just use your  mouse. Select Hindi-Inscript  and click on  'Next' .  Search page loads with Hindi Inscript  "On Screen Keyboard".   You  can see Hindi letter shapes on the screen.  You can adjust  the keyboard  size if you are using  Firefox with  'CTRL'  and '+' or  '-' key s.  (Physical keyboard  needed just for this step,  if you have not configured it earlier).  Suppose you want to type  the word  Hindi  (हिंदी) , move to the  keyboard button showing (ह) and click on it . Continue  the same with    the buttons  showing (ि), (ं)  (द) (ी) and then click on the 'Search' button.  In a second, you will see the search results from wikimedia  sites courtesy Google.  Browse through the same and click on the page you want to see.  The new page will open  and you can navigate using hyperlinks.  If you want to  search for   something else, use back buttons of the browser  to reach the search page.     So you will come to a situation, where you can't see the  Hindi letter on the keyboard. Don't panic ,  just click on the button  with 'Up  Arrow ' (shift)  and you can  see  different set of characters on the buttons. When you have to  form  complex   letter  with  two or more consonants and then a vowel, make use of the combining symbol  on the first panel  called Halanth/Virama (्) after you type each consonant. Always end with  the  appropriate vowel symbol on the first pane.

May be you want  to teach the young ones, who are more comfortable with English than Hindi.  No problem  select Hindi-Phonetic  from the first page and  you will see   Hindi Phonetic Keyboard. The initial  pane has English  lowercase letters. By  clicking  on letters correspond to  English spelling of Hindi words,  you can enter  the word you want to search.  For our  example Hindi  (हिंदी), just   locate    ('h' )('i' ) ('n') ('d') ('I') and  then click  .  You can   use upper case letters by 'Up Arrow'( Shift key)  to get  different   sounds    d (द)  D(ड)  and long vowels.  With 'CTRL+ALT' button, you can  change the keyboard pane  to show   Hindi letters, which you can enter, in case you are not able to get the appropriate Hindi letters  using English keys.

I have built this tiny application  using the Google resources . Google  provides the  'On screen keyboard' (Virtual Keyboard)  option from its home page, when you opt to use the customized site for your language. However, this application  will be useful  in Cybercafes/ Exhibitions/Training Centers/Computer Laboratories, where it is desirable not to customize the settings to avoid incovenience to other users.

Google  is yet  to release Inscript keyboards for other Indian Languages.  So manage with Phonetic Keyboards.   Try  it out and   share your feedback by commenting on this post.    It is my  strong desire  to see  that  information from   Wikipedia  /Government  /Not for Profit institutional  sites  is  available free to every Indian  using  low cost  netbooks/custom computing devices with just touch screen/mouse interface.   These devices  can be made available at every public place,  be it   corner   retail store/bus stop/mall /hospital/...

Did  not understand some   of the words above,  just go straight to  Gyanpad application 

and search in  English/ native language.

Indian Wikipedias-Grading based on Traffic Analysis

Indian language wikipedia community has so far been looking at more of input statistics, like # of pages, page depth to measure their growth. Using absolute numbers based on content contribution is not a right metric to compare the languages. Outcome based measures like the # of unique visitors per Million speakers is a better measure. Instead of looking at ranking based on value, comparison between groups of languages based on grades can show better insights. I present here the same for Indian languages with more than 1 Million primary and secondary speakers. I have excludeded Sanskrit, Bishnupriya Manipuri (score of >10000) . I have dropped English (>10000) as it is a worldwide language and is not useful for comparison. I have included Chinese(zh) as that language has similar problems as our with regard to use on computers.

It shows Malayalam tops the list and is on par with Chinese (approximately 150). Tamil. Telugu, Marathi are in the second group(>50), Kannada, Urdu,Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali(>25) are in third group. Assuming that these language communities have similar issues with regard to Wikipedia, this trend is expected to continue for the next decade. Only surprise element may be, if Hindi beats the prediction and emerges as the top, because of it being treated as a national language and incorporating it in the curriculum. These statistics I hope will make the Indian Wikipedian communities think about what needs to be done to move to the top grade. Another interesting analysis on how soon these will grow would be, to look at the number of active Wikipedians and what is being done to prmote wikipedia in these communities. I will plan that for a later post. Meawhile I look forward to your feedback.
For those, who are interested in the inputs for this analysis, I have taken the daily statistics on 2009-09-01 and the language population numbers at wiki for generating this chart.

Promoting Indian Language Wikipedias

Wikipedia in Indian languages are of great help to bridge the information gap. Concerted effort to promote Wikipedia awareness is needed. I have created a presentation showing snapshots of Indian language Wikipedia pages, which can be used at any relevant event to promote Wikipedia.

This was done on Ubuntu 8.10 with Open office 2.4, Firefox, Inkscape. There are certain difficulties in attempting this, as I am not a polyglot and know only four languages. This will also be useful for wikipedians tocompare the visual appearance of wikipedia in different languages and plan improvements in their own language version. Improvement ideas and help with additional text/content for the languages is welcome.